Ciao, Great Falls VA

As usual, I am behind on the blog. And as usual, it's because we have been crazy busy - again. We put our house on the market about 3 weeks ago. It was on the market for approximately 6 hours when a family came to see the house and they had a contract on it about the next day. It was a huge blessing for sure. Now we have to move out this weekend without purchasing another house (we're working on it) but whatever. We are good at created complication situations for ourselves. Sheesh.

In the meantime, Grandma and Pop Pop are letting us stay with them. Someday they will experience Empty Nest Syndrome, but not quite yet. This week I have been busy packing up the house with a little one who is really good at unpacking what I have already packed. We have a system down.

So we say goodbye to our Great Falls house. In some ways, it is sad to leave. In other ways, it is more like "good riddance " - especially to the mortgage and the stink bugs that have taken up permanent residence and wake us as they flying around our heads at night.

Check out a few pictures of the before & after process in remodeling the house. I highly recommend the contractor - Daniel Wright, New Leaf Construction :) Some of the pictures aren't the same angle but hopefully you can see the room in general.

(PS - The previous homeowner was moving out as we were moving in, but you can get the gist. PSS - The "after" pictures are a little dark but I don't have time to lighten them at the moment.)

Kitchen before...

and after.

Living room before...

...after.

Another "before" view of the kitchen.

After.

Office before...

...after.

Master bath shower before...

...after.

Master bath vanity before...

...after.

Master bedroom...

...after.

Closet in Master before...

...after. (Our realtor took this this picture, which explains the copyright note.)

Guest room before...

...after.

No "before" pics for these...

Upstairs hallway - new hardwood floors.

Sienna's room.

Hall bath.

Other view.

"I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is."

(Thanks Mansour family for the skirt, shoes & accessories! So cute.)

Feel the beat from the tambourine...ooh yeah!

Sienna is now 3 years old...just kidding. I just needed to make fun of myself for not blogging for a whole month. Things have been super busy so this is not a full update, but hopefully entertaining enough for the meantime. Some of you may have seen one of these video's on Facebook (I just started typing Facepage. I might be losing my mind a little) but here it is again with another video of (Dig it?) my Dancing Queen...

This one is her singing Mamma Mia in her bed. I am listening through the baby monitor...

Obviously, Sienna is a ABBA/Mamma Mia fan. Feel free to judge my parenting.

Where do we LIVE?

Even our Ohio, Rochester & Massachusetts family must be impressed - we are getting some REAL snow. Crazy up-to-your-waist kind of snow. This past weekend we had 35" of snow. And we are apparently getting 10"-20" again tomorrow. Did we move to a Dakota? (It's cold in the Dakota's, right? I am basing my information on when I watched the movie, Fargo. The people in the movie looked pretty cold.) Check it out!

The snow is almost as tall as Sienna...

The sun is finally coming out. (Yes, the house looks different - Daniel was in the middle of re-painting until we moved to Fargo.)

My sad, buried, 4 Runner...

Daddy & Sienna next to my sad, buried 4 Runner...

Stay tuned - Our next snowstorm is scheduled to arrive in less that 24 hrs!

So cute!

Check out these shoes that the North Carolina De May's sent Sienna for her birthday!

I love them and wish they had them in my size.

So, I have a 2 year old...

Yes, Sienna is now two. She will tell you that she is two and then hold out all of her fingers. It doesn't make sense but I haven't really corrected her because I think it is cute. We decided to throw her a party the day before her birthday with her little friends. After inviting her friends, siblings and parents to the celebration, we had a total of 46 people RSVP to the party. That was waaaay to many for the size of our house, but what can you do? Hope for the best? So we did. But then there was a Birthday Miracle - The morning of the party, it started to snow...

And most of the people who were planning on coming started to cancel. Now just to be clear, we love the people that we invited to the party. I just never expected that many people would be available to come and I was concerned about fitting about 50 people in my living room. So as it turned out, the snow ended up a good thing. The Young's, Adkins, Hunts, Jessie, Ladson, Dave & Kerry risked their lives for birthday cupcakes and it all worked out.

Sienna's Tinker Bell Party...

Our friend Jenny makes amazing cakes, so we asked her to make a cake for the party. She did, but the roads by her house were too slippery so she wasn't able to make the cake. Not a problem, though - we had already made extra cupcakes.

Barely awake after her nap, but ready for her party!

Time for her cupcake! She sat there wondering why everyone is staring at her and singing. People singing the birthday song to you is awkward no matter how old you are.

Yay - the singing is over!

Can I eat the cupcake now?

Of course, a Tinker Bell party does not complete a Meagher/Wright birthday celebration... The next morning (Sienna's actual birthday) we headed out to IHOP for brunch (she ordered chocolate milk from the server before we were barely seated) and then we went to Grandma and Pop Pop's house for a nap, dinner and, of course, the birthday blanket.

[MISSING FOOTAGE - my camera died before the birthday blanket. Anyone have pics to share? Email me and then I will update this blog!]

The next Monday, Jenny stopped by with the cake that never made it to the party. Is this amazing or what? A Tinker Bell cake!!!!!

Sienna checking out the cake. I think she was a little confused because it didn't look like what she thought cake looked like. But it was a delicious cinnamon cake with vanilla frosting. It was sooo good. (Thank you, Aunt Jenny and Uncle Bobby!)