Temporary

It's been a while since I've been able to blog. We've had a lot going on. After housing option A fell through, we just didn't find anything else that made sense to us so Chloe Jo and I are going to stay with my parents in Missouri and Russ is going to stay in Oklahoma during the week at a hotel and come up to Missouri on his days off. This is not what we had planned, but it will work for the short time we need. Sometimes you get a plan and it just doesn't go like you want it to. That's just the way it is. I'm trying to stay positive and count my blessings.

Our last Sunday in South Carolina was last week. It was an emotional day for us. We are going to miss the congregation. We made lifelong friends there and it is going to be hard to know we may never see them again during this life. They gave us a potluck after morning services. They did a great job of keeping it quiet because we had no idea! It was nice to know that we will be missed and I hope they know that the feeling is mutual.

Monday was a total fiasco! We were going to pick up the U-Haul at 9:00. Russ went up to the place and the guy who does the U-Haul stuff wasn't there. The employee that was there told Russ to come back at 10:00 because that is when the guy was supposed to be there. We went back up to the place at 10:15 and the guy still wasn't there. We had a few little odds and ends to do so we went back home and finished up all the stuff that needed to be done there. We went back up to the U-Haul place at 11:00 and finally the guy was there. BUT they didn't have the furniture pads we had ordered and no one else in town had them! Talk about being frustrated! We were so irritated. So Russ and our friend, Ken, had to go to a town 45 minutes away to get furniture pads to protect our furniture. We finally got started loading the truck at noon. The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. It was just getting the truck that was the fiasco.

Since our week before moving was so crazy, Russ and I took Chloe for a walk and to the park on Saturday evening. It was a great way to destress during all the craziness of moving!

The flowers in South Carolina are gorgeous right now so we had to pick a few.
We always have to have swing time when we go to the park.
And Daddy helped Chloe Jo practice her gymnastics skills.
She is such a bright little soul in our lives. She is so precious to us!

We got to Oklahoma on Thursday and Russ and Dad unloaded the U-Haul into a storage building and then came on to Missouri. Last night we all headed out to the park for some play time. Chloe Jo loved the park here and I'm glad to know where it is. We will be making many a trip to the park in the coming weeks!

And then today we had a little accident. Word from the wise: even if you are only 30 pounds of skinny little girl, a towel rod will not hold you if you hang on it.
Um...whoops! This was after I had already told her not to mess with the rod.
And this was after the rod was pulled out of the wall and Mommy persuaded Chloe Jo to never hang on it again.
I think I got through to her. :) For real, though...we had been at my parents house for 2 days and already Chloe Jo is being naughty and ruining stuff. Sigh. Grampy has a soft spot for his little Chloe Jo so he wasn't too upset about it.

Here's to hoping the next 6 weeks go by quickly and Chloe Jo doesn't rip anything else out of the walls!

Sometimes moving doesn't go as smoothly as you had hoped.

I thought we were all set with a month to month rental.

Today (TODAY!) I got a call from the owner and they said that it was a no-go for us. They sold the house and are closing in the middle of April.

Back to square one.

And we pull out on Monday.

Monday.

I think I'm going to go vomit.

What I'm Loving Wednesday and Oh, How Pinteresting!

Is it the middle of the week already?!?!? How did that happen!?!?

I'm loving that we are moving in less than a week! I'm ready to get back to the midwest and be able to see my family more!

I'm loving dreaming of decorating our *hopefully going to be if everything works out* new house! I can't wait to get my hands on this living room!

I'm loving that I almost got everything done that I had planned to do yesterday. I finished packing up the bedrooms, the hall closet and the living room except for the media cabinet. The thing I didn't do was finish the laundry. I always start out good in the morning, but wimp out by the evening.

I'm loving that Chloe Jo has slept late yesterday and today. It's 10:30 and she is still in bed. Of course, she has had some very rough nights waking up so she needs this sleep!

Today I am going to show you some of the pins that I am using as inspiration for our new living room!

First, I need throw pillows for our sectional. Using the same throw pillows your couch came with is a designing sin!

I'm envisioning big, fluffy ones like this:

Source: bhg.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I may need to make just one with our initial. I like this pillow except for the font. I think it needs to be a little more grown up for a living room.

Source: blog.jenwoodhouse.com via Lisa on Pinterest

This fabric would be perfect for a couple of the pillows.

Source: potterybarn.com via Lisa on Pinterest

The walls in the living room, dining room and kitchen are the green in the picture above. I do not want to paint it so we are going to leave it. I am wanting to use light blue accent pieces in the rooms. Here are a couple of my inspiration pins.

Source: southernliving.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: decorpad.com via Lisa on Pinterest

And just because I think these are super cool, I am going to hopefully put a terrarium somewhere in my living space.

Source: brittanyanddylan.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: westelm.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I hope you all have a fabulous Wednesday!

Link up {here} and {here},

The goings-on and a little something new

One more week and we are out of here! Our place is CHAOS right now and I hate it. I'm so different than when I was just a few years ago. I can't stand messes or clutter any more and the mess that is our chateau is really stressful for me. I was such a messy child/teenage/college student/newlywed and now I am so completely the opposite of that.

We have been trying to get Chloe Jo's room painted back to the blah color that it was originally so all of her furniture is hanging out in other rooms. We were able to clean off the bed so Chloe Jo and I slept in Russ and I's room and Russ slept on the couch for the last 3 nights. She could have slept in her room last night, but the paint smell was still strong so we thought it best for her not to.

But it is done and we are ready to get the rest of our things packed up. We are heading out next Monday. I can't believe we only have one more week here!

The something new is that I'm going to do a new series on here. More blog fodder? Yes, please! I am really looking forward to this and I hope you guys think it is as fun and interesting as I do.

During my teen years, I was able to travel overseas several times with my family. My Dad did a lot of missionary work and we were able to go with him. I went to Kiev, Ukraine for month-long stays each time. This was always during the school year {score!} and we always had a great time. The school put my sister and I on homeschool status during that time so we didn't fail our classes for being absent so long. I have 4 journals from the trips over there that I want to share with you guys. They are from 1994 (I was 12), 1196, 1997, and 1998. Please remember that I was young and so some of the things are rude and inconsiderate that I say in these...and other things are just plain dumb! I have enjoyed reading back through these and I'm so glad my Mom and Dad made (yes, made!) me do them. They are such treasures now! Also, I'm going to leave spelling and punctuation like I wrote it. I think it makes it so much more real and fun. Words in italics are added by me.

Without further ado, here are a couple of passages from my 1994 journal:

"Nov. 1, 1994

We arrived at KCI airport around 10:30 A.M. on Tuesday. We had 12 bags in all, 4 carryons, and 8 others. When they finally let us board we got on, chose our seats, and took-off. It is really neat to watch the ground dissappear below us.

We arrived at Cleavland airport and we had to run to get to our plane to Newark. It was basically the same except we had a storm coming and had to wait on the runway for over an hour. When we got to Newark we really had to run to catch our flight. Most of the people had allready boarded and they thought we weren't going to make the flight. We didn't get dinner until 9:00. We were served salad and meat in Scandinavean style (Gag me). Then we watched a movie called the Mask (stupid)."

Nov. 2, 1994

"I woke up with a hot wet rag because they were handing them out to wake us up by. We had a Scandinavean breakfast served to us (Gag me). We landed in Copenhagen around 9:30. The airport was real pretty and clean (until Michelle (Michelle is my sister who goes by Chelley now) knocked a trash can over). We arrived in Keiv about 2:00 (6:A.M. in H-ville time). Keiv is really pretty. From our balcony window in our flat (Apartment) we can see the river and the silver lady, Mother of the Ukraine."

I have just laughed and laughed tonight going through these old journals. I know my family will get a kick out of them and I hope you all do, too. I love reliving these memories especially written by a 12 year old me. I do wish I had a scanner to share some of the pictures from our trips. Maybe soon I can borrow one and get some of the pictures scanned.

I hope you all have a great week! Mine is going to be busy!

What I'm Loving Wednesday and Oh, How Pinteresting!

It's the middle of the week and that means it is time, once again, for What I'm Loving Wednesday and Oh, How Pinteresting!

I love Wednesday's because I have built in blog fodder!

I'm loving that we are moving in less than 2 weeks. It is a stressful time, but I'm trusting that this is a great move for us and that we will be very happy in our new location.

I'm loving that moving in 2 weeks also means we can finally get away from our awful landlord. He has been the worst. To top everything off, he has decided to keep our whole deposit. We talked to him about breaking our lease and he said it was fine because our home would rent easily. Then last week he told us that he is keeping our deposit "to take care of the time that no one would be in the place." If he had said because we were breaking the lease, that would be understandable. But, he is just greedy and doesn't want to give us our money back. Anyway, moving on from that!

I'm loving that we are getting everything together to be homeowners! Eek!

(The beautiful home we are in a contract for)

I'm loving that we are planning to have a big 30th birthday bash/housewarming in August! Russ and I both turn 30 at the end of the month so it is a perfect time to celebrate!

I'm loving my sweet daughter. She is such a book worm!

("Ooh! A train!")

I'm loving this ginormous stack of newspaper Russ brought for me to pack with! I had been hoarding newspapers since we came back from Christmas break and Russ threw them all out, thinking he was helping. BTW, that is so funny because I am a very tidy person and I don't keep random piles of junk around the house so I don't know what he was thinking. HA! Anyway, so I asked him to find me some more newspaper and he went to the local office and they gave him this stack of old papers. Oh my! Overkill much? We don't have that much stuff!

I'm loving that I started packing yesterday. I didn't get very far, but again, we don't have that much stuff.

I'm loving our local McDonald's. How pathetic is that? It was redone last November and I hadn't been until a few weeks ago. They have a great play area that Chloe Jo loves and they have 3 touch-screen computers for anyone to play games on. We kind of like hanging out there now.

What are you loving today? Link up {here}!

This week I am going to show you all some of the crochet things I have pinned and am planning to get to sometime in the future.

Source: etsy.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I love these adorable owls. I'm not sure what you would do with them, but I need to make a few!

Source: etsy.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I'm so loving leg warmers! I want to make a pair for me and a few pairs for Chloe Jo. I guess I waited a little too long to make them because it is getting too warm for them now.

Source: sewingdaisies.com.au via Lisa on Pinterest

I love this heart garland. Um, missed Valentine's Day, though.

Source: willewopsie.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Eek! I just think these are soooo cute!

Source: crazysockscrochet.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I'm sure my new nephew needs this for next winter!

Link up {here}!

And so it begins.

Success!

Last week was pretty insane for us and it has just continued into this week. I'm starting to think I need to start packing because we are moving in TWO weeks. YIKES! How did that creep up on us so fast!?!?

Last week we left Monday morning to drive to Oklahoma to go house hunting. That is a long trip and I'm so glad that we only have to do it one more time. We made an appointment to look at 7 houses on Wednesday. I think we actually looked at 9 because we added a couple at the last minute.

Here we are ready to go meet the realtor to look at houses!

We left Chloe Jo with her auntie and cousins for the day. We walked into one house and ended up looking at it 2 more times on Wednesday and then looked at it again on Wednesday with my Dad in tow. I am so glad my Dad was able to come to see the house we liked. Once we got his approval, we were ready to put in an offer! We negotiated back and forth a couple of times and finally came to an agreement! This is the house we will, Lord willing, move into in May.

We are so thrilled to be in a contract. We are getting everything together for the home insurance and inspections this week. We are also trying to get all the loan stuff squared away. I hope everything goes smoothly and we really do get to move into this home!

And the other great thing about this trip was that we got to meet our new little precious boy! Here I am with my sweet nephew Brenson!

Eeek! Isn't he soooooooo precious!?!?

Kissee! Kissee!

And did I get any pictures of Chloe Jo and her cousins together? Nope! Bad Lisa!

I am so ready to get moved and for our life to slow down a little bit!

Baby Shower Success!

Whew! I am so glad to get the baby shower over with! Don't get me wrong...I loved planning it. It's just a little crazy around our house right now so it's nice to have that done.

I think everything came out great and it was a huge success! I am only posting pictures of the decorations and one of Chloe Jo because I didn't ask if anyone cared if I put their picture on here.

I was so happy with how the cake table looked. I think it turned out perfect!

I dragged the rocking chair from the nursery into the shower room for the guest of honor. It's the most comfortable chair in the church building!

I made 9 of these and hung them in 3 of the corners of the room (the fourth corner is where the door opens so I wasn't able to put them there). They were so easy to make! I wish I had realized just how easy ages ago!

And here is Chloe Jo enjoying her cake. She was so excited about this "party" and had a blast! She's not going to know what to do when it is her birthday and she gets to open all the presents and cry if she wants to!

Hair Bow Tutorial

As promised, here is a *quite lengthy* tutorial on how I do hair bows.

What you will need:

ribbon

hair clip

needle and thread

lighter

scissors

yard stick (or some other measuring device)

hot glue gun and glue sticks

You can use whatever kind of hair clip you like.

When CJ was an infant and I would clip the bows on her head bands, I used the alligator clips (second in the picture above). Now that she is older and I put them directly into her hair, I like the other kind (one on top).

The first thing I do is make the base of the bow (if I am doing a base anyway). I like to use the wider ribbon for this. For this bow, I am doing 4 pieces, each 6 inches long. I always heat seal each piece of ribbon before using it in the bow. To heat seal, just run your lighter along the rough edges. That will melt the ribbon a little bit to help it not unravel.

I lay my pieces out on the table before sewing to get them exactly how I want them.

Take your needle and thread (I always go ahead and tie the end of the thread before ever starting the bow making so I can just grab it and go) and run it through the middle of the pieces of ribbon. Pull it taut, wrap the thread around the middle a few times and knot it off in the back.

If you don't like the way it looks, just take out the thread and redo it. At this point, everything can be redone. Once you glue it all together, though...that's it.

For this bow, I went ahead and made a second base.

For the bow, I use the widest ribbon first. If the ribbon is wider, the piece is going to be longer, the narrower the ribbon, the narrower the piece needs to be. I usually cut the wider ribbon around 20 to 22 inches. Don't forget to heat seal the ends.

Cross the ribbon into a crazy eight position.

Take one of the loops and bring it up to the middle.

Do the same for the second loop.

Sew through the middle of the bow and pull tight. Loop the thread around the middle a few times and knot off on the back.

I decided to go ahead and make a second bow with a narrower ribbon.

To make sure I like the bow, I lay everything together before gluing.

Hot glue a narrow piece of ribbon to the clip you are using. If I use an alligator clip, I go ahead and glue the ribbon to the top and underside of the top. It just makes it look a little nicer.

I then cut a small piece of ribbon and made a knot in the middle. I just finagle the ribbon so each end has the pattern on top. You'll understand what I'm talking about when you do it.

Then glue all the pieces together with the ends of the knot coming around the backside and glued to the back of the bow.

Hot glue the bow on to the clip and there you have it! A gorgeous finished, custom bow.