May

To say May was a big month for us I think would be quite the understatement.

We started out with Mother's Day.  The kids made me super sweet cards.  And you can always count on your kids to have one of these gems thrown in the mix :p

Caleb surprised me and took the day off so I could take a night off from painting and enjoy some pizza and wine.

Speaking of painting, behind the flowers you can probably tell the kitchen is starting it's sad transformation back to beige. 

Which brings us to the most important news of May.

Caleb and I have been talking about moving for I think over 2 years now.  We loved our home, but we've found some things we'd probably change.  We were hoping for a little more land.  But most importantly, we needed to move before the kids would be in middle school.  Their elementary is amazing and we've had a great experience there, but the middle school, not so much.  In less than 2 weeks Casen will officially be a fourth grader (I can't believe it either,) so we realized we were starting to get down to the wire.
We met with a realtor and he said the area we lived in happened to be in really high demand and we would have no problems selling.  We took it with a grain of salt, but pushed ahead in the process.  The first one being, paint my kitchen.  We got it all ready to go, had the professionals do all the video and photography work

....and less than 24 hours after our house was put on the market and 16 showings later, our house was sold.


And then Caleb and I had a bit of a minor freak out. 

We had no idea the house would go that quick.  And we now needed a new house.

We had three counties in mind that surround the one we currently live in so we would still be close to Caleb's work.  We looked at a few houses and thought we found the one, so much so that we almost didn't go look at the last house of the day.  But we walked into the last house and I told Caleb, this is our home.  And we're really really hoping it is!  Just waiting on the lovely inspection madness on both ends to finish up and the moving shall commence.  It is the perfect location.  A little bit off the beaten path, but super close to everything we've grown accustomed to. The closest commute we've found yet to Caleb's job. It's quite a bit more land than we're used to and the square footage is even more than our current house.  Last but most important, really good schools. 

I mean how can you pass up a house with a secret room :)

So the month of June will be spent doing lots and lots of packing.  Leaving the home where we celebrated Arya's first birthday, Casen's first day of Kindergarten, and Caleb becoming a police officer.  We'll be heading to a quiet house in the woods where we hopefully will make lots and lots more memories.

The June update may be a little late. 😋

April

Our April was busy from beginning to end.  It flew by!

It started out with spring break and a visit from Caleb's parents. After they left I told Caleb I didn't have  a single picture because I never really had my phone on me.  He said he didn't either.  I think that's the sign of a good visit.  Thankfully I got to borrow some from our trip to the park :)

 

Arya had her first daddy daughter dance.  It's a yearly thing at their school.  She was so so excited to get a new dress and go out with Caleb.

 

Next we enjoyed more visitors.  My brother and his family came down for a long weekend.  The kids are finally all at the age where they just go off and play together and it was awesome.  Since it fell on Easter weekend, we fit in some egg activities as well.

Easter morning they enjoyed baskets and breakfast and then our guests had to head back home.  We had our first try at dying eggs since Jo was a baby.  They actually turned out really well. 

Next, Arya had her very first school concert.  (If you click on my name under the first video on youtube, it will bring you to the others.)

Casen found a little friend in our yard

And lastly, we finished off the month with a  quick trip to Williamsburg.  We all got a little stir crazy. The weather has been so warm. A little shopping, a trip to the beach, and our favorite restaurant.  It was perfect.

 Onto May!

March

March has actually been kind of pictureless.  We've spent a good share of the month doing spring cleaning.  Room by room with over 10 rooms in our house has proven to be a pretty long process.  It has been rather nice though.  We're in the, throw it all away! mode.

The beginning of the month we kept the kids a day out of school and booked a pretty fancy hotel to stay at.  Any hotel with free happy hour drinks and made to order breakfast, count us in.  Unfortunately, the entire reason we went there, the pool, was closed for maintenance. We were super bummed, but the manager was awesome and gave us a night for free to be able to come back and let the kids actually enjoy the pool.  We still got to enjoy all the normal Williamsburg shenanigans and the kids loved it.

Caleb and I have still be really really enjoying our day dates while both kids are in school.  Any day he's not working we go to the gym together and then at least once a week we have a lunch date, usually sushi.

I got a hottie for a husband!

And other than that, we've just been enjoying the super nice weather!  We should be having a much more exciting April.

February

Besides Arya's birthday, we had a pretty quiet, but pretty darn awesome February.

I can't really make a February blog without putting in writing that we got to watch our team win the superbowl! :)

The kids helped me make some football shaped rice krispie treats the night before.  And after the picture at the table was taken we somehow added even more food.  Football season is the best season!

Then came Valentine's day.  Caleb's really good about...actually amazing about bringing me home flowers and little treats all the time, as you can probably tell by my pictures.  He gave me the sweetest surprise on Valentines day this year :) 

Since Caleb's worked midnight shift for the past 5 years, we sleep in different shifts for over half of the year.  I hate it.  I never sleep well when he's not home. I don't think I ever have, and if you know our family, you know we've spent a lot of years with work separating us.  But midnight shift really does work the best for our family, so we make do.  Now, I have a little squishy sleeping buddy for my nights alone all the way from Vermont.  It's even more special because we're pretty sure Vermont is where we're going to take our big 10 year anniversary trip!

Thanks for making my years so sweet, Caleb.  This has definitely been my favorite year of all for us.

I think that's about it for our short and sweet month.  We got some snow days, a birthday, some date days, and some movie days.
I'm so thankful!

Arya turns 6

Our little lady is 6.

She is in a league of her own!

She has the most feelings of any human I've ever met.  She cries at every Disney movie, sad or not, because she just has all the feels all the time.  She still loves her beauty sleep.  The days we give her the option of staying up late she usually let's us know she just needs to go to bed and heads there her normal time.  Her favorite things are still Barbies and coloring.  Casen and Arya are basically complete opposites.  She loves coloring and singing and imagination play while Casen loves math and science and logical playing.  She is the sweetest!  Caleb and I get multiple hugs and I love yous every single day.  She comes running off of the bus open arms, excited for anyone waiting for her.  We're so thankful for our little California girl.

She originally chose a Barbie themed party, but then we found unicorn decor and she changed her mind to that route.

She was pretty bummed she had to go to school on her birthday.  We did our best to make it special anyway.  She got donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast.  Then we let her open a couple presents early.  She got a new outfit and necklace to wear to school.  A new outfit will literally get her out of bed in the morning, so she was pretty excited.

Their elementary school let's parents go and eat lunch with their kids any day they choose.  Arya asked if we could come in for her birthday to eat with her.  She starts lunch at 10:30! So it was too early to bring her in any fast food goodies, but she got her request of homemade bacon mac n cheese.

We waited at the bus stop with some balloons

And we finished out the evening with a trip out to dinner, presents, and cake!

 

 

 We love you Miss Arya Morgan

January

January means my favorite person in the world celebrates a birthday :)
This year Caleb got...new eyes!  Not really, but he did get Lasik surgery.  No more glasses and contacts!  I don't know the slightest about dealing with not being able to see, but I do know it was a struggle on midnight shift to be constantly dealing with his eyes.  He took the plunge and now has 20/15.  The operating room is made of glass walls so you can observe the whole thing.  It was pretty crazy to be able to watch them cut his eyes open.  He's a trooper and was back to work the next day.

 

On his actual birthday we got a bit of an ice storm.  Everything was closed.  It wouldn't be a birthday without cheesy decor.  So we got that all set up and he made the most delicious wings I've ever had in my life!  And possibly the best part of his day was enjoying another Patriots win. 

We didn't have much else happen the rest of the month.  The kids have been off of school quite a few days for weather and holidays so it's just been hanging out at home.

Caleb came home from work with super pretty flowers for me

And we got to close out the month with another amazing Pats win! (we may or may not have watched the game more than once.)  We're gearing up for a super fun superbowl day.  I'm so thankful it gets to be the best family time as well.