The Southern Kellings

Bathroom renovation

I still need to do the post on the big renovation, Nick just downloaded his phone photos, so now I can, but here is how he and Papa spent our winter break. We went to an auction before the big renovation and bought a certificate for a tile store thinking it would be good for the renovation, but we got supplies through our contractor. So we needed to use it for the bathroom, which had a mold problem we could not tackle even with strong cleaners. It was a good thing they did this as the water was leaking and some of the wood was rotting and mold was actually coming back up through the unsealed grout. We will keep up with sealing and hope to not have to gut it again anytime soon. The place we had the certificate for was expensive with limited options, so I found a neat pattern on pinterest and we made it our own with a few tweaks. I love my new bathroom!

Tile and wall down, rotten boards out.

Wood and concrete board back in.

Tile going in.

Dad was our tile man!

This was how Nick cut the tile to try and not get soaked.

The after picture. Nick painted the tub spout and glass rails. No more 80's brass.

Close up of the tile pattern.

And the before from when the house was listed, during and after.

El Jardin Beach

It was a mostly mild winter, so we even got to make a beach trip in January. We stayed close by, this nice little one is only about 20 minutes away. I thought it was too cold for the water, it was cool and windy, so we just played in the sand with friends. Nick was busy, so I took all three by myself. Thank goodness we met friends.

Dallas and Paris

Samantha opted to have a birthday trip in lieu of a party. She chose to go to Paris, Texas (a la Fancy Nancy). We added on a night in Dallas on the way up and went on MLK weekend for an early celebration.

The girls before the Dallas Zoo. It was a neat zoo and bonus if you brought food donations, entrance was free. But next time we will not eat at the cafe!

Neat elephant statues.

A cool view of the lion exhibit.

The cheetahs were in a training area and super close!

The girls both have camera and had a blast being photographers.

They had cool lego scultures.

A snake up close

I was there too!

And the next day we saw the tower. It was the tallest besides the main one in France, then one in Tennessee was moved to a platform, making it taller, then Texas put the hat on, and then Vegas built one way taller. We thought there would be lots of gift shops and the town would play it up more, but we were wrong.

Still a fun trip and a great way to celebrate 8!

Raspberries

Blowing raspberries is one of Fiona's favorite things. She was doing it all the time, but now it is more when she is tired. Here is a video from January.

Not sure why, but it only works in Chrome for me.

January catch up!

My new job doing research, stats analysis and writing for 20+ hours a week keeps me so busy. With my 3 classes, I basically work full time but still do all the SAHM things as well. Thank goodness for Nick's flexible schedule and Nana. But I wanted to try and catch up. So here is the random assortment of pictures from January 2016.

Fiona started crawling at just after 7 months. She is fascinated with the dogs.