Building a House ~ Archives With Southern Love

Out and About

May 16, 2016 by Katrina Leave a Comment

Hey, friend! Happy Monday! How was your weekend? This weekend it seems like we were out and about more than we were home. There were several super fun events in Nashville this weekend! Steeplechase, hot air balloon festival, strawberry festival, rodeo…but we didn’t do any of that! Haha!! Maybe next year, but it’s hard to go to crowded events with an 8 week old and two other small kids. We just aren’t in that season of life right now and that’s ok! We will be there soon enough. So instead we did toddler friendly activities while simultaneously getting errands taken care of.

Friday morning Lee worked from home, so the girls stayed with him while Emry and I headed to Trader Joe’s. Our TJ’s is always SUPER crowded but if you get there when they open you have the entire store to yourself.

I went without makeup but you see there is nobody else on the same aisle as us. Empty store except for us. It was great. I got my necessities plus a few of the things you guys suggested! The rest of the day we hung around the house. Libby played with her Power Ponies and built Lego castles and Whitney thought she was a pink ninja.

We headed to the mall Saturday morning. Emry needed a sun hat since we are outside a lot but first we had to go in American Girl…because why not!?

Whitney ran around with the stroller while Libby and I picked out some items to stock her Bitty Baby’s diaper bag. We also made a quick trip in Sephora and had lunch. The girls also had a chance to play on the playground while I fed Emry. Of course we did get Emry’s hat too. How precious does my baby look in his hat!?

We ran a few other errands before heading home. Libby played out back with Rebecca Pumpkin while the babies napped. She’s practicing being a momma.

After church on Sunday we headed to our lot to see if the builder had started on our house. I hadn’t expected him to because we had so much rain last week. To my surprise they had everything leveled and the footer dug! Here I am standing in our living room.

I hope you guys all had a wonderful weekend. Come back tomorrow, I have a printable Summer Bucket list for loads of family fun this summer!!

Friday Favorites

May 6, 2016 by Katrina 2 Comments

Happy Friday, friends!! I am so happy to see the weekend arrive. This weekend we are planning a quick mall trip to make an exchange and then hitting up the park to let the girls run out their energy! Like every other Friday I am linking up to share my Friday Favorites, so let’s get started!

My White Chicken Enchiladas are one of my favorite meals! Add in some queso and a margarita and I call it a pretty perfect night. If you haven’t tried them yet make them this weekend, they are so yummy! I also share more of my simple recipes here!

Libby had her first dentist appointment this week and did great! I was so proud of my big girl. The dentist gave her a great report, yay for good teeth!

For an extra dose of Libby cuteness read about her preschool program from last week here.

Remember this? Well after all the planning we are breaking ground on our new house this coming week!! Ahhhh….we are so excited and ready to be done with our rental. We need a yard asap!

Above I mentioned a quick mall trip to make an exchange, well that exchange is to swap sizes in my Sam Edelman Gigi leopard sandals. I talked about wanting them a while ago and I was so happy when they came in. They are a tad small so I am going tomorrow to swap them for a 1/2 size bigger. I am ready to get my new pair so I can start wearing them!

Those are my favorites today. I can wait to read and see what all of you are excited about this week!

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Putting Down Roots

February 24, 2016 by Katrina Leave a Comment

We moved to Nashville on August 14, 2015. We moved so quickly for Lee to start his new job we didn’t have time to look and buy a house, plus we weren’t familiar with the area enough to make that kind of investment. So, we rented a townhouse with a 1 year lease.

Since ringing in 2016 we have really gotten serious about finding a house to put down roots in Nashville. We have looked in every suburb, at houses and townhouses, and in so many school districts. We weren’t having any luck finding anything that really felt like us and that fit in our price range.

We started working with a realtor who would send us weekly emails with all the houses that met our specifications, in the areas we liked, and in our price range. Nothing was panning out though. One Saturday while I was at WalMart having my groceries loaded I was looking on her website outside of our search area and found the cutest little neighborhood. I sent a picture over to Lee and he liked it too. We called our realtor, Sheila, and set up a meeting for the following weekend.

We went out a few days later and toured the neighborhood. It has a park and a community pool which we loved. We looked at house plans and toured a house that was being built. We drove around the little town and had lunch and checked it all out. Our church even has a campus near this neighborhood. We checked out the local schools and they were great. This neighborhood had everything going for it and we had a lot to think about.

We had never thought about building a house and really didn’t know if with a new little baby coming soon it was something we could take on. We thought about it and talked about it for a few days and decided that neighborhood felt like the place for us. So we went back and…

bought a lot!

Since then we have been super busy with picking out every little thing that would go inside the house. This weekend, while the girls were away, Lee and I went back out and finalized all the details. Everything is picked and we are so happy with all of our choices. Hopefully at our one year mark since moving to Nashville, we will be moving into our new house!