31 years (minus 16 months)

"The Grand Ole Opry, to a country singer, is what Yankee Stadium is to a baseball player. Broadway to an actor. It's the top of the ladder, the top of the mountain. You don't just play the Opry; you live it." -- Bill Anderson

31 years minus 16 months is how long Luke has lived in Nashville. I've only been here since 2002. But neither of us have been to the Grand Ole Opry--besides in high school when I had TNT with church. I heard a commercial the other day that mentioned some names. Oddly enough I missed the Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban, Ricky Scaggs part & only heard Lennon and Maisy and Kree Harrison and Kellie Pickler. COME ON, the most adorable sisters off of the show Nashville and the runner up on American Idol? And another fave from Idol. Yes, the girls really are sisters. Yes, they are amazing. Yes, I've been addicted to their Youtube for quite a while. I wasn't really sure about Kree Harrison. I know the judges raved about her on the show, but at the end I just never really thought she sounded that great. But I know she is bff with Kacey Musgraves--maybe she'd be around or even sing with her!

Once we decided to buy tickets, we saw who else was playing and we got super excited! It happened to be the night before my niece's 9th birthday, so I figured we'd call and see if they wanted to come down and go with us. We had a GREAT time! Apparently, from everyone else in line around us, they've always just walked up and walked into their seats. No one had ever seen the Opry like this. We had to stand outside in line a good 20-30 minutes ( we barely got a parking space about 9:10 & the show started at 9:30). There was definitely a lot of excitement in the air. We were all excited too.

When Luke called to get tickets, since he had never been in the building, he just asked what the best tickets left were. We were on the far right side on the lower level of the balcony. The seats were great--no complaints. But no one told us you can walk down to the stage if you're down there on the floor! We know for next time ;) Maybe we could have too, but that was too many steps.

Little Miss Dancing with the Stars winner kicked off the night. Oh my. I need to be on that show! One day I'll wear a dress like that again ;) LOVE HER. She sang her new single and of course Red High Heels and another.

A little bit of Diamond Rio.

Some Grand Ole Bill Anderson. Amazing shirt.

AHH! Yes, I squealed like a little girl. Enough so that the little girl in front of us turned to look at me =)

Lennon and Maisy! I forget what they sang first, but they did sing Ho Hey and Ring of Fire.

Ricky Scaggs

YAY Rascal Flatts! I know they sang What hurts the Most, but can't remember what else. It was getting late, and I was getting excited for the rest of the show! They were GREAT!

Keith Urban coming out to introduce Kree Harrison on her Opry Debut!

Singing her Idol single All Cried Out

She said she told my dad a long time ago if she ever made the Opry she'd sing his favorite hymn which was In the Gardens.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.



She also sang Help me Make it Through the Night with THIS GUY.

Standing ovation for her first time singing at the Opry! She is AMAZING! I absolutely love her voice. She did PHENOMENAL!

What an incredible ending to the night!

The crowd was on their feet.

Oh, he's my new favorite artist right now.

We had an amazing time. We love the atmosphere. We're not big concert goers, but this is something we can't BELIEVE we haven't done before! When we moved back I told Luke that we MUST do more Nashville things since we live here. This was #1.We will be back for sure!

Oh, and I ran into theses guys out front.

I won't comment on that interaction. But I got a sweet pic.



PLEASE CRASH MY YARD!!!

We are still pool-less. I'm not sure if that is the correct way to write that. But we still have no pool. We have no money set aside to buy another one. The company that instructed us to fill our pool when it was 40 degrees, which caused the liner to shrink, and caused the walls to collapse, and caused us to have no working pool is not seeming to entertain the idea (at all) that they caused our pool to be gone, leaving us with a sand pit in the backyard, and a lot of money down the drain--or down the ditch & into the scrap metal yard. ( It seems to be common knowledge that pools DO NOT get filled below 65 degrees outside OR at night, yet we got a text around 4 PM and 40 degrees saying to leave the water running to fill the pool & he'd be back to connect the top hose later).

This is our dilemma now:

This is the best I can do with my phone ( full and no memory to do much) to show the bare backyard. It's not big. But it has a 24' sand circle. And it was grated to be level, and has a drop off into the sand on the right side.

We are working on over seeding the front yard this week, but don't want to start on the back yet until we know what to do with it.

 My current obsessions on TV are 1) Flea Market Flip, 2) Rehab Addict 3) Yard Crashers. Landon had to go to bed early without dinner one night ( don't ask), and he woke up at 10 PM hungry. I fixed him a PB&J and let him watch Yard Crashers with me. He is now also obsessed. And he asks us why our yard can't be crashed.

I WISH! But we don't shop at THAT STORE ( and neither should you because when you shop at the GOOD store, your money goes to buy my kids food & pay for our house. Yes, regardless of how people say big businesses don't need your money and it just goes to corporate rich people, sales affects salary and bonuses for all employees too) that the people are picked up at. =)

We have quite a few ideas, a little money to spend on it( from our SMALL refund we have received from the cleaning part of the pool company), but are at a standstill of what to do! We need a designer, a contractor, or someone to do some pro-bono work. Or better yet, we just need some help on what the best solution to the yard would be. It either could start with a big amount of fill dirt or a skidder to level it back down or even a good amount of pavers. . .

Throw out some ideas!

Help us!

Girls' room details.

I posted  a few links from the room last week. I think the Sweet Heavenly Molasses is currently my favorite thing in the room. I also really prefer this bookshelf versus of all their books stacked under Lucy's bed:

We bought 3 crates from Home Depot (where else?) They sat for quite a while. We bought 2 cans of the same color pink spray paint that we painted the drawer pulls and some picture frames with & 1 paint of white. They got painted 1 coat, and they sat for a long while. Once it got warmer and I was playing outside with the kids everyday, I painted a few more coats, and finished them off with some Rust-oleum clear gloss. Luke screwed them all together, and then we put another coat of clear on them.I thought about attaching this to the wall somehow, and was afraid Lucy would pull it down. She isn't interested in trying got climb it, and it really is not heavy at all. Landon has quite a few more books than the 2 of them, but they both get the Imagination Library books every month. It will keep filling up!

Luke thinks we just made this shelf up, or thought about it on our own. But I think I saw it on a blog ( from Pinterest). DIY BOOKSHELF LINK

 

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Landon has swimming lessons starting today. I'm thinking back to him being 18 months old....

 

 

A DOR A BLE ! ! ! !

Ella Ruth is the most laid back, happy, sweet little baby!

 

 

 

 

She loves laughing at Landon and Lucy like she always has. She loves to be tickled. She loves to giggle. We've started veggies and a just tried  fruit this morning ( mango). She is still quite the spitter-upper, but has just started some medicine. We don't go to our 6 month check-up until June 11th, so we will see how everything is going then! We've had a fun time with the insurance being able to read her birth certificate, so she isn't on our insurance yet :/ So we have quite the stack of doctor bills right now, and actually probably won't be able to go to that appointment IF we can't get it figured out. We've got HR in on it ,and we tried to send them a copy of just her certificate of birth from the hospital to see if they can read Luke's name on that one and believe us that he is her father. . .

 

We have a few things still missing from the girls' room--a few more prints, some small details, hopefully a  small crown molding, and then I think we will be DONE!

 

Here is one more picture!

 

We purchased all of the frames from Goodwill or the Peddlar Mall and then spray painted white or pink.

Sweet Heavenly Molasses print

Spritz Lanterns on clearance

Chevron on wall letters & quilts

 

 

I also would Love to recover the rocking chair. My mom put this fabric on it before we had Landon. I need some fabric suggestions! I might go ahead & paint the chair white too. We also need to find a light fixture; Landon wants a ceiling fan. The girls have a sound machine and a box fan running in their room because our house is on the small side. So they don't need the ceiling fan, and we can switch it over to Landon's room.

 

I just laid Ella down for the first time without being swaddled. She can fall asleep in any one's arms and nap anywhere, in any position. But I'm not sure how the night will go! I'm afraid we've created a monster. She LOVES to be swaddled and held tight for a minute and then she is out. I don't know if 6 months is too long to do this or not?

Of course, she is stirring now. Off to get her back to sleep.....

 

Lucy Loo you are TOO BIG!

For a sweet little girl who was so behind in speech, it is amazing the things she says these days. And the things she does:

 

 

And we can't forget this SWEET little girlie.

 

And a few little peeks of the room:

 

 

There a few more things to be done, and it will be complete! One of them involves sewing, and I can't find the fabric I bought last week. I'm not buying it again until I search every possible spot in this house...one more time.

 

 

 

5 months, 6 months... STOP GROWING!

How did I forget to post pictures of my so so sweet baby's 5 month chalkboard ?

 

I LOVE 5 months old! Smiles, cooing, rolling ,laughing, playing on the play mat for long periods of time entertaining themselves, and the list goes on!

Ella is SO cuddly! I just don't get enough time to cuddle her trying to run everything else around the house with 2 other kids. She LOVES to look at Landon, and she LOVES to laugh at him. The day after we took the picture, she started rolling fully both ways. She is so cute! Every time someone tells me how pretty she is , I always say . " I was worried for a little bit there!" I'm not one to say all babies are cute. They aren't, everyone knows that. And this one, well....she didn't photograph too well. And that awful baby acne, it lasted MONTHS and MONTHS! But she is just beautiful to me. She does this thing where she cuts her eyes up to you and smiles. She already knows how to get out of trouble with it. So this is her 5 month picture from a month ago. Today she is 6 months old.

We also FINALLY got their room almost complete last night. PICTURES SOON!

It's off to the Y with the kids for now. Our morning routine to get out of the house, let the kids run off some energy, let me exercise out some stress ( and fat), and get back home in time for a little play time, lunch , and NAPS!

 

 

TEAM LUCY LOO PICTURES