More Progress

Tonight when we went out to the house we were greeted by our trusses lying in the neighbor's yard. All put together and ready to go up!

Our builder was actually out there tonight. He had a few questions for us about how we want things and we were able ask him a few things too. It turns out that the trusses are going up tomorrow and he's hoping to put on the roof this weekend. He was very sweet and humored all of my annoying curiosities. This is all new and exciting to me!

The garage walls are all up now, with several support beams. It was actually hard to get in through the kitchen b/c of those beams, but we managed. We let the kids go in again tonight . . . they are starting to think this is so awesome! They wanted to run around the place like wild hooligans . . . too bad for them! They were also asking questions about where there beds will be etc . . . I think this is finally becoming more concrete for them.

We also got to meet one of our neighbors. His name is Jeff and he lives with his wife, 2 six year old boys and a twelve year old girl. He seemed like a nice guy.

Too Stupid to be Here

That's a favorite phrase of mine here lately. I picked it up from my good friend Jodi. Unfortunately, today it applies to me . . . I am officially too stupid to be here.

Last night I logged into my St. Louis County Library account to request a book for school, and it wouldn't let me do it. It said there was a problem with my account. So, I go and look at it . . . and I have $45.00 in library fines!! I almost wet my pants. I am always on top of our library stuff . . . but apparently not this time. I had 39 books that were 9 days late (Some that each of the girls checked out, plus a few school items). That adds up fast.

I wish I could blame my husband or my kids . . . I could be sympathetic to them. But no, I only have myself to blame . . . like I said . . . too stupid to be here!

Rooms . . .

We made our daily trip out to the house this afternoon. Aunt Lydia was wanting to see the place . . . and so (lucky her) she became our first visitor. We found the left garge wall up, and all of the interior rooms are studded out. Once again, it's amazing to me what these men can accomplish in one work day.

Exterior View:


This one is tough to make out from the picture (let's face it - they're all tough to make out from the pictures) The doorway on the right is the door to the master bath, which turns left into an L shape. The larger opening on the left is our closet, which will have a pocket door.

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This is the Great Room, looking into the Dining Room and Kitchen. To the left you can see the half wall separating off the stairs.

In this one I'm standing in the Master Bedroom looking throught the hall bathroom and into Ali and Emma's Bedroom. Clear as mud, right?

Here I'm standing in the hallway, looking through the door of Meg and Julie's Room.


While I realize that this isn't nearly as interesting to everyone else as it is to us . . . I still can't resist posting it all! : ) More to come tomorrow!

Walls!

We're supposed to have pretty nice weather this week, and we are hoping to make it out to see the house daily . . . We don't want to miss a thing, and at the rate they're going, missing one day will be missing a lot. We were just there yesterday, and were excited to see joists and subfloor. Today we went and found most of the exterior walls were up. We were all very excited to see that. We even let the girls go up and get their pictures taken while looking out of their bedroom windows.

Here's looking at the bedroom side of the house (with Meg and Emma looking at the "swimming pool" in the basement.)

Looking through our kitchen and dining room to the hole where the sliding glass door will be.

The hole for the fireplace flanked by two windows.

And we have a floor . . . almost . . .

We didn't know how long the basement walls would have to sit before more progress could be made, but we decided to head out there are check things out.

We were pleasantly surprised to find all of the joists up and about half of the subfloor done. For the first time, we actually let the girls walk up to the house (it's rather muddy, and there really wasn't much to see.) This time we let them walk up to it and they thought it was pretty cool. here they are sitting in the entry way.


Here's the left side of the house (kitchen, dining room and living room). You can see the joists sticking out in the back for the cantilever for the fireplace.


Here's the right side (minus the children.) Right now the basement is full of water (Thanks to the blizzard we had last week.) We told the girls it was our swimming pool. They were confused by that.

No More Diapers!!

I could dance and sing right now!

Potty training is over and was miraculously easy. I'm so thankful.

While the girls were finishing up their last few school items on Friday I decided to jump into potty training. I had already planned to do it sometime this week . . . there's no way I could do it during a normal school week, and right after school ends in May we are going on vacation, and then moving. So it was either now, or July (once we're settled in to our new place.)

I'm a big proponent of the "Just take the diaper off" method. She never even peed on the floor. She would feel herself going right away and stop herself, then run to the potty. What can I say . . . my kid is a genius . . . so what if I am biased! : )

(As I was typing that last sentence, Julie ran up to the potty (Which I keep in the same room that she's playing in at this stage of the game) saying "pee pee potty." She sat down and went. I love it!)

I feel like we've now passed the last milestone out of babyhood. What a blast.

Spring Break!

We actually had a rather busy weekend, so I have some blogging to catch up on.

Friday officially marked the end of our third quarter!! Work is done, grades are in, and now we are enjoying a week off! I'm hoping to take it easy this week, and just put some extra energy in to organizing things for our garage sale/move.

One more quarter to go. I've really enjoyed it, but now I'm ready for this school year to be over. Spring Fever is setting in. My mind is easily wrapped up in moving details. I don't want to think about school. Oh well. The end is in sight!

Drumroll Please . . .

We got the email from Angie last night:

"Congratulations! It is all signed up! You've bought yourself a new home!"

Yeah! The contract is signed . . . now we can keep moving forward. It all seems kind of surreal. We've rented for so long (and contentedly so). We weren't expecting to be able to buy a home for at least another year yet. I'm so thankful for God's timing in all of this. I know I'm so undeserving, yet He delights in giving us good things.

Just Another Day

I wish I had something interesting to write about today . . . but I don't.

Still no word on our contract. Angie wasn't able to get it to them until Monday, then we had blizzard conditions on Tuesday (our builder drives a snowplow on those days, and was therefore unavailable). So, I'm hoping that we hear something today. Thankfully, this isn't delaying construction!

I am managing to stay (mostly) focused on what needs to be done now. My mountain of laundry is done. I've wrapped up our quarter (excepting 2 Spelling tests and a Language Arts test which will happen tomorrow). I have my next quarter almost completely planned. Amber and I get together to plan Science and History (which hasn't happened yet). I just need to plan for Reading and Art.

No more progress on the couch . . . I've just been too tired. Maybe tonight.

I'm also finding that while I am completely thrilled to be building a new house, I'm feeling quite overwhelmed with all of the decisions that need to be made. I thought I would enjoy this more. What color should I choose for countertops? Do I wanted my fireplace painted or stained (and either way, which color?) What colors should I paint the girls rooms? It's funny to me, b/c I can see something that I like, and then choose to duplicate it . . . but I have no gift for imagining how things will look on my own. I am usually such a "take life by the horns" kind of person, yet when it comes to things like this, I feel stunted. I also tend to be on the picky side . . . not a good combination. So, I find myself relying on my friends to help me with these decisions. It's ironic, b/c people who can't make their own decision tend to irritate me (a lot.) I can quickly and methodically make bigger decisions . . . funny that these little ones would stump me.

Cabin fever is setting in around here! Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous (on the 70's), then Tuesday we were hit with a blizzard (dropping up to 12 inches of snow in some areas). We are eagerly awaiting the advent of Spring . . . It shouldn't be long now!

Trying to Stay Focused

I don't want to do school. I don't want to do laundry. I don't want to clean toilets. I could carry on with a very long list here.

What I want to do is start packing, painting, planning, etc . . . I'm beginning to realize that I have a very long 3 months ahead of me.

So, now I'm making lists. Really, I should count it a blessing that I have 3 months to prepare to move. I have plenty of time to get everything done.

This week is the last week of the 3rd quarter for school. I need to finish that out, grade papers, tabulate grades, organize papers, etc . . . Then I have to tackle that mountain of laundry in the basement. Finally, I need to keep moving forward with the couches. Yes, that project has lasted a year (and counting). The couch is almost done, but the love seat is still needing to be done. Doesn't that all sound like fun? I'm hoping to get these things done (or nearly done) this week, so that next week (spring break for us) I can start organizing some closets, basement shelves, etc . . . and start a garage sale pile. We'll see how that all works out!

So, if you think about it, please pray for me. I need to be disciplined and stay focused on what needs to happen now. That is easier said than done!

More Than Just a Hole in the Ground

As previously mentioned, we went out to check on progress on Wednesday and found that the footings had not yet been poured. No big deal. We went out again today, hoping that it had been done. We had some rain this week, and we really didn't know whether that could have happened or not. So, you can imagine our shock when we drove out today to find basement walls up!! What a pleasant surprise!


Below you can see our egress window (the hole for it anyway). You can also see the smaller window to the right. Our laundry hookup will be below that.

I don't know how long the walls have to sit before they can move on, but so far I'm shocked at how quickly things are going. Right now a May 30 closing date seems to be very reasonable . . . but who knows?

Footings . . . almost

We did make it out to our hole in the ground today. The footings didn't actually get poured, but the molds (or whatever you want to call them) are up and ready for concrete. We made more progress on our contract today. I'm (optimistically) hoping to have things settled sometime tomorrow.

The Finished Product

Well, here it is . . . sort of. Aaron and I sat down with the White-out and a red pen and made our changes tonight. As Aaron so eloquently put it, "I can now add 'architect' to my resume." The plan is a full sized blueprint, so I couldn't exactly scan it and post it. But, I had to have documentation . . . and here it is. If you click on the picture you can see it larger. The dotted line that you see extending the vanity is to allow for a possible upgrade to a 60" vanity. The dotted line at the end of the hallway with the "L ?" in it is another linen possible linen closet. The builder said that he wasn't sure if it would fit, but if he finds that he can fit it during construction, then he'll put it in. Otherwise, no big deal. Angie is stopping by tomorrow to pick it up and take it to Kinko's to copy it (full sized and smaller for the contract.) Maybe I can get a small copy and share that later. : ) Anyways . . . moving right along . . .

Success!

Our meeting is now over, and was very successful. The builder and his agent were both great to work with. We are making a few changes to the floorplan. Some of them are the changes they sent over last week - we just weren't understanding the plan correctly. We will get our 2 feet back in the Great Room. The stairs will go down from the Foyer. The Pantry will be in the Kitchen (rather than right outside of it). The staircase will now be open, carpeted and separated with a half wall. We are cutting the Master Closet in half and making a super-mega L-shaped Master bath. I'm sure that's all clear as mud. I'll post a new floorplan once it's drawn up.

Side note: The hole for the basement is now finished and they are pouring the footings tomorrow. I'll have to get out there and take some more pictures tomorrow or Thursday!

A Step in the Right Direction . . . Hopefully . . .

We now have a meeting scheduled for 5:30 this evening to sit down with the builder and talk over the floorplan. The problem that we're running into now is that the builder wants to be very informal about everything. He wants us to just make our own modifications to the floorplan he sent over last week and call that good. Angie, of course, wants him to have his architect draw up the new plans before we sign off on them. So, hopefully we can get some details ironed out this evening. Once again, I find myself asking that infamous question, "Does this have to be so difficult?"