Hello Iowa!

We are officially moved into my parents' house (no big deal.. just five extra people in your house for a couple of months..)  ;)

We've caught up with cousins, friends, grandparents.  We've taken a trip to Chicago.  We looked at 20 houses. We found a house, made an offer, and now we have a contract.  We close July 28th.  Whirl.wind.  Now that the major hurdle of finding a house is done, we are hoping to enjoy our time in Iowa, see lots of old friends, soak up time with family, and just relax before life gets crazy again.

Charlie got to meet his big boy cousins!

Sister + Char Char sandwich

Claire Bear and Leemo had no trouble catching up

Emma and Nora 

Char Char meeting Molly

Sooo fun getting time with our besties

Fun at the farmers market

Making gummy bear popsicles with Grammy

The girls are doing a princess dance camp this week

 Looking forward to catching up with more friends and family in the coming weeks.  Feels good to be home.

Baby Shoe has a room!

We are finally starting to prepare for the fact that we'll be welcoming a fifth member of the family into our  home soon!  We finally had a name discussion on our way to Iowa a couple weeks ago and I think we've got our girl and boy names narrowed down.  It's hard coming up with two options that you absolutely love!  But, I think we're there.  We also finally cleared out the soon to be nursery that was filled with random stuff junk and got the furniture put together.  MAJOR props to Grammy, who was in town last week and whipped up some darling decor for the room.  We decided to do something different this time since we don't know the gender of Baby Shoe yet.  My mom created all of this with no patterns and pretty quickly, too.  Who votes for Grammy Rho starting up her own custom nursery business??








Everything turned out so cute and I am so excited about it!  Thanks Mom!!! Next step, fix the crib that was broken in our move a year and a half ago!  We haven't used it since we moved to Georgia but hopefully Justin can figure out a way to attach the side that broke off in the move.  I'm fairly confident he'll figure something out.  ;)

11 weeks and counting...

G & B

My parents were just in town for two weeks and all I have to show for it is these two pictures..







I definitely failed in the photo department!  Oops!  Despite my lack of photo evidence, we had a great time.  They rented a cute little house in the historic downtown area of our town for the first part of the trip.. we saw them everyday, got some date nights, and loved pretending we had local grandparents!  They got to do lots of fun stuff and discovered all kinds of cool history and restaurants in our town.  They stayed with us for the second half of their trip... but one day into that, my dad went for a run on our wooded trail and sprained his ankle!!  What a bummer!  So he was on crutches for the rest of the trip.

The girls love Grammy and Babu and we are so thankful that we get to see them fairly often on their visits to the south!

Picture Highlights

Here are a few more photo highlights of our time with Grammy...



                                                     We were so excited for our visitor!


                     Grammy is the girls' personal hairstylist when she's around!


                                           Cupcakes!










Justin was out of town for work for much of my mom's visit, so we had lots of girl time!                            



This Grammy-loving girl SOBBED for over an hour upon saying goodbye to Grammy.  I'm not gonna lie, I was in tears too... it was so sad seeing her so heartbroken.  *sigh*  Good thing Grammy AND Babu are coming back in June!  The countdown is on!

Thanks for taking the time to come and hang out with us, Mom!  We loved every minute of your visit!

Grammy's in town!

 



Dresses and hairdos by Grammy.  ;)



We heart Grammy.

What a week

We had a wonderful week with my parents!  What originally was planned to be a three-week stay in Georgia ended up being a one-week stay.  My Grandpa Lower went home to Jesus while my parents were here, so they immediately left for Chicago to be with family and help plan the funeral.  We made a last minute decision to drive up for the funeral, too.  More on that later...

We were disappointed that their visit was cut short but we so enjoyed the week they were here.  They have promised to return for a couple of weeks soon to make up for the time we lost.  You better believe we'll be holding them to that!

Here are some photos of the fun we had while they were here.

We had a couple of beautiful days while they were here and celebrated National Yogurt Day with some free frozen yogurt..  perfect!

I love this pic.  :)

Justin was really busy at work so wasn't able to get any days off during the week, but we had fun walking on the trail, playing at the park, and eating some good Southern BBQ on Saturday.











Claire and Emma enlisted Grammy and Babu in an intense game of Hi Ho Cherry-o!

Love their matching Valentine outfits from Grammy!

I just love that when my parents are around, the girls go straight to their room in the morning instead of ours. They come downstairs with outfits on and hairdos done.  My dishes magically are done.  The dishwasher magically gets emptied. And I really think the girls get it.  They get how special it is to have them with us.  Family is just awesome like that.  ;)

They're here!

We are hosting visitors this week and so far we're having a great time!  Grammy and Babu arrived yesterday and will be with us for awhile.  

The girls cheering Grammy and Babu on...they were just minutes away.  

Claire's eyes welled up with tears when they arrived.  Seriously!  Does her emotional & sensitive heart remind you of anyone?  ;)

The girls were requesting I take all kinds of pictures.  

Loving having this sweet time with grandparents in town!  

Dancing Queen

I promise I won't post ballet pictures after class every week, but I just cannot stand how cute it is!  And this week we got to have Grammy and Babu come with to see Claire in action.

Ready to go!

Waiting with Babu

Pointing toes!

Tippy toes!

Check out that form! ;)

Practicing her curtsy.

Hanging with Grammy!

Count Down!

The count down is officially on!  9 more days until Grammy and Babu get here!!!  We couldn't be more excited!  This is the longest the girls have ever gone in their lives without seeing them... let's just say it will definitely be one sweet reunion.

We made a paper chain that we'll take one link off of everyday until they get here.

Can't wait, Grammy & Babu!