Monkey Business: 23 Months Old

December 3rd: 23 Months Old

Big, big changes for the Monk family! We bought our first REAL home!! On November 22nd we closed on our first grown-up house!! We own the land, the walls and no one is attached to us!! It's amazing, and we are so excited to have a room for EVERYONE to sleep in and a yard to play in. We feel so blessed to get to have such a beautiful home for our growing family, and we can't wait to see how God uses this blessing in our lives.

WELCOME HOME!! Not sure why, but I failed to take a picture of the exterior of our home.... the next post!!

Highlights from the Month:
- Closed on our first home!!! (November 22nd)
- Blakely LOVES to play in boxes and ride on blankets.
- Communicating with us like crazy... 2-3 word phrases ("Dad where go?" "Help up!")
- Loves to play in her new yard.... hours of fun with sticks, pine straw, and acorns. This girl is in heaven.

Picture Highlights from the Month:

Our front door

I love this beautiful front porch.... looks like a yard sale with all this furniture jammed on it. Can't wait to enjoy rocking Katy Ellis outside this spring.

No furniture yet for this room, but it will be Richard's office eventually. Loving my hardwood (slightly grossed out by my carpets in my old house!)!!!

This will be the dinning room. Notice the trend??? No furniture! HA! This is what happens when you move from a 1500 sq. ft. home to 4000 sq. ft. home.... empty rooms. Eventually, these rooms will have furniture... for now Blakely is enjoying running around all the extra space.

Still love my Pottery Barn wrought iron and crystal chandelier.... might have stolen from our townhouse.

Breakfast nook and a peek into the kitchen.

This room is such a hodge-podge of my favorite things from the our townhouse. No room in the budge currently for new furniture, but I gathered my favorite things together and this room feels fresh and new!!

Eventually, our King sized bed will come to Lexington!! Loving out tray ceilings!

Master bath... planning to paint the walls a light gray. Hoping to achieve a spa-esque look in here.

Jet tub!!!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my new kitchen.

My favorite feature is the above/below cabinet lighting with a dimmer switch.

The first time I came to see the house, I couldn't get in. All I got to see was the backyard, but that was enough. I knew it was our house! I told Rich on the phone, "we will be making an offer on this house!" When we were trapped in our tiny townhouse, we always dreamed of having a home that had just as much outdoor living space as indoor. The front door of the townhouse is 10 ft from the street and the backdoor is 10 ft from an alligator pond... not ideal for an outdoor loving toddler! This house has a HUGE backyard that was already fenced in, with a playground, a big screened in porch, a new flagstone patio with a beautiful outdoor kitchen!! What more could a girl ask for? The backyard is STILL one of my favorite things about this house.

Our new neighbor hood is called Governor's Grant. It is a beautiful neighborhood of all custom built homes. There are the light rolling hills of the midlands and the beautiful trees of an established neighborhood. The neighborhood also boasts a playground, clubhouse and olympic size swimming pool! Can't wait for the fun we will have this summer at the pool!!

Blakely absolute LOVES to play on our bed!! She will take you by the hand and lead you in to our room and say "bed, please!" Who could refuse that face?

She loves to tickle and wrestle. She has even learned to do a front roll. She loves making mommy pretend to sleep, snore and then shoot up and shout "Morning!!" She giggles like crazy, hugs me and shouts "Mornin' " right back!

Giving her Baby doll a sweet kiss! This girl is going to be SUCH a good big sister!!

First real meal (ie not pizza or cereal) in our new home! Publix recipe called "Chicken Tender Bake." This super simple recipe is a new Monk family favorite that is worth googling and trying!