Baby Reese is here!

A couple weeks before Reese was due we were able to hang out with Molly & Marshal before their family turned from 2 to 3!  They cooked a delicious dinner and we had the best time catching up with them!

Before we knew it, Reese Evelyn was born August 28th at 5:50pm weighing 6 lb 6 oz and 19 1/2 inches long!  We went over to their house a couple days after they came home from the hospital and loved getting to hold her and hear how their hospital stay was.  So many of our family and friends had been joining us in prayer for M&M over the last 2 years and we can't thank you enough!

Emery is SUCH a little mom already-- wanted to hand Reese every toy she had just in case she wanted it :)

So unbelievably happy for Molly and Marshal!  Love you already sweet Reese!

Fun with the refrigerator box!

If you've visited our house at all, you know we have the box that our refrigerator came in up in our playroom.  It rotates being on it's side with windows or being upright with a door for Emery to play inside.  We recently obtained couches from both sides of our family so out went the refrigerator box and in the bonus room went a couch (YEAH for having real seating in there now!)  On it's way out though we totally had a great time turning it into a slide on our front steps.... and I'll let the following videos show you how much fun it was :)

Deck overhaul!

YEAH we are so glad that this deck project is DONE! It was on our list since day one of moving in and we are looking forward to enjoying some time on the deck this fall.  So let me start from the beginning...

Every time it rained I could smell the deck from INSIDE our house.  There was mold & mildew growing underneath the stain on the boards on our deck.  When we borrowed my parents power washer to do the house Kyle also power washed our deck... and you can see how easily the stain washed away.

The next step was to remove all the handrails since they were so old and warped.

And then replace with new boards Kyle cut (thank you Cory for lending us your chop saw!)

So here are a couple before shots:

 

Next step was waiting for all the wood to dry out and find a time where it wasn't going to rain for 3 days straight --- which is impossible in the summer!  We decided to go with the BEHR Deck Over paint which is AMAZING-- totally gives old wood a new smoother texture filling in the cracks while giving it an overall color of your choice.  The only time that we could find to dedicate hours to this project was at night.  So yes we were those weird neighbors painting our deck from 8-10 two nights in a row.  Kyle also spent about 4 hours doing a coat on the outer railing Saturday afternoon while Emery and I played.

Even though it was a huge project, it was totally worth it!  Here are a picture couple collages of the before and after:

And here are some final after shots of how the deck looks currently with our furniture on it.  SO happy with the outcome!

New Roof!

A couple weeks ago, our realtor called us saying that Huntersville had a bad hail & rain storm one weekend that we were out of town.  She knew we were in dire need of a new roof and give us the number of a roofer she trusts.  After he assessed our roof we quickly bumped up to first on his list as we had 3 rows of missing shingles and a ton of hail damage (some of which was definitely from years past but some recent as well).  Our insurance thankfully approved it so quickly and before we knew it, we had workers on our roof scraping and hammering away.

After all the scraping of old shingles was done:

 
Emery and I spent most of our time outside of the house since it was so loud.  Inside mall playgrounds here we come!  She did take a nap one day in the house while they were working-- and was actually able to fall asleep with me holding a blanket up to her outside ear :)

They were at our house 2 full days (7 am to 8 pm).  First day getting the shingles scraped and tar paper put down on the front.  And then the second doing it all on the back.

Kept such a clean work space too:

They were at our house 2 full days (7 am to 8 pm) and before we knew it, they were all done!  We went with a darker shingle and we are so happy with it.  I'll have to try to get a better "after" photo with my real camera one of these days.  Very excited to have a new roof with no leaks-- moving up our home value little by little!

Fixing the pond... part 1

Oh the pond has been giving us constant trouble lately, so this can be phase 1 of a post :)  We noticed our pond in the backyard all of a sudden started leaking so we devoted a whole weekend to "save it".  We hadn't even touched it since we moved in, and lets just say it was not in good shape.  So the first step was to scoop out all of our fish and put them into totes for safe keeping... turns out we have around 30 fish (9 big ones).

 It was very entertaining to watch Kyle scoop them all out... Emery and Tyson loved watching:

We then drained the rest of the water that hadn't leaked out yet and then scrubbed the sides of the liner to get the mold and dirt off of it.  Kyle then took his wet dry vac and sucked up the sludge on the bottom and the remaining water.  We then patched the small hole that we found (BUT it is still leaking so there must be another one somewhere).

 We then bought rocks from Home Depot and lined the bottom with them.  They help hold down the dirt that settles at the bottom, essentially helping the water not get so gross.

 Talking about gross water, this is where we kept the fish... look at that nasty green!

 The next item on our list was getting the waterfall working!  We had seen an external power source running to the pond so we figured there had to be a waterfall feature and we were right!  After searching for hours we finally found the electrical box covered up by ivy, plugged it in and we had a working waterfall!

 Here's a picture of some of our fish... we can actually see them now!  And I will say we had NO fish casualties in the cleaning process!

 What a difference!!

 And lastly here is a before and after... definitely rewarding to see the difference!

 

So like I said the pond is still leaking so we haven't filled it up all the way until we figure out if we have to completely replace the liner or what.  Baby steps!

Ashley turns 30!

A couple weeks ago, Ashley had her 30th birthday dinner during the White Water Center's River Jam that they have every Thursday and Saturday during the summer.  We had perfect weather and enjoyed eating a delicious dinner with everyone while listening to the live music.

 
Happy Birthday, Ashley!  So thankful we live close to each other again!

Free bowling!

Over the summer various bowling alleys offer free bowling for kids (kidsbowlfree.com) so we had to try it out before the summer was over!  We met my cousin, Sarah, and her kiddos at a bowling alley uptown and had such a great time introducing all the kids to the concept of bowling.  The lightest ball they have is 6 pounds, but unbelievably all the kids could carry it with a little help getting it up on the high ramp!  You do have to pay for shoe rentals, but bowling shoes that small are actually cute ha!

Emery and Jaxon:

Addyson and Emery:

 Fun times with family! Thank you Sara T. for tipping us off to this!