Abby's 6th Birthday

This year for Abby's 6th birthday, she asked her parents for a party in Austin at Aunt KayLynn and Uncle Michael's house! Talk about making my Aunt heart melt into a puddle!! I of course said yes when Lisa asked us and the weekend turned into both Katie and Lisa's families coming for the whole weekend (Friday night through Monday morning) and Michael's parents even drove down for the day on Saturday for the actual birthday celebration with cake and presents. It was such a fun weekend and I loved every minute. Get ready for a photo dump :)

Those cuddles are priceless! Lizzy said "I love you 100 Aunt KayLynn" when we were watching the movie (pictured above) and I can't agree more, I love those girls so much!

House updates

We have done a few small projects and one big project since my last update!

First up, Michael removed the tape player and closed in the bottom of our intercom/sound system box.

The door still needs to be painted (whenever I finally break down and paint all the trim), but its much nicer to have all those cords hidden! He was able to hook up a raspberry pi in order to play music from the computer, and we can also hook up our phones to play things from there as well.

This one happened a few months ago, but we re-decorated in our bedroom! The main upgrades are the blackout curtains and the new comforter. The white has held up very (and surprisingly) well with Gaius. I do have to wash it once a month, but that's not bad! I also cleaned out our books and this past week framed some postcards from Israel and made the bookshelves pretty :).

I keep forgetting to take "before" pictures because I get excited to change things, gotta work on that! Trust me, it looks better now haha


Last but certainly not least, we FINALLY upgraded our tile!! (cue hallelujah chorus) Gone is the white, always looks dirty tile and in its place we have a really nice dark grey with a matching grout.

Before:

After:

I love the fact that it still matches our cabinets without having to now paint all of those and replace counters. Maybe down the line at some point, but I am really really happy with the overall look.

I'm still deciding if I need to replace the kitchen rug or not, some days I like it and some days I think its too dark...

Visit to Kilgore and Camping in February

We decided to take a random week off since Michael is about to go into a busy season with work to take a relaxing vacation. So we went to visit my Aunt Nina in Kilgore and then camped for a few days.

We went to see Aunt Nina and her friend Gwen for a long weekend which was so fun! They are really fun people to be around, plus they feed us amazingly well :). They have a huge garden and usually at least half of every meal is something they have grown or else caught/killed (fish from the pond or a deer from a hunting trip). We did all the things we were looking forward to: hiked around their land (they have about 100 acres), fished in the pond, sat for hours on the back porch talking and watching/listening to birds, and even had a big bonfire one night. Plus Gwen showed me a few tricks to manually taking pictures on my new camera. We all (including Gaius) had a wonderful time.

Mr. Bluebird eating his worms ;)

After Kilgore, we went home for a night to re-pack and then headed out to Guadalupe River state park for a few days of camping. We had really nice weather and it was even a little chilly at night (but perfect for a campfire!). The first night we had crazy rain, but thankfully the trailer kept us nice and dry. We played board games, read books, and went on some hikes. All and all a really restful week.

When we got back, we had a day to unpack, do laundry and get the house ready for new floors! That's coming up next!