Hey y’all! We’re back at it in a new year! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a happy new year. So let’s get to it:

Kenzie

2020 has seemed like it’s been so super busy and I haven’t had a chance to catch my breath! Sometimes, I like that. But a small vacation is sounding really good to me lately. Anyways, to start off, our mom has been diagnosed with bone cancer, and we would really appreciate and prayers, good vibes, or general wishes of well-being for her. She’s so super strong and taking it all like a champ, but prayers never hurt anything.

On January 1st, Claire and I headed to Fredericksburg for a couple days of cave touring, shopping, and exploring the town. When I got back to town, it was straight to work on clearing out our storage unit and the playhouse in the backyard (hopefully y’all saw some of that craziness on our Insta stories). We have been collecting cool shit for years and it’s all accumulated into our playhouse, rendering it unusable. Now, it’s organized and I can actually start using it as a studio of sorts so I’m pretty pumped!

Brad and I have been building a coffee cart from the ground up and it’s taking shape quickly! I haven’t really talked much about it on here yet because I didn’t want to get the hype up too soon, but it’s starting to come together and it’s just so crazy! We’re hoping to open within the next few months, but I’ll write a whole post about the process soon. It’s scary but also so exciting! More on that later.

The last big event of 2020 was our garage sale which was really fun! Callie and Jason came down for the weekend and Brenna was over every day and lots of friends came to shop our shit and say hi and we tried on old dress-up clothes, all while making a little extra cash so it was a success overall I would say. Plus, we cleared out a lot of unneeded junk (making way for the soon-to-be studio) and that always makes me feel good.

Overall in January, I feel like I’ve been able to hold up my resolution of being more creative and working on fun projects. I’ve been making really beautiful cakes at work and am starting to take orders for cakes and custom desserts from my home kitchen too (hit me up for fun dessert and pretty cakes). I’ve also been doing more yarn crafts (knitting, weaving, pom-pom wreath-making) which is a sort of relax and unwind activity for me and working on styling photos and general photography skills too. I also planted more things out at the garden in the beginning of January and am not taking it as seriously as I used to. By that, I mean I’m planting seeds willy-nilly, hoping for the best, and instead of worrying about the plants and keeping all the weeds at bay, I’m focusing on spending time outdoors with Apollo and great people and seeing what pretty things happen to pop up. It’s much more fun when you don’t take it as seriously.

I’m hoping to continue this path of creativity and working hard for the things I want and the life I want.

Brenna

This has been the longest month of my entire life. I seriously feel like I have aged a few years. Has January felt like that for anyone else? Like waiting for JT to propose went quicker than this month did. No joke. I spent the beginning of the month housesitting and studying for the PPR exam. This was the last exam I needed to take in order to become fully certified to teach in Texas. I ended up passing it, THANK THE LORD, and now all that is left is a recommendation from my principal and observations from my advisor. Maybe one day I’ll write a more detailed post on getting your alternative certification because there’s a lot about the process that confuses people. Key word is ONE DAY because it feels like a free day for me is nowhere in sight.

I spent a lot of time this month setting up parties for The Slumber Party Club on the weekends which was a blast. For those of you who don’t know… I work for my friend Emily Gillen who owns this cute little company and we make glamping dreams come true for kids just about every weekend. Yes, I know what you’re probably thinking… My plate is absolutely fuller than I would like it to be right now but hey, gotta hustle while I can right? It’s not even really working because I get so excited seeing a living room or game room transform into the cutest slumber party ever. So I’ll just rest when I’m dead or at the nail salon every three weeks.

JT and I celebrated our first anniversary on the 12th! He was in Austin for a bachelor party that weekend so we waited to do something until he got back into town and while I would have loved to go to Truluck’s again, we found ourselves at our trusty local joint… Woodson’s. Both of us were exhausted but we can’t say no to their happy hour or food so it is what it is. Plus why set the bar high on your first anniversary… It can only go up from here.

Later in the month we had a wonderful antique yard sale at Ginny’s and I wish we could have drug that weekend out even longer because it was the first time in a long time were we were all together for more than like 5 hours. Who agrees that Callie and Jason needs to move back?! I thought you’d agree.

I wrapped up the month setting up parties and doing some AMAZING balloon arches at Conroe Country Club. Seriously we had so much fun. My hands were sore from tying a million and one balloons but it was absolutely worth it and I was so proud of the product! JT and I went with the Marling/Dio Clan to Mastro’s to celebrate Taylor’s, JT’s bestie, 30th birthday. Best dinner ever with one very entertaining crew. We had such a blast and I’m still trying to figure out how I can get their brussels sprout recipe because OMG they were amazing. Also, Don Julio Silver Mojitos are a game changer. Trust me. Needless to say, this has been one hell of a month and I’m eager to see what February has in store for us. Praying it moves a little quicker but not too quick. It’s crazy to think that May will be knocking on my door soon and that means I’ll have to send my babies off to second grade!

Callie

Oh January, you felt like a whole lifetime. I feel like I did a lot this month but don’t really feel accomplished at all which is kind of sad.

First was New Years Day. The night before we received some not so great news that Mom’s cancer had come back (like Kenzie said, prayers and good thoughts are always welcomed, they helped last time!). So I spent a lot of New Year’s Eve crying and Jason agreed to watch a romantic movie (About Time, watch it if you haven’t it’s great!) with me. So NYE and day was just kind of lazy do nothing days.

I went back to Conroe for the weekend and helped Mom and Kenzie get things ready for the garage sale at the end of the month. I don’t know how much I actually ended up helping. I know mom and Kenzie did WAY more than me for that dang sale but I hope I was of some use and productivity.

On the weekends that I stayed in Fort Worth Jason and I would spend the weekend wood working and creating new ideas to try and sell for Local Pines. This business is not an overnight success like you hear so many stories about other companies making it big and people quitting their day jobs to do “what they love” full time. Yeah, that’s not us. No one is quitting any jobs any time soon. It’s incredibly slow going and we’ve lost a lot of money on materials, we’ve lost a lot of time sanding and painting and creating things that people just don’t seem to want to buy. But we’re still doing it. Because it’s fun, it gives us something to work on and it’s a little side hobby. But eventually someone is going to have to buy this stuff because we’ll run out of space in the house to keep it all!

While on the subject of Local Pines, I think I’m going to have to close down my booth at Painted Tree. We hardly sell anything on Etsy and Painted Tree gets some action (some months we sell a lot and others we sell barely anything) but even though we sell things at PT the fees and monthly rental that we pay is always more than what we sell. So it’s time to shut it down and put that money toward something better. I’m kind of sad to quit and give up the booth because I did enjoy it but it’s not worth it. As mom would put it I’m paying other people to take my stuff and that’s not cool.

The last weekend of January we had our garage sale. Jason and I came back for the sale and had a lot of fun! Brenna had lots of things to do (as always) but still managed to come and hang out with us and help at the sale (thanks for always finding time to hang out Brenda!). We laughed a lot, tried on our old dress up clothes for giggles, and although we didn’t sell as much as we hoped to (there was still so much junk left, we need the junk gone!) it was a nice weekend with the family doing what we always do.

Work is still stupid busy which is annoying this is supposed to be our slow season and it’s not. We’re aiming for doing an estate sale at our Grandma’s old Victorian house in Palestine in March. So all of you that signed up for the emails about that estate sale, get ready, they’ll be coming for you soon! After that we’ll close on her house and that will be the end of the ownership of the Bower’s Mansion for our family. Which is sad but having Ginny moved down to Conroe for a few months now my ties to the house have lessened since no one is there anymore so hopefully it won’t be as sad as it was to me a few months back.

Yeah, that was about it. I’m ready for a new month. Partly because my birthday is at the end of it! And mostly because I’m completely over January. And as always, here’s my random assortment of photos from the month: