Gentry's Farm

We headed to Gentry's farm after Weston got off work Saturday morning to pick out our pumpkins and enjoy all the fun for Hannah to do there.  Hannah lasted about 5 minutes in the stroller, and then she wanted out to explore.

Hannah loved the cornhole game.  We'll have to get our set out more often to play.

Hannah loved throwing pebbles through the fence and watching the sheep as we waited for our tractor ride.

The line cut off right at us when loading up, but it meant we were first in line for the best seat on the next tractor that came.   We were pulled through the cow pastures where Hannah sat so still and blew kisses to the cows.  Then we went by a couple of the family homes.  One was a log cabin built in the early 1800's. The other home was a brick home which the construction was halted during start of the war and then completed after.

Hannah really loves the animals.  The cows and chickens were probably the highlight of the whole day for her.  She propped herself on the fence like this and just watched those chickens so intently.

We checked out the mini tractors on the way to pick out our pumpkins.

Hannah pulled as many tractors as she could carry around with her.  If she had another hand, there would be another tractor.

Not the best picture, but we have to show our pumpkin treasures.

It was a fun family day.  Tonight I'm headed to a pumpkin carving party, and Weston is keeping Hannah and watching the football game.  We've got a tough game ahead tonight against Ole Miss.  Still always good to be a Tennessee Vol.

Upstairs Before and a Downstairs Update

We haven't posted much on here with the house mostly because we're constantly working on it in our free time.  But it is long past time I share the upstairs, and I have a few update pictures of our dining room and living room.  Our family room that is off the kitchen has had a few updates as well, but with a husband taking a post call nap on the couch and toys on the floor, I'll wait to take those pictures.

When we moved in to this house, we chose a room for Hannah that had pretty double windows and a paint color similar to the paint in her first nursery.  After digging through the old paint under the house, we came to realize it was the exact same color of paint we had chosen for her old room, BM Revere Pewter.  Talk about fate.

Her room is much larger than her first nursery, so there are some changes we'll make to her room.  Most definitely we'll get her a bigger rug that fits her room, and we'll hang a few more things on the walls.  I haven't decided whether to order more fabric to make two more panels in here.  And I would love one day to take down the tiny chair rail.

This side of the room needs a little more to me.  I'm just not quite sure what it will be.

This next room is our guest room.  It has a full attached bath to it.  So we thought it would be nice for any visitors.  Come see us friends!  It was a little girl's room with the previous owners, but obviously for a guest room we want something different than the purple.  This weekend I painted all of the trim in here, and Weston removed the tiny chair rail.  It was glued on really good, so we've had fun spackling around the room.  We'll paint it a nice neutral once we get all the wall repairs done.

Here is the attached bath.  We'll probably paint in here as well.  I would love to one day replace the sink with a cabinet type sink, and find a different window treatment for in here.

Weston and I think these built ins are really cool in the bathroom.  I could decorate it up really cute with towels and soaps.

We have one more bedroom upstairs that is just storing a few things for us that we either need to put in the attic or donate.  We'll make some lighting and paint updates in here one day.  This may be a future baby room or hobby room.

Across the hall from this room is our wonderful bonus room.  Which it really just houses a few of Hannah's toys at the moment.  Weston will tell you that this is going to be his man room, but I think it's going to be man room and play room.

And last room upstairs is the kid bathroom.  Other than brushing her teeth, we haven't really used this bathroom yet.  I think this will change pretty soon.  I want to do a deep clean of the tub first and a new shower curtain.  We love the double sinks and the separate water closet.  We'll paint both the walls and trim in here too.

The closed door is to a small linen closet.

See what I mean about trim painting?   And a lot of the upstairs seems more creamy yellow than the trim paint in other parts of the house.  So while I grumble everytime I tackle painting another room's trim.  It will be nice for it to all be cohesive.

Ok, so I want to share a few things that we've been doing to the downstairs.  This post is already really long, but I want to show them quickly.  I'll go into more detail and have source lists where I found everything once the rooms get more finished.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

 

The dining room walls used to be textured.  We skim coated the walls and then painted them a navy.  We want to add faux wainscoting to the bottom which is why we painted the bottom half white in the dining room.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

We still have a lot to do in the dining room like make the curtain panels, wainscoting, and add some art.  But we've worked a lot in this room to get it ready for the holidays.  Not the best picture below, but this is our new sectional for the living room.

And last but not least Hannah's playset has been refinished.  It was pretty dirty and unsealed when we moved here.  You can see how much dirt came off with just a little water and a scrub brush.  

The picture below was after most of the top half and ladder had been cleaned.

We also got rid of the sandbox down below and added a full deck on the first floor.  And on the left side of the tunnel, we added some vertical boards so that Hannah can't go down the really steep and tall ladder.  She loves to crawl through the tunnel, and now we don't have a heart attack that she is going to fall when she gets to the other side.  Then we stained it all a medium chestnut color.  Hannah loves it, and it's a lot safer for her to enjoy.  Just in time for winter, eh?  :)  In truth, this has been finished for awhile, but I'll miss the warm days out here....not the mosquitos though.

AFTER

Thanks for checking out what all we've done so far and the upstairs to our house.  I know this post got really long, but I thought if I don't sit down and get this on the blog now it'll wait even longer.

Beach Pics and a Ribbon Cutting!

So I posted last with some shots of Hannah I took one night at the beach back here.  And for memory's sake, I want to document our trip.

We decided to break up the trip and stop in Montgomery on the way down.  Hannah was just getting over a really bad cold and gave us a pretty sleepless night in the hotel traveling down.  It brought us back to her newborn days.  How quickly you forget those exhausting nights.  Thankfully she slept great the rest of the trip in her crib we rented at the beach.  Here she is enjoying a luggage cart ride.

Weston's parents, Mike and Debbie, and his brother, Travis, met us in Montgomery the next day, and we headed to our condo.  Here's our beautiful room that had a huge closet where we put Hannah's crib and changing table area.

We were on the ground floor, and here is our view on our patio with beach access to the left.

And here's another view so you can see how convenient everything was.  To the left was our patio, and the pool is the white gate just beyond the patio.  The showers and beach access are there on the right.  Hannah loved walking around the patio and grass.

Our first day we ate a quick dinner in Seaside at the food trucks so we could get back and enjoy the beach before sunset.

It had been about 6 months since Hannah had last seen the sand and gulf.  She was a little unsure walking out, but she adjusted quickly and loved chasing the birds on the beach.  There's Weston's parents in the background below.

The water was as warm as bath water which was great for Hannah.

 

Here's Weston and Debbie our first night there.

The next day was Weston's birthday!  He turned the big 3-1!  We were also celebrating the fact that he passed his anesthesia boards!  He had just gotten word a couple days before we left that he passed.  So there was lots to celebrate this trip.

 

Hannah loves her Uncle Travis!  They're reading before bedtime with her favorite stuffed giraffe.

 

Hanging out with Pops and Uncle T.

 Our third night we headed into Destin for dinner and putt putt.

Hannah had fun putting the balls in the cup and making her parents chase after her.

Having the pool right next to our condo was really nice!  We just brought the monitor out by the pool during nap time and hung out.  Not a shabby way to spend an afternoon.

Mike cooked us a delicious low country boil, and we ate it right out on our patio one night.

We loved borrowing our friend's tailgating tent for nice shade on the beach.  And this little blow up baby pool was a lot of fun for Hannah to play in the water without worrying about the waves pulling her under.

Love this photo of these three!

For Weston's birthday present, we sent him out deep sea fishing with his dad and brother.

They caught quite a bit of red snapper that day.

After deep sea fishing and dinner, we went out on the beach to catch our last sunset.

A very sweet woman offered to take a family picture for us.  We ended up with this gem of Hannah.  I think it has real Christmas card photo potential. :)

So thankful for my little family.

We were sad to leave such a relaxing and beautiful vacation.  Sweet sleeps on the way home. 

We ended up driving straight through in one day on our way home, and we were able to attend our friend's ribbon cutting ceremony for his law firm the next morning!  I am so proud of Jenny and Jakob.  Jakob finished law school last year.  He went out on his own practicing law in January in the rural county southwest of us where his family is from and Jakob's uncle previously practiced law before passing away.  Already he has had huge success growing professionally, and Jenny has been by his side supporting him the whole way.

We were able to get there before a lot of the folks arrived to get a tour of the office that Jakob renovated and take pictures.

Here are Jenny and Jakob talking with the local mayor.

And the proud grandma's took good care of Avery during the open house.  Avery was the real star of this show.

Weston and I had a really fun time witnessing our friends reach such a milestone in their life.  We couldn't be happier for them!