New House Pics!

So I finally got around to taking pictures of our new house and posting on the family website. There were 76 of them, so I won't post them all here, but I will share with you the two projects we (Jim) finished recently which are the girls' rooms!

The entire house pretty much needs painted to get rid of the disgusting eggshell the previous owners thought would be a good idea to paint it before selling, so we focused on the girls' rooms first. Ava got pink because it's her absolute favorite color. Baby Vaca got yellow so that if we adopt a boy down the road we don't have to repaint it :)

I love both of their rooms. Jim did an awesome job on both of their accent walls. I think he even impressed himself with his handywork. Ava got beadboard with a nice sturdy shelf at the top which I have yet to fill/decorate with everything I want. Her entire bedroom suite was found on Craig's List. Only the tall lamp and shade were bought new. Gotta love a savvy mom!

The baby's room has a really cool paneled-look accent wall that Jim did too. Our good friends the Moores did this in their baby's room and we basically copied it. Josh helped us a lot with the do's/don'ts of the project and made a few trips over to the house to provide advice as Jim navigated the puzzle. It turned out really well I must say! We reused all of Ava's baby furniture, and my splurge was the new pink dresser you see to the left of the window. I got it for like 65% off catalog price, so that was great too. All of her bedding I found on Craig's List. Can you tell I'm an addict?

Next projects will include painting the girls' bathroom, the guest bedroom, and the family room and kitchen downstairs. Maternity leave will be fun!

Snow Day!

So this is what a snow day looks like in Charlotte. We got a whopping 2" overnight and it's still snowing this morning! It happens literally once every two years, and the entire city shuts down like it's the "Blizzard of the Century". It's really quite comical for all we northerners.

Anyway, I'm more than happy to have an excuse to take the day off (all schools and daycares are closed) so we're going to enjoy it. We've already been outside for Round 1 in the snow. Ava wanted to make a snowman, but it's too fluffy. We walked all around the park across the street from us, said hello to the bear and lion statues, then came back inside for breakfast. Fun day ahead!

Ava in the park in front of our house


Smile!




The dogs wanting to come out and play!


This is the view from our sidewalk.


Ava saying "hi" to Mocha and Bogey upon return.


Ava running home for Cheerios!

Here are some pictures from our "Round 2" in the snow at the kids' park. We spent our time swinging and then making and throwing snowballs which Ava loved!

January Fun

Ok, so I've been slacking in the blog department. We haven't been too busy, but have been active. Mostly, we've been preparing for baby. Her nursery is finally done. I still need to take pictures and post. Ava's room is next; we already painted it, but are now adding beadboard and shelving to the big wall. Always a project going on at the Vaca house...

As you can see from the pictures, Ava is a full fledged kiddo these days. She loves to play, jump, read, and sing. We took her to Monkey Joe's for the first time (a jumpy/bouncy indoor park) and she LOVED it. Jim got to go through some of the bigger bouncies with her which she adored. These pics are from the "under 3 feet tall" only bouncies though. She loves to bounce. We should have named her Tigger.

She's also loving dressing up as always. The last two Sundays I had to take her picture she was so darn cute. The first turned into a full-on photo shoot. I busted out my backgrounds and everything! I'm sure some of you will get print versions of these sooner or later.

On other fronts, Baby Vaca continues to do well. We are 3.5 weeks from her due date now. No signs of any complications or anything, so that is good. We're taking Ava on a tour of the maternity wing next week so she can understand what's going on when we go again in a few weeks. That should be fun. I think she'll really enjoy seeing all the babies!