We didn’t want to move into an apartment and we dreaded the thought of having to show the house all the time, so on a crazy whim we put in an offer. We haven’t decided yet if we’ll sell it right away or keep it as a rental like we did with the Beaufort house.

I know I gave somewhat of a tour when we first moved in, but here it is slightly cleaner and without boxes and pantyliners all over the place:

It’s your typical older home on the island. It was built in the late 70′s. With the exception of those bushes, the property is beautiful. The house, on the other hand, needs a serious makeover. 

This is the dining room. Technically it’s more of a breakfast nook area, but we don’t use the dining room as a dining room. Kenzie is the worst photo bomber. 

Here’s another view of the dining room. I can’t figure out why they didn’t install a third window. It’s always annoyed me. It looks off centered from the inside and the outside. The dining table was left by the landlord. It’s ugly, but fits perfectly in the space. We’ll give it a little makeover, too. 

This is the view from the entry to the dining room and on to the kitchen. That door on the left is a walk in pantry. The door beside the stove leads in to the laundry room.

The appliances will all have to go. The racks in the dishwasher are broken and rusted. I consider getting a tetanus booster every time I wash dishes. 

WHY is there a fan in the kitchen? Seriously? That’s so gross. Fans get dusty and even if you use a swiffer you’re still going to have bits of dust flying about. And the countertops? I can’t even talk about them without seeing red. 

The kitchen is kind of a wide galley style. It’s spacious, but useless. There’s no room for anything. Is that an oxymoron? Spacious with no room? 

Here’s a view from the other direction. 

The kitchen exits into what should be the dining room. As you can see my beast of a treadmill takes up all that space. I have no idea what to replace that boobie light with so if you have any suggestions feel free to share.

The fireplace is terrible. Rather than removing the existing tile, the owner added another piece of backer board to the floor and tiled on top. It’s warped and cracked and ugly. And the tiles on the surround were just glued on. They’re loose and wiggle. (Also, I know the picture is off center, but didn’t want to put any nails in the walls so I just used the one that was there.) 

Here. Enjoy this cuteness while your eyeballs rest from all the ugly this house tour is throwing at you. 

Living room complete with a tiny TV. I can’t justify getting a new one, because we don’t really use this one.

On the left is a view from the living room to the entry. That door is an eyesore. On the right is the hall towards the entry/closet. That shelf is a junk/catchall area.

This is the boys’ bathroom. So much to do. The medicine cabinet is awful and rusty and that caulking will NOT come clean, so we’ll need to cut that out. We’ve got lots to do ya’ll. 

This is the boys’ room.

This is the office nook. I’m not really sure what it’s intended purpose is, but that’s what we use it for. These pictures are being far too kind to this wall color. It’s really ugly in person.  

I call this stack in the corner the leaning tower of Eames. We’ve had the red LCW out in the living room forever, but the other two have lived in their boxes the past 5 years. Those doors are for the beach house and they are incredibly heavy. Brad and I can hardly lift them together which is why I didn’t bother to move them out of the picture. I think Kenzie makes the shot. She makes any room look better.  :)

This is the master bath and the end of the tour. Thank you for coming. Enjoy the rest of your stay.

It starts with an r and rhymes with schmemodeling. 

Oh boy…

P.S. House tour tomorrow. 

P.P.S. Sorry our announcement wasn’t baby related. We got a few texts asking what’s up. Still not pregnant.

This was our first year to dye Easter Eggs. Memphis crushed most of them within a few minutes reminding us why we’ve never bothered to try it before. Oh well, it was still fun and no cups of dye were spilled in the process so it was a success in my book. By the way, brown eggs dye the prettiest. The colors (while they lasted) were gorgeous.

“Can we hunt Easter eggs today?” was the question asked at least 10x a day during the three weeks prior to Easter. I just love how much excitement the boys have been for holidays and birthdays. Ezra’s already asking how many days until his next birthday! (It was two months ago. Two posts ago in blog time… shameful I know.) 

Remember the fun little project a alluded to last week? I’m putting together the announcement now. Stay tuned!

Hello? Is anyone still here? I was just trying to set a record for the longest blog break ever.  

Okay, not really. Just the usual. Life. Busy. Yada yada. 

★★★

Did you have a good Easter? We did! I’ll attempt to get some pictures up shortly for the grandfolk (and anyone else who thinks little boys in bow ties are just about the cutest things ever). 

★★★

We may have a fun little project coming up soon. Details to come.

★★★

I’ve scored some fun deals on a few art prints lately like this one:

For just $5, Neenah Paper will match your donation and send you this lovely print designed by Jennifer James of Two Paper Dolls. 100% of proceeds go directly to Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum to help offset the cost of their move ($250k – ouch!) I’d been eyeing the Hamilton Square print by Dan Elliot, but it sold out before I could pull the trigger.

Go forth and get one.

Images via Jen James

Am I ever going to miss a birthday post? Probably not.

Am I ever going to give up my lame cake decorating attempts? Probably  not.

We managed to keep the bike a surprise despite all the close calls. Ezra even saw the bike box in the car, but Brad told him it was just garbage we needed to drop off for recycling. After the party when Brad was putting his helmet on the lightbulb went off: “Hey that box wasn’t garbage. That was from my bike!”

Love that boy.

Check out his reaction. He’s so cute. 

IT REALLY SUCKS!!!

I’m sure I could leave it at that and get a resounding AMEN from girls everywhere who deal with the struggle that is infertility, but since I brought the topic up I may as well run with it.

The thing about infertility is it’s not always easy to spot. Just because a couple has one or two kids doesn’t mean they don’t struggle with it. We do. Me specifically. 

In case you’ve never read my blog before {hi there!}, I have two beautiful little boys. Both a blessing. Both an answer to prayer. And both a BIG surprise.

I knew going into this that I would have trouble conceiving if I was even able to at all. You see, I have amenorrhea, which means that I don’t have periods. Nice for everyday life, but it makes having babies a real challenge.

[Side note: I'd like to go back in time and punch the scientist that named the condition. Could he - and I can promise you it was a guy - not have named it something else?? Perhaps something that, oh, I don't know, DOESN"T SOUND LIKE AN STD???] 

At 20, my OBGYN told me to come see her right away when we decided to start our family. Most girls under 35 should try for a year before seeking help, but she knew we’d have fertility issues and was basically like “Don’t waste your time. See me first.” When we felt we were ready, I headed straight for her office. Lots of tests. Lots of fertility meds. No baby. No answers. IVF wasn’t covered by insurance and the cost kept it from being an option. After nearly 3 years of trying, we decided to go the adoption route. Shortly after filling out the paperwork it happened: morning sickness from H.E.DOUBLEHOCKEYSTICKS. I burst into tears when the test read positive. So did Brad. I promptly took 10 more tests. It looked something like this scene from Scrubs: 

After Ezra was born, I naïvely thought that somehow I was fixed – that the floodgates of babymaking were opened and I could have another one whenever I wanted. WRONG! After a year of trying panic set in. I wanted our kids to be close in age. Ezra was 2 and there was no baby on the horizon. Eek! So I called and arranged our home study for the adoption and scheduled an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist in Savannah. A week before the appointment we found out we were pregnant. Go figure.

Here we are now. We’ve been trying for over a year and a half. Fertility meds haven’t worked and I’m sitting here feeling a little sad, anxious and disappointed. Even if I get pregnant tomorrow there will be a near three year space between Memphis and the next one and an almost 6 year gap with Ezra. I’m envious of girls like Grace that are able to have them back to back. Three under 3? Sign me up!

Maybe it’s because I want one so bad, but it feels like everyone is having babies. Several of my friends at church are expecting and every time I get on Facebook  or frequent blogs there are more announcements. I feel like we’ve tried so long that friends have announced they were pregnant, had a baby, and announced they’re pregnant again. At one point I could swear that the vast majority of my female facebook friends were pregnant.

My sister is pregnant, too. She waited forever to tell me for fear of upsetting me. I couldn’t be happier for her. Or any of my friends for that matter. And I say that with complete and utter sincerity. I love babies so finding out someone else is expecting is the next best thing to finding out I’m pregnant. That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard, though. I choked back tears through the phone call with my sister. (Erin, please don’t feel bad. I hope you pop out at least 10 more kids. Okay, I’ll settle for 3.) 

Some [rude/obnoxious/judgmental] people might  say “Hey, two’s plenty. Be happy with what you’ve got.” I don’t care. I want another one of these:

How can you not melt into a gooey sappy mess when you see a face like this? ♥♥♥

I haven’t shared my instagrams in a while so I’ve saved up quite a bunch. Here’s a few from December or thereabouts:

1. My new vase plant      2. The leaves here wait for Christmas to turn red      3. All up in Kenzie’s grill

4. Fell asleep on mommy’s lap… again      5. Sugar, I wish I could quit you!      6. My 1st attempt at a juice cleanse

7. Port Royal Sound      8. Dolphin Head at sundown      9. Aloe vera (not dead yet – yippee!) 

10. Ready for Christmas morning      11. Sunbathing     12. Gator besties

13. Cruisin’      14. The cool      15. Elusive pillows

Are you on Instagram? Follow along here.

I can’t go to Dolphin Head without taking a gazillion photos with the iphone. It annoys Brad to no end.

I finally talked the boys into a walk over the weekend. I sort of snuck it in – putting on their clothes and shoes when they weren’t paying attention, then springing it on them last second. Worked like a charm. We used to go on a daily 4 mile jaunt, but Ezra got burnt out. I suppose that is a long way on a tricycle. So we’ve been taking a break the past few months and it’s, um, showing. Let’s just say I’ve added a little extra padding to help keep me warm during these long winter months. I started another cleansing juice fast and I’m proud to say I stuck with it for two whole days before Brad said those three magic words: Original Pancake House. I just can’t say no to Hawaiian Pancakes and I figured I just walked at least half of the calories off. Plus, I felt it had been long enough since “the incident” that we could show our faces again. Maybe I’ll share that story sometime. Maybe tomorrow? Beautiful weather, gorgeous scenery and Hawaiian Pancakes. It was a nice weekend. 

“I go! Look, Mommy, I go!”

We celebrated Memphis’s 2nd birthday last week with a glow in the dark party. Hopefully it made up for last years cake blobs ball failure. I ordered a black light for one of his gifts (for sensory play) and decided to make a theme out of it. Not as much glowed as I had hoped (like the cake or my striped shirt which magically showed 100% of my bra), but the boys still thought it was the coolest thing EVER. 

P.S. I don’t apologize for the one million pics. I’m his mother. Indulge me.

P.P.S. I left the black light on the whole time so the pictures with the lights on had this funky cross processed look to them (hence the black and white).

Crossing his fingers that the cake makes it all the way to his mouth.

Mmm… that was good. I need a bigger piece. 

I love that sweet little face of his. This boy makes me so happy. 

Here is a time-lapse video for the Grands to enjoy of him blowing out his candles. I would have done an animated gif, but there were like 20 something pictures and the file was humongous. Press play and bask in the cuteness.