Puts a smile on my face

 The back of the house

 The stairs are finally in!!

 The fireplace

 Kids so excited to go up the stairs for the first time.

 Madison's room

 Ethan and Aidan's room

 Front of house

Different view of front of house

It snowed last night and we didn't think anything would be done on the house today.  This morning after taking the kids to school, I couldn't help but drive by the house to see.  Lo and behold there were quite a few workers.  I seriously could not help but have a big cheesy grin on my face.  And then like a little kid, could not wait until the end of the work day to see what was going to be done today.  Hence, the many pictures. I love looking forward to 5:30 everyday.  We all race to the car and drive to the house.  As we drove up I noticed the stairs going up to the loft were done.  The kids have been dying to go up to see where their rooms are going to be.  It was so fun to see their excitement and sheer joy.  To roof is getting close to being done as well.  Yesterday we met with Richie and Joel to walk through the house and make sure all of the framing looked right and to make sure that just everything was what we wanted.  I was actually thinking last week how nice it would be if we could walk through with them, and sure enough they called to set up a time to go through.  I love our builder!  He is seriously the coolest, most down to earth person ever.  He is so laid back, and just a really great guy.  The kind of builder that you just hope to work with.  The best thing he said about our house is that he loved it so much, he was going to build the same one for his family.  Whoa.  We certainly looked at enough floor plans to know that this floor plan is what was going to suite our family the best. The fun part is that he hasn't ever built this plan before, so we don't really know exactly how the outside of the house is going to look.  Sounds scary, but is sort of fun in a way.  We picked out all of the exterior colors so hopefully we did okay.   Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Ethan's Scout Badge

 The other night, we attended the Blue and Gold Banquet for scouts.  Ethan received his badge for Bears, as well as the Faith in God patch.  All year we kind of just forget about passing things off, until we get to the last few months before he's about to move up, and we kick things into super high gear and start passing things off like crazy.  Turns out he had already done quite a few of the requirements, so it wasn't too bad.  He was so excited to get his patch.   Madison was our photographer for the evening and she did a great job ;)  Last year Ethan and his friend Cannon received their wolves at the same time, so this year they wanted to do the same thing.  Way to go Ethan and Cannon!

Here is a stellar picture of Ethan putting the bear pin on me.  He asked me beforehand where the best place was to put it.  I tried to help him but he insisted on figuring it out himself.  Cute!  We sure love Ethan!!

Framing almost done!

 The front of our house

 Bryan looking up from the kitchen to the loft

 The family room looking to the master/sitting room

The back of the house

Seriously who knew that building a house was going to be this fun?  Well, to watch it be built anyway.  We drove by the house at around 1:30 this afternoon and they had only part of the rafters done.  Then we came back at 4:30 and they had all of this done, plus the loft framed.  It's such an exciting time for us in our lives right now.  A dream we just thought was a dream but is actually happening.  It's really been so much fun to go out everyday and watch the progress.  

Construction moving along

 Madison super excited here in the future family room/kitchen

 Madison and Ethan in garage doorway

Family room so far

I wasn't able to go with the family to this trip out to the house, but I was able to go yesterday.  All I can say is wow!!  This is certainly an experience that we are loving every minute of.  I had no idea how much fun it would be to see a home being built.  It's really all I can think about.  Bryan and I just think at times, "is this really happening"?  It sure feels like a dream.  Though this house isn't some huge dream home, it's our home and we are so super excited for it to be done, and to be ours.  I'm amazed that people are so talented to do this.  I always think how I want to take baked goods to the construction workers and thank them each day for building our home.  I'm sure I will one of these days.  We are truly thankful.

Day 16

 The concrete was poured in the garage in this picture here  

 And also on the basement floor in this picture.

When we drove up to the house initially we got excited because we saw all of the wood for the framing to get ready to be done.  

We went to our new ward yesterday, and found that we know 3 families.  It's a very, very old ward building.  Like the kind I remember in the 70"s.  But the growth is happening so fast that hopefully a new church building will be built a little bit closer to where we live.  It seemed like a good ward, from what we could tell.  We were only able to attend sacrament meeting.  We are also in the process of painting the rental we are in, and were able to finish at least the main floor this weekend.  It's not as fun to paint when its not your own house.  But we want to get it done so we don't have it hanging over our heads.  We have so much going on in our lives right now.  Though the house feels like it's going by so quickly, it feels like it isn't soon enough.

Day 15

The gap was filled in that surrounded the house, all of the large dirt hills gone, and the window wells were put in.  A bit of plumbing is going in as well.  We got a call from the realtor that represents the builder, Joel Johnson.  And he said that they would be finished framing at the end of next week.  What?  Finished framing?  It's all happening so fast.

In other family news, Valentines Day was a few days ago.  I love Valentines.  I get so excited to help out in the kids classes, and I love to create a great big steak dinner menu for our family dinner.  I woke up not feeling too great, then by early afternoon I was pretty sick.  BLEH...I think I've seriously been sick like 5 times throughout out 12 yr marriage.  Madison had her first "valentine" this year.  I guess all of the kids in her class picked someone they could call their valentine.  It was only for the one day too.  Funny.  Ethan loves the valentine box making ideas.  We couldn't come up with anything, until we decided to make a box look like an iPad.  It's worth the late night stressing to get it done to see the look on his face, and how happy it makes him.  Aidan could not wait for "Valentimes".  I love this age, where every holiday is soo exciting. I was able to help out in his class, and it's so fun to be in kindergarten because they are so cute and funny.  And I love my Valentine, he's simply the best!!

February 10 progress

So we missed going to our house yesterday, and this is what we came to today.  I've already said it before but I'll say it again, it's going by so fast.  The best part is taking the kids and seeing how excited they get.  I won't be writing too much since it seems that I'll be uploading new pictures everyday.  Crazy!

OUR HOUSE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

The kids excited for our future house.

This is our lot before anything was done.

The last few months have just flown by since I initially posted about us moving.  Our move from our town house went so well.  We have so many great friends and family that helped us.  We are truly so blessed. The builder we chose to build with is called Sweet Water Homes.  The owner is Richie McDonald.  We just loved some of the homes we went through that they built, and decided that's who we wanted building our home.  We had our pre-construction meeting January 18.  It was really a great experience.  On February 2, they started to dig our hole.  I, unfortunately don't have a picture because when I went to take the picture, my camera battery was dead.  So I thought I would just come the next day.  Well, they work so fast, that this is what we came to the next day.

Everything seems to be happening so fast.  It's all just so new, and so exciting.  I have never seen a home being built from start to finish before, and it really is so much fun.  In the meantime, we are painting the rental that we are in.  So we are keeping busy, and we know time will go by super fast.  It already has.  We've almost lived in the rental for one month.  Where has time gone?  We're so glad though that our builder is so on top of everything, and so organized, that he has all his people scheduled everyday until it's done.  We were initially given a date of March 31.  But we got pushed back 2 weeks, on our end.  

It still feels surreal.  I mean, we looked at homes for the last 6 years.  So we really feel so blessed that we are building a house that we can design to fit our needs, and that we hope to live in for the next 15 or so years.