I'm back!

Being that it's January 2015 and life is all about fresh starts, new beginnings, setting resolutions....I've decided that now is as good a time as any to start back with blogging!

Jumping right in.  To paraphrase....2014 was The Most Stressful and Exhausting Year of My Life (Not Including Any Times Where We Sold Homes).

To make a very, very long story short, we jumped headfirst into renovating two homes.  Both homes were in really terrible shape and Brad did 95% of the work all by himself.  And as we all know from watching HGTV shows, time is money when it comes to flipping.  So basically, he worked and worked and worked (like for the whole year) while I was home with Hadley by myself, all the time.  Money was really, really tight at times and I felt disconnected and completely without support.  Brad was constantly stressed over the houses and the fact that I was so stressed.  This awful time went on for about seven months straight and then one day....we sold a house.  And it suddenly all felt much, much easier.

So - that's the short story, and the good news is that 2015 is off to a STELLAR start!  We're living in the second home we purchased (we sold the first home we renovated as well as the house we were living in the last two years.)  The second house we bought to "flip" was just too good for us to pass up for ourselves, and now that it's been fully renovated, it is the perfect home for us and I can't wait to share pictures of this little Victorian beauty!  We've only been in it for two weeks now so there's lots of progress to be made in the decor department.  In the meantime, here's a little sneak of the outside (it was the best pic I could get, the lighting is really strange today?!?):

I'm so excited for summer, when I can decorate the porch and plant flowers and add a little color!

Some other updates....I cut my hair!  I guess you would call it a "lob" though here I had it curled -

Yes, that is my two and a half year old!  Here's a recent pic before church --

She's so much fun and I still LOVE being home with her.  She literally potty trained herself two months ago, knows her ABC's and is counting to 15, knows most of her colors and shapes.  She's loving Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and Bubble Guppies, is a total Daddy's girl and is getting into the "change her clothes every hour" stage.  She's such a good girl and I am so thankful to call her my daughter.

As for the year ahead - we initially had plans to leave Wisconsin at the beginning of the year but - as it often does - life changed on us and we found ourselves still here in this great state.  If you would've told me six months ago we would still be living here with no plans to move I probably would've shriveled up and died.  Seriously.  But God always has a plan for our lives - good plans! - and while I never would've imagined it, we're now staying in WI for the time being and I am so, so happy.  I love this house and can't see myself moving anytime soon!  Brad's still hoping to flip homes, so we'll see what happens.

Here's to the new year!