We made it!

In case you were wondering, we made it to North Carolina safe and sound :) Today is actually one month since we left Akron, so I guess it's time for an update!

Here are some pictures from our last Sunday at church...
These two are so much fun when they are getting along.

This is Eleanor's nursery class (there were actually quite a few kids gone that day). Kind of sad to think this would have been her sunbeams class, too. Her new sunbeams class just has 2 other boys and she asks if her other friends will be at church every week.

Me and my Laurels.

The next day (Monday, December 19th) all of our stuff got loaded on the moving truck. The girls and I spent the day playing with friends and running errands around town while Andrew was in charge of cleaning and facilitating the movers. When that was all done we said goodbye to some friends and then we were on the road by about 5. We spent that night in Charleston, West Virginia then we headed to Charlotte on Tuesday (December 20). The movers came to our new house on Wednesday (December 21) and were done by about 3 o'clock. I was so anxious to get settled that we spent the rest of that day and the next morning unpacking, then it was on to New Orleans to spend Christmas with my family. (Crazy to think we had about 95% of our stuff unpacked within 24 hours!)

So after one night in our new house we were on the road again...


We got to New Orleans Friday afternoon (December 23), then it was time for some good old relaxation and fun with my family.

Here's Eleanor Christmas morning with Penelope's presents. I had a feeling that might happen. Next year I think I'll put Eleanor's name on Penelope's presents and vice versa .

My sister Laura was so nice and decorated a gingerbread house with Eleanor.

Eleanor and dad taking a break from their snacks.

Playing at the park with Uncle Jacob.

Yummy po-boys! I think I would be OK to only eat po-boys for the rest of my life :)

Despite the lack of documentation, we did a lot of other fun things while in New Orleans. (I know I sound like a broken record, but I really need to take more pictures. It's actually my new year's resolution, so stay tuned for lots of pictures more frequently) We spent Christmas day in Thibodaux with my mom's family, we went to Riverwalk, played lots of Dance Central on Kinect and Rock Band, went to Cafe Du Monde for beignets, ate lots of yummy food, and just got to have a really relaxing time with my family!

Here's a quick video of Eleanor dancing in a souvenir shop at the Riverwalk, she found a hat that really inspired her. Check out her moves...


Since being in Charlotte I've noticed that I managed to pick up a little bit of a midwest accent while we lived in Ohio. You can definitely hear it in words like actually, bathroom, tag, rag, and a few others. It makes me happy that I got to take a little part of Ohio with me :)

Anyway, now that we're back in Charlotte, the girls and I have done lots of exploring. We've replaced Target and their popcorn combo with Sonic's happy hour and the park. I guess times are tough over at Target because the price of the popcorn combo went up and now they charge extra to replace the drink for an ICEE. Plus, I think a Powerade slush is probably a little more healthy for my 3 and 1 year old than a "blueberry" ICEE.

And speaking of healthy replacements (not), we've also replaced ChickFilA with McDonald's in a quest to obtain all of the chipmunk toys. Not to mention we found a McDonald's with a playplace that the girls really like. Here's a video of them doing a little dance at dinner one night. And just a reminder, I'm definitely not a candidate for world's best mom :)



We also LOVE our backyard and the mild weather we've been having.






Here's Penelope at the park...

She takes her baby with her everywhere, it's pretty cute and much more portable than Eleanor's blankie.

Here's Eleanor's first day of primary. She is so cute and so creative and so fun to be around!


She was playing in the bathroom cabinets the other day and found my curling iron, which I'm not even sure I've ever used. After I told Eleanor what it was for she wanted me to do her hair, so for the first time ever I curled someone's hair! I think she looks so cute. It is so weird to see her with her hair done because she barely lets me brush it.

And, as you can tell, she still doesn't like looking at the camera to take pictures!

Andrew's started classes again so he's gone 3 nights a week for class and stays a little bit later at work on the other 2 days to make up for time that he's gone while at school. It's hard to believe (and exciting to think about!) that this will be his last semester. It will be so nice to have someone around to help at dinner time. I think for the majority of their lives, my girls haven't eaten dinner with Andrew. Kind of crazy, huh?

We definitely miss Akron, especially our friends, but I feel really grateful that we have a job, our health, our family, and of course the nice weather doesn't hurt!

Did I mention we're moving?

Well we are :) Around Halloween we found out that Andrew's company needs him in their Charlotte office. Since I'm from Louisiana and Andrew's from Arkansas/North Carolina we always hoped that one day we'd be able to move back to the south and raise our family there. Somehow living here in Akron for 3 1/2 years made that desire fade a little so when we got the news it definitely made me sad to think about leaving Akron.

This is where both of my girls were born (I even found myself getting a little teary eyed as I drove by the hospital tonight).

This is where I learned how to be a mom from such great examples all around me.

This is where we learned to love the snow -- some of the time :)

This is where Andrew slaved away at Law School and Business school. And as a result, this is where I spent a lot of time just me and my girls making an adventure out of each day.

This is where I had friends who were willing to have The Bachelor/Bachelorette finale viewing parties with me :)

This is where we had several friends within walking distance to our house.

This is where we spent countless hours at Chick-Fil-A playplace, and Target.

This is where I got to be best friends with the Young Women in my ward and really be inspired by them and their testimonies.

This is where I met the most awesome and amazing people.

This is where I received countless acts of service and felt love from friends as if they were my family.

The list could go on and on, but most important and special to me is that this is the first place I've lived in a long time that has felt like home.

Needless to say, it is definitely bittersweet. We will be sad to leave, but I must admit, it will be nice to be closer to family (about 3 1/2 hours to Andrew's parents and about 10-11 hours to my mom). And I guess it doesn't hurt that the winters aren't nearly as long and cold in Charlotte as they are here!

Andrew had some meetings last Monday and Tuesday in Charlotte so we drove down with him the weekend before and saw our house we'll be renting and went to our new ward. While Andrew was at meetings, Eleanor, Penelope, and I just spent a lot of time at the hotel: swimming, riding the elevators up and down, and printing out mickey mouse and Dora coloring pages in the business center. Whenever I talk to Eleanor about moving to North Carolina she gets really excited because I think she thinks we are moving to the hotel! She's in for a shock when she finds out our house doesn't have a pool or elevators or a breakfast buffet every morning or a sofabed in the living room. It was nice to get a feel for the area before moving down, but unfortunately our trip ended on a bad note. Penelope got sick on Monday, then on Tuesday night (the night before we were going to head home and which also happened to be the night before my birthday) Penelope, Eleanor, and Andrew were up all night throwing up. I guess my birthday present was that I wasn't the one who had to wash all the sheets and towels! We had to head home first thing Wednesday morning because Andrew had a final that night we had to get back for and since Andrew still wasn't feeling too great, I got to drive all the way home! The miracle of all miracles is that Andrew ended up doing really well on his final that night and got a B+ in that class. Just one of the tender mercies that I've seen throughout these last couple of weeks since all this moving craziness started!

The movers will be here on Monday to load up all of our stuff. I wish I could just fast forward to Monday night! I am so exhausted and have gotten so little sleep that it feels like I have a newborn baby or something! One or both of the girls has been up in the middle of night throwing up and/or having diarrhea (by the way, I never really wanted to mention this word on my blog, but it is so part of my life right now that it would be a travesty not to mention it :)) Today is the first day since last Sunday (11 days ago!!!!) that we haven't had either happen! Let's hope tonight is the night for a full night's sleep!

Looking back at the last week, or even the last couple of months, I know the only way I've made it through is by relying on the enabling power of the Atonement. Someone mentioned this quote by Boyd K. Packer in church and it really touched me: "For some reason, we think the Atonement of Christ applies only at the end of mortal life to redemption from the Fall, from spiritual death. It is much more than that. It is an ever-present power to call upon in everyday life...While we do not fully understand how the Atonment of Christ was made, we can experience the peace of God, which passeth all understanding."

I'm well aware that there are much bigger trials than moving and having sick kids and having your husband gone a lot for school and work and things like that, but I know the Atonement applies to everyday life and I have definitely felt the "peace of God" as I've relied on my Savior.

Elder Bednar said, "It is the Atonement of Jesus Christ that provides the sanctifying and strengthening power that helps us to become better than we could be by relying only upon our own strength."

Anyway, can you tell my emotions are all over the place right now?? I better just end this post now :) Here are some pictures of some things we've been up to in the last month. They are mainly from the camera on my phone, so the quality isn't that great, but I guess something is better than nothing! (Note to self: take more pictures!!)

Eleanor and Penelope reading books at the library.

"Free breakfast if you wear your pajamas" day at Chick-Fil-A.

My previously-mentioned awesome friends threw me a goodbye party and surprisingly turned it into a birthday party as well! This definitely made up for my actual birthday (aka, barfday)!

And to close, here are some videos of the girls...

Monkey jammies


I was doing some packing/cleaning in my room and the girls came in with some books and took a seat in my closet. You can also notice that Eleanor loves wearing her princess costumes and Penelope loves only wearing one sock.

Ok. That's all. See you in North Carolina!

Birthday girl!

I can't believe it was three years ago that we brought home this little cutie from the hospital. I remember sitting on this couch holding her for the first time outside of the hospital. It was so exciting to know she was mine and I just remember feeling so grateful for this precious gift.

And now three years later we are celebrating with our spunky little (big girl) Eleanor! She is such a fun little buddy to have by my side all the time. We are so happy that she is in our family.

She got lots of fun packages in the mail from family...


Then it was time to party with some friends.


We borrowed some chairs from the primary and replaced the dining room table with our coffee table. Eleanor was thrilled to see the set up when she came downstairs the morning of her party.
We drew some princess pictures and made necklaces...

We had bagel bites and grapes and juice boxes...


We sang happy birthday...



We had cupcakes...

We tried to take some mother-daughter pictures...


We opened presents...




We played with makeup that our friends gave us...

And just had a really fun time with all our princess friends!

October happenings

October seemed to fly by. We stayed pretty busy, especially with Andrew having 2 different weekend classes and out of town about 7 days (2 business trips and 1 trip to the BYU law fair to recruit for Akron).

I started the month throwing a baby shower for my friend Emily. We had a great turnout and some good fun girl time. She had her baby 6 weeks early so I just wanted to keep the shower low key. We were able to just chat and not play any silly games



We didn't play any games, but I typed these up and had everyone fill one out. My sister gave me the idea and I think it is really sweet and a great keepsake.

I didn't remember to take pictures until the very end, so that's why the food is all gone :) I saved the decorations for Eleanor's birthday and she was so excited to see the little pom poms still hanging up every morning until her birthday.


Next up was Akron's homecoming. We did some tailgating with Zippy and then went over to the football game. The weather was awesome and the girls had a great time!



Go Zips!





Next: Penelope got sick, then Eleanor got sick (so sick she didn't even want her ice cream cone).

Of course this happened while Andrew was out of town. My kids rarely get sick, but it seems like every time they do Andrew is out of town.

Next: Penelope's been brushing up on her math skills. (She gets it from her mama)


Next: I finally convinced Eleanor to wear pants. Even if it was just jammies, I consider it a huge victory. She has insisted on wearing just skirts (and was even reluctant to wear tights underneath). She says she's hot all the time and still won't wear long sleeve shirts or socks. She'll put on a jacket/hoodie when we go places but it comes off the minute we get inside. And sometimes she'll even pull it off in the car claiming she's too hot! After she got sick I told her she needed to wear pants to keep her legs warm and keep germs away, so I think she's slowly coming to terms with it.
On our way to the church for young women's...


Next: Enjoying the last few weeks we'll be able to play at the park. Let's hope the snow will stay away a little bit longer.


Next: Eleanor's birthday party, I think I'll post about that later. But here's a glimpse at all the girly bugs.


Next: We met up with Andrew for lunch on campus and discovered that he's famous. (This is a new mural they just put up on the wall when you walk into the business building)
Where's Waldo?



Next: Trunk or treat. I had to help with a game/booth and Andrew had class that night so I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of the girls. Eleanor was, of course, a princess and Penelope wore some skeleton jammies. I think it goes without saying that the girls loved all the sugar! At one point I noticed Penelope had a dum dum stuck in her hair and I found myself wondering, "how long has that been there?" haha It is so fun to watch them have fun!
(I stole this picture from my friend. These are Eleanor's buddies, Brenden and Kyleigh, who live down the street.)


Next: Law School Halloween Party. Just in case everyone didn't get enough sugar at Trunk or Treat, we headed over to the Law school for a fun little family Halloween party. You can't go wrong with a spacewalk (aka bounce house/jump house), cupcakes, candy, popcorn, pizza, cotton candy, games and prizes. Here's Penelope enjoying her cotton candy...

Taking a break with some cupcakes...


So that's how our October unfolded. And now it's November and that means my sister Laura is coming to visit tomorrow!! We are so excited!