Our House/Lila's 18 months!

We've been in our new house for a month now! We downsized, but it really doesn't feel like it except for closet space. :) There is a lot of natural light and an open living/dining/kitchen area. We are loving the house and the neighborhood! I still have a few more things to do to the house, but am mostly done. I posted pictures below. Obviously, we haven't done any painting which would warm it up a lot, but that's more work than I'm willing to take on right now.

Entry and dining area. Lila's room, guest bath and the den are to the right of the front door from this view. Laundry room is on the left, leading into the garage.

Dining room and looking into the master. Dining room is open to the main living area.

More of the main living room.

Just across from the couches.

Kitchen...obviously. :) I think the backsplash is one of my favorite things in the house.

Kitchenette. Sliders to the covered patio and backyard.

From kitchen looking into the main room.

Master bedroom. Looks out onto the backyard.

Still master, looking into the bathroom.

Den/craft room/guest room. It actually has two entrances and no doors so I hung curtains over both doorways to try to keep Lila out and for privacy when people come to stay (namely, my mom.) It is working so far...

Lila's room. I miss the tree decal she had on her wall in the old house but decided to use what I had on hand rather than buy another one. Those two paintings were done by my grandpa Rose and I love seeing them hung in Lila's room.

On an unrelated note, Lila is 18 months today! I can't believe she is so big already. She's still crazy busy, loves the outdoors, has enough attitude for 3 children, is a daddy's girl and loves to eat. I can't wait to go to San Diego in just 6 days so my family can get to see all her stubborn cuteness! :)

Lila "helping" me load the dishwasher.

Pretending to be shy on the swing at the neighborhood park.

Swinging and drinking water at the same time. My little multi-tasker.

Sea World and Busch Gardens

For Christmas, Chris's parents got us Sea World and Busch Gardens passes. (Busch Gardens is a combination of huge amusement park and zoo.)

We went to Sea World last month but Lila was in a terrible mood and we didn't get to see a ton. I also didn't take many pictures. There were a few fun moments mixed in it though.

At a sea lion show that she lasted about 10 minutes of.

Admiring the penguin picture.

Busch Gardens was a different story. We went on Saturday and had a blast! The weather was perfect, there were no crowds, and we saw a tons of animals.

Lila wanted to touch all the animals.

We got to feed flamingos and exotic birds

There is an entire section of the park for kids that Lila loved! Part of it was a water play area. If you think her swim suit looks a little weird, well, that's because it does. I left the swim bottoms in the car and used bloomers from a change of clothes I brought. It didn't stop this little one!

This is so gross. I tried to stop her but when there are like 50 places the water shoots up, it's kind of a lost cause. Anyway, we can't wait to go back and hit some of the things we missed!

Valentine's Day

Just wanted to post a few pictures of my cute Valentine!

So excited about her new Valentine's shirt from Aunt Audra!

Spoiled with a cupcake

Love them!

Opening a Valentine gift (fun animal sounds book) from Mamie (Grandma Harris)

The move from...you know where!

After taking over a month off of blogging, there's lots to update!

Biggest news is we moved...5 minutes away! Those short five minutes make a big difference though. We hated our old neighborhood and wanted to get out before Lila got old enough to realize how bad it was. It was a long, crazy process and I'm sooo glad it's over. Our neighbor's in-laws actually are the ones who bought our house.

Every piece of paperwork seemed to have a mistake, need to be redone or resent, etc, etc. Our closing date took forever to actually be set so it was hard to plan ahead and know how much to pack. I did little bits at a time and started to fill the garage with boxes. We finally had a closing date and my mom was flying out to help me pack and play with Lila. She was going to be here just through the day of the move since I mostly needed her help beforehand. Just two weeks before the closing our date got moved up by 4 days and I wasn't ready! We had heard of people renting their house back out from the buyers to give them a little more time to get into their new place. We approached our neighbors and they agreed to give us an extra week after the closing. My mom flew in on a Tuesday night and we leisurely started packing Wednesday, thinking we had about 8 days to finish.

At 8:30 pm that night, our neighbors knocked on the door and dropped the bomb that apparently their realtor had just found something in our contract that says they can't do any deals with us of any kind. This meant we had to be out by closing on Friday!!! Chris tried all kinds of persuasion to do an under-the-table deal, but it was a no-go. That gave us about 40 hours instead of 8 days to pack, move and clean most everything! I wanted to cry, but that would have wasted time.

Luckily I had my mom there and I have some ridiculously amazing friends. Three of them came that night around 9pm and stayed until 2am packing. We were really, really lucky to be able to get into our new place early and get a moving truck first thing Thursday morning. My friend Lindsay took Lila all day Thursday and most of the day Friday and a bunch of other friends came and moved things over to the new house in their cars. Chris and some guys from church loaded all the heavy stuff and we just never stopped. It was a miracle, but we were almost completely moved out Thursday night and even slept in the new house that night. Chris finished the last of the packing the next morning while my mom cleaned and I started unpacking into the new house. I'm still in shock that we completely finished by Friday afternoon. The only good news was that my mom was there for all the unpacking and organizing which she is really good at. I literally have every box unpacked now and it feels so good!

We love our new house which has a big shaded back yard with a play set. Lila plays out there everyday and must think she's in heaven. The neighborhood is so quiet with shaded sidewalks and a YMCA just down the street that we joined for the gym, pool and kids' water play area. We are so happy to be settled!

Lila can already go up and down the slide and the ladder by herself. She's a little daredevil!