Goodbye Tennessee!

I can't believe that we are packing up and heading back to Alabama! We have been in Harrogate, TN for the past two years for Justin to attend medical school. We are moving to Anniston, AL for Justin to complete his rotations during 3rd and 4th year. Words can not express how excited I am to be Alabama residents again and be in the same time zone as family! We will be 30 minutes away from
his mom and 2 hours from my family. Yay!!! That is soooo much better than the 5 hours away we are now from any family.
We moved to Harrogate in June of 2011 when Owen had just turned 2 and Grace Ann was just over 2 months old. Moving up here we had a lot of help from friends and family and I will never forget the morning after we got here when everyone else but our little family headed back down to Alabama. I remember standing in the living room in a big circle and holding hands while JR prayed for our family and the big transition that was taking place. God has been good to us here in Tennessee and has given us some amazing life long friends! I want to remember some of the highlights of living in the tiny town of Harrogate, TN and the crazy life of being married to a medical student. These two years have been tough at time, but they have mostly been good and they have gone by so quickly.



Here we are the week we moved up here. This picture was taken at the Pinnacle. It's this really neat overlook where you can stand in TN, VA, and KY at the same time!

Here is Justin standing in front of DCOM! We are so proud of him and all that he has accomplished in his first two years of school. He was elected president of the PM&R club during his 2nd year! But most importantly, he was still a great husband and daddy while studying like crazy! He is now 1/2 doctor! :)

We quickly made some new friends with kids around the same age as Owen and Grace Ann and started a weekly playgroup! We would meet at different houses and let the kids play and then would cook lunch for everyone including the daddys that would come home for lunch! This is one of our first playgroups! There were 4 mommys and 7 babies! Out of the 4 mommys in our playgroup, 3 of us are having another baby! Check out Grace Ann...typical.

We have made some wonderful friends who will be moving to Anniston with us! Yay!! They lived just down the street from us in Harrogate and will hopefully live close to us in Anniston. Owen and their little girl Natalie became friends immeditaley! We have spent many days playing at each other houses, eating meals together, going to the zoo together, watching each others kids while we are both far away from family, having Survivor nights....I could just go on and on!!

Harrogate has a wonderful park that we took advantage of as often as we could! We had many playdates and picnics at this park and ran many miles there!

Middelsboro Public Library has a wonderful story time for toddlers that met every Thursday during the school year. Ms. Cindy was WONDERFUL and always had many neat crafts and stories ready for us!

As soon as we moved up here we bought a membership to the Knoxville Zoo since it was only about an hour and a half away. We got some good use out of our membership, especially since our friends had a membership too!

I got an embroidery machine last year for Christmas and I was immediately hooked! I have had so much fun making shirts for the kids! I even opened a shop on Etsy last summer. My Etsy shop has kept me busy and has given me a responsibility other than mommy that I have really enjoyed! This is a picture of one of my first sales.

We got plugged into a really good church and Owen enjoyed going to Cubbies every Wednesday night! Grace Ann tried dance classes for a few months, but decided it was much more fun to hang on my leg than to dance. :)

In the winter months, we were able to enjoy several big snowfalls! As much as I like seeing the snow, I'm ready for Alabama winters again!!

During the summer and spring months, we loved having picnics on our nice front porch! This picture is from one of our first picnics!

Justin and Owen went to a few LMU basketball games while we were here! Owen had a blast going to the games because he always got a coke and a popcorn and stayed out way past his bedtime!

 Dressed and ready for church at Pump Springs Baptist. Owen loved going to Sunday School...Grace Ann, not so much.



 

Right before Christmas, Owen and Grace Ann had a BIG announcement!! Baby #3 is on it's way and will be here in less than 10 weeks!

Here's a picture of the kids the week we moved back to Alabama! :)

 

Etsy

I just shipped off my biggest Etsy order last week! A girl ordered 20 beach towels to pass out to her wedding party. I was a lot of fun working on such a big order and even more fun to mail it off! :) I've been having pretty good success with my little Etsy business lately! I opened my shop last summer and have had 70 orders total so far. 

 

Grace Ann is 2!!

 



How in the world is this little girl 2 years old?! We celebrated Grace Ann's birthday last week in Harrogate with friends and then with family in Huntsville!





 

Here she is with her birthday pancakes on the morning of her actual birthday.

 

We had a Paw-ty at the park during playgroup last Tuesday. The weather was wonderful and the kids had a good time!



These were the party favors we passed out to her friends. They were buckets and shovels with a bag of dog treats (graham crackers shaped like dog bones) attached to the side. :)

 

 

My friend Amber made these wonderful cake pops! They were a huge hit!

 

Grace Ann and her friend blowing bubbles.

 

In Huntsville we made these puppy cupcakes! I thought they turned out pretty cute!

 

Grace Ann and Madeline. Her mommy and I have been best friends for years!!

Sweet girl!

Here are some things I don't want to forget about Grace Ann at 2 years old

• She would be so happy if I would just sit and hold her ALL DAY LONG. She is definitely a cuddle bug!
• She still loves her ba and baba. (Her paci and pink bunny)
• She is a wonderful sleeper most of the time. Sometimes she wakes up and wants me to rock her in the middle of the night...and I do.
• Loves her baby dolls, and has to sleep with at least one every night
• Eats pancakes for breakfast every single morning with me and Owen.
• Loves music and loves to dance with daddy in the evenings after supper and baths
• Loves Owen and must do every thing he does
• She is obsessed with holes. Yep, holes.  I'm not sure why, but she likes to point out every single hole that she sees. She has even named the little step stool that my granddaddy made "hole" because it has a little hole in the middle of it. Ha!
• Not a big talker yet, but she is trying to talk more and more everyday. 

Easter Fun

We started celebrating Easter by going on an Easter egg hunt at the park! The city did a great job with the hunt and the kids had a blast! 

 

 

Owen was brave enough to visit the Easter bunny. His sister...not some brave. :)

 

 

This year Easter was at the end of Justin's spring break, so we headed to Alabama to visit family! The boys went fishing in Nonna's pond! I have a feeling they will be fishing a lot more in Nonna's pond the next two years!!



 

Grace Ann and Nonna

 

After Nonna's house, we headed to Mimi's and colored some Easter eggs!!

 



The Celebration

My mom and I had been planning a shopping trip to the outlets in Sieverville for several months and we decided to take the kids and make a fun weekend out of it! Last year, we had left the kids home with Justin and we met up to shop for a few hours. This year, we decided to stay at The Wilderness for a night and let the kids play in the water.  Owen had been looking forward to the trip for months and had even marked the date on our wall calendar as a "celebration".  He talked about this "celebration" almost every day leading up to it and was looking forward to staying in a hotel. The first night we stayed in a hotel that had an indoor pool and let the kids play in the pool that evening before going to Chick-fil-A and bringing it back to our room and having a picnic on the bed.  The next morning we got up and went shopping at the outlets! The kids were troppers and did great while we shopped for hours! They even took a nap at the same time in the double BOB while we finished our shopping! Next, we went to the Wilderness and enjoyed two days of the awesome indoor water park. The kids LOVED it!! Owen especially liked riding the "charlie" (trolly) to and from the water park.

One of the trips on the "charlie"

 

The younger kid area.

 

Grace Ann was a little unsure of everything at first (huge surprise!)

 

LOVING the swings in the water!

 

Mimi and Grace Ann

Mimi and Owen

 

Owen could have played in the water all day! :)



 

Owen went down the tube slide over and over again! He was so brave!!

Thank you Mimi for a WONDERFUL weekend!!

A visit to daddy's school

Last week the Pediatric Club and the OMT Club at Justin's school needed children to practice with and we had just what they needed! :) They fed us pizza and fruit before taking the kids into the OPP lab to practice some OPP techniques on them. Owen was all pumped up before we went in there saying that he was going to sit really still and let the students practice on him, but when we actually got into the lab he wasn't so sure.  He did warm up a little once we had been there a while. The kids always LOVE going to "daddy's school"! 

 

 Grace Ann being friendly with one of the doctors.

 I think we may have found some babysitters for the future!!