Graduation and Moving and Renovations....Oh My!!!!

Well, I am FINALLY getting some time to try to catch up on our blog!! Life has been crazy! We have been going back and forth between Texas and Memphis for almost two months now and it feels wonderful to finally be getting settled into our home in Memphis. We started renovations on the house back at the beginning on May and it is amazing the transformation the house has made. The floors are now refinished and our beautiful, Scott finished the kid's bathroom renovation, I painted the kitchen, dining room, our room, kid's room and guest room. Scott is in the process of our Master bathroom right now and it has been a HUGE project for him..He tore down the bathroom to the studs, which took him almost two days!! The house is 60years old so the walls in the bathroom weren't just a cement board like what you would use today, they were actually wire mesh with concrete poured into them!! I kid you not, they were the HEAVIEST things ever. I couldn't pick up a piece much bigger than a textbook by myself so poor Scott had to move the majority by himself. It took us over an hour to get it to the curb from the side of our house on trash day!! then they didn't even pick it up so we had to load it into the car to take to the dump. :( We have had to do a lot of scrubbing to get the floors really clean and I even have planted some flowers in our Planter boxes out front.

It really feels like home here. We miss our family and friends a ton, of course, but we are really liking it here. It's so fa,ily-oriented everywhere we go. At the park we go to by the house, there are always several families having bbq's with their own grill they bring up there. Not just 5 or 6 family members either...more like 20-30!! There are so many delicious places to eat here, it's bonkers!! Our neighbors actually own 2 of the well-known restaurants in our area and we look forward to trying them out!! Speaking of our neighbors, when we got back to the house from Dallas and Scott's graduation they had mowed our lawn for us just to be nice!! Our neighbors across the street gave us 15lb of a bacon for a house-warming gift!! My kind of neighbor!! (he's a food-distributor)

Besides working on the house, we have gotten to enjoy alot that Memphis has to offer. We went to the zoo last week and it was SO MUCH FUN. It was such a huge zoo!! The animals were beautiful!! They even had Panda bears :) We went to a Baseball game downtown and they had the most amazing pulled-pork bbq nachos (are we seeing a trend here...I keep rtalking about food!!) They had fireworks after the baseball game and the kids had fun playing with some other kids during the game. We, of course, have been to the Children's Museum a couple of times since we have been here, always a favorite with the kids. I started work about 2 weeks ago, I'm just in hospital orientation so I'm sitting at a desk ALL DAY learning policies and procedures of the hospital. We get an hour for lunch, so Scott has met me every day with the kids and we have lunch together at the park so the kids can play and we can all have a picnic together. Tomorrow is my last day of orientation and I'm so excited to be back in Labor and Delivery next week!!!!

Enough talking, here are pics of our lives over the month. Enjoy!!! When we went back to Dallas for Scott's graduation we stayed at Nj's house a few nights, which of course the kids loved. One night Mel was outside watering teh flowers and Jackson ran through the hose out of nowhere!! This turned into a major water fight...we got some of the cutest pics. Thanks Aunt Mel!!

Both the kids drinking from the hose :)

Do you like Jackson's face???

They were having the best time

I know I have said it alot over the last year, but I am SO proud of Scott and how hard he has worked at his education. He not only got into Dental School while working full-time at Costco and in the National Guard to support our family while I was in Nursing School, he has been an amazing husband and father to our children at the same time. After I had Leah, I went to work on the weekends and Scott took care of the kids all by himself while I was at work. I never had to worry about them when he was with them. They adore their time with Daddy, and I think their bond with him is so strong from me working on the weekends. He worked so hard at Dental School as well. Their wer 9 people in his class that applied to Pediatric Residencies all aorund the nation, of the 9 who applied only 2 got in somewhere and he was one of them!! He was the only one of the 9 to get an award the night before his graduation for his outstanding promise in the field of pediatric dentistry!! Sorry to brag, but he deserves it!! I love you, Scott!! Way to go!! This is a picture of him at the awards ceremony

Scott and his Mom at the awards ceremony

Scott and I

Scott's Graduation!!! We dreamed of this day!!

His graduation was at the Meyerson in downtown Dallas, it was really pretty!! We hasd to sit pretty high up, but the kids were so excited to see their Daddy!! They just waved and yelled down at him with huge smiles on their faces!! it was precious!

Scott's brother Jeff is a Dentist and graduated from Baylor 6 years ago, so he got to "hood" Scott at the graduation ceremony, it was really neat for the both of them. Look really closely and you can see them on the bottom left of the stage

Scott walking up on stage

Scott and his parents

Our family

My parents with Scott and I

My mom, Nj holding Leah, Stephanie, Me, Dr. Ludlow, Jackson and my dad

Jeff, Mark, Lisa (33weeks pregnant with baby Luke), me with Leah, Scott, Grandma, Grandpa and Rob

Scott and Jeff in their Graduation Garb....the purple is so sexy :)

Dr. and Mrs. Ludlow (hahaha)

One night when we were back in Memphis, Leah insisted on dressing like "Pinky" her favorite stuffed Pig...tutu and all!! It was really cute

Jackson with the bug at the Children's Museum...he loved him, but Leah would start screaming and running whenever she saw him

The hissing Cockroach that one the "cockroach race" at the musuem...so gross

They had a "Bug Chef" at the museum and he made cricket beignets (for those of you who don't know, beignets are like doughnuts rolled in powdered sugar). Jackson and Scott both ate them with crickets inside!! Yuck!! Leah and I would have none of it! Needless to say, Scott didn't get a kiss until he brushed his teeth.

Leah trying to do the "Piggy Face" her Mamaw taught her.

These next pictures are from the Memphis Zoo, it was such a fun day.

My favorite part was the Gorillas!!

Panda bear taking a nap

This hippo could benefit from a Treadmill

Cheetahs!

I liked this guy, a Meerkat

A Panther...out high school mascot!! Go Plano East!

Now onto our house renovations. This is our trash after tearing down our bathroom. Notice how THICK the walls are. Yeah!! All those boxes are filled with pieces of our walls

That's a lot of trash!

Jackson helping me clean the grout, look closely at the spots where we hadn't cleaned yet...they were BLACK, so gross! Jackson was such a good helper, he even wore gloves

We finally have walls up in our shower!! Yay!!! ( sorry these are out of order)

The 2x4's that Scott replaced in our shower since the old ones were ROTTEN from water leaking. This is in the shower before the walls were up.

Tearing down of the walls in the bathroom

Scott's beautiful tile work in the Kid's bathroom. He's so handy!! This was the bathroom that was previously pink and blue...shower, toilet, walls...you name it, it was PINK AND BLUE

Jackson took a pic of Leah and I

The kids being silly

That's it!! Our lives the past month!! It has been exhausting, exciting and emotional adjusting to our new lives here, but I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else but our wonderful family!! More posts to come!! Love you all!!

Easter with Shamu!!!

The week before Easter the kids had an Easter Program at school that the parent's were invited to. Being the amazingly organized mother I am, I purchased their plastic Easter eggs for the easter egg hunt the week before since I worked on Monday and I knew the easter egg hunt was on Tuesday and the program for parent's was on Thursday....or so I thought. At work on Monday at about 5pm I got an e-mail from Jackson's teacher reminding the parents to dress the kids in their Easter clothes for the program THE NEXT DAY!!! I hadn't even gotten them clothes yet, I thougt it was good I got the eggs ahead of time!! I got off owrk at about 7:15 and made an emergency run to one of my favorite places, TARGET!! I ended up finding them some pretty cute clothes, so I was happy....Thank you Mrs. Freeman for the reminder :)


The kids Program was ADORABLE! I am turning into such a mushy mommy, when the kids started walking out and the music was playing, I got all choked up when I saw Jackson. He looked like such a big boy, you could see him scanning the parent's looking for me and when he saw me, this HUGE smile came out! He is growing up way too fast. He loved being in the program, I thought he would be more of the shy one and Leah would be our little ham, but she was kind of overwhelmed and Jackson just loved it. Jackson and one of his best buds Shane walking behund him. Anytime he tells a story about Shane, he has to preface it with, "Shane, the one who has plenty of curly hair." We went to dinner at Scott's parents house the other night and Grandma must have said "plenty" ten times, so I think that is where Jackson picked up his favorite vocabulary word. He uses it for everything example: "Well, Mommy, I have had plenty of my vegetables," or "Mommy, you have given me plenty of kisses." He is so darn cute! He is getting really good at sounding out words, he does it all day long and if you give him a letter he gives you all these examples of words that start with those letters.

Here is when he saw me and my mom. It was so nice to spend some quality time with my mom, I am going to miss her so much.

Leah, a little apprehensive walking in.

She looks so darn cute in her Easter dress

Jackson, singing his little heart out

Leah just doesn't know how she feels about all these people staring at her

Notice the girl in pink behind jackson that is crying, she cried the ENTIRE program and I swear she was the oldest one up there!! Jackson said, she was hurting my ears

After the program, Mamaw went with us to IHOP for a brunch. This is Leah blowing kisses as we leave school...there is the little ham we all love!

Pretty girl

Jackson took a pic of me and Leah at IHOP

Then he had to get one of Mamaw and Leah. The kids were so good, they just sat there and colored while my mom and I talked for over an hour and caught up on what was going on in our lives. Sometimes I really miss my mommy time :(

On Saturday morning, Scott and I packed up the kids and headed to San Antonio for the weekend. When Scott was training to be a medic for the National Guard, he was stationed in San Antonio and it has always remained one of our favorite places. I was in college at Oklahoma State University, but would find a way to visit him there every weekend I could. We made so many amazing memories there, we love going back!! This time we stayed closer to Sea World and not right on the Riverwalk like we usually do. The hotel we stayed at was perfect. He had a great pool for the kids, and that's ALL they wanted to do. Jackson has turned into quite the little fish! He would jump in the pool and then have Scott and I judge, he told us "Thumb down if it's a bad jump, 1 thumb up if it's just ok, and 2 thumbs up if it is just perfect." We played this game for several hours :)

The Easter Bunny found Jackson and Leah at the hotel. The kids were very excited when they got up to explore their baskets

Jackson, already with a sucker in his mouth at 8am and playing a video game, Leah eyeing his gifts from his basket

Leah put her flower hair bows in her serious bed head

Leah posing for the camera

Daddy showing his gifts from his Easter basket....the week before we left, Scott hurt his back playing in his Spring basketball league and the Easter bunny got him heating pads for his back...I think the Easter bunny was calling him OLD!!!! He also got Jenga!!! Love that game

Leah has several of her hair bows on, her necklaces and is painting her nails...yay for MOMMY!

The kids also got backpacks from the easter bunny and the kids LOVED them. They had to wear them the rest of the weekend. Leah, without my knowledge, filled her's with her easter candy to bring to Sea World. It was an 85 degree day and Leah had CHOCOLATE in her backpack! She is such a mess! Even when the kids got out of the bath that night, they put their backpacks on when they were naked and told us they were on a hike and ran around the hotel room :)

Going to the Sea Lion show with their backpacks....so stinkin cute!! This was their favorite show!!

The kids got to feed the Sea Lions before the show, here is the Sea Lion smiling at us trying to get a fish

Here is one waiting open-mouthed for the kids to drop the fish

Jackson feeding the Sea Lions

Leah is like mommy, she didn't know if she wanted to touch the dead fish

With their Daddy

jackson rode his first rollercoaster with Daddy while we were there!!! He was so excited!! He called Papaw right when we got off to tell him. Leah and I waited on the side so I could take pictures...this is when I discovered Leah's candy stash in her backpack! She was sitting in the stroller, breaking out piece of candy after piece of candy!

Jackson and Daddy waiting to get on the ride

Jackson and Scott are in the last row

Jackson when he got off the ride....he said, "That was AWE-SOME!!!!"

Leah and her Daddy walking into the Shamu show...they loved it!! I love her little chubby hand in this pic :)

Ludlow Family...Leah with a sucker from her backpack candy stash

Shamu!!

When we got home from Sea World we let the kids swim for a couple of hours and then we took a late nap before we went to dinner that night. Here they are out front of the hotel fountain...with their backpacks :)

Jackson had to take a pic of the three of us, it didn't feel right not having him in the picture!!

Daddy with his babies

Mommy and the kiddos

Leah being silly at Chili's...she still has her backpack on at dinner

Jackson chowing down on Salsa

Leah putting on her new lipgloss from the Easter Bunny

The exhaustion from the day is finally setting in. Time to cuddle with daddy

Jackson had to share daddy's coat with Mommy, we were freezing

The trip was amazing and exactly what we needed as a family. The reality that we are moving in a little over a month is starting to set in and making us excited and scared. I think it will be a wonderful growing experience for our family, but scary to be away from our loved ones for the first time. I'm just ready to get there and get settled!! Hopefully we will make many more memories like we did when we were in San Antonio in Memphis!!