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.  

Sunday Baking

Here's my confession, I LOVE TO BAKE.  If anyone knows anything about me, this is my passion.  Seriously.  On days when I'm looking for something to do, I just want to bake all day.  Nothing is more satisfying than a well baked good.  (Well, aside from my family and such).  I only however, dedicate one day to baking.  That day is Sunday's.  Don't we all wish we could bake everyday, and not gain any weight.  Where did my love for baking come from?  Well, here's the story...
Growing up, I often made crazy baking mistakes.  I made Apple pie, but put too much nutmeg in and everyone called it my nutmeg pie.  Numerous mistakes over the years followed.  When Bryan and I got married, I wanted to be the best cook ever.  But especially, the best baker ever.  We have a family chocolate chip cookie recipe that Bryan always raves about and I was determined to make it just as fantastic as our sister in law does.  I must have tried that recipe over a hundred times.  I never gave up, and was determined to get it right.  And that was the case with everything I tried.  I wasn't happy until it was perfect.  I work at Williams Sonoma part time to feed my kitchen addiction, and to afford it.  And one day my brother in law came in and was talking to my co-worker.  My co-worker said, "Isn't Emmy such a fantastic cook", and he replied, "yes, if it comes from this store and is in a jar".  That was the day that it all changed for me.  I was going to prove that I could make anything, and make it fantastic.
  This was actually only 3 years ago.  I can honestly say now that I feel pretty confident in my skills.  Not only has my baking improved, it's quite fantastic if I do say so myself.  I have become quite the perfectionist though.  I try a recipe and have to find the best of that recipe.  Vanilla cupcake's for example.  I believe I'm not the only one searching for that perfect recipe.  I want a dense, moist and just perfect vanilla cupcake.
  Someday I would love to open a bakeshop.  But for now, my main focus is my family.  Until that "someday", I will continue to bake for family and friends, and for the pure joy of just creating something amazingly yummy.  Like the 6 layer Salted Caramel Cake pictured above.  Yum!

Finally moving after 12 years!!!

Wow, really?  It's been waay too long since I've written.  I made a New Year's Resolution to blog more, so here I go.  Over the last 6 years we have endlessly looked, and looked, and looked at over a hundred homes.  We liked bits and pieces of many homes, but we only found 1 home that we absolutely loved. (But that home didn't work out.)  Are we too picky? (um, yes)  We mostly never understood the layout of homes.  I was mostly interested in having a larger kitchen than the one I currently have in my town home.  Oddly enough, some of the kitchens in homes were smaller than ours.  We made a few offers on some homes, and for one reason or another, they never seemed to work out.  We began to think that we were just supposed to stay in our town home forever.  Which we love our neighborhood.  We have amazing friends here, and our kids do as well.  But we really just wanted a backyard for our kids to play around in.  We made an offer on a home in Lehi back in September, and it was the first time we listed our home for sale.  With full faith that we would be able to sell in 3 weeks, it did not sell.  Once again we found ourselves with no new home.  But we decided to keep our home listed anyway.  We had only 2 people come through our home in the 2 months that we had it listed.  And feel very, very blessed that it sold for a full asking price.  We are also very proud of ourselves for taking such great care of our home, and having it pass inspection with absolutely no problems.  Except now, we had to find somewhere to move, and fast!  Over the years we have looked anywhere from Orem to Lehi.  But we had to sit and think about where we wanted our kids going to school.  We love the school they are currently attending.  And for the 2012-2013 school year, Madison will be starting Jr High (very, very scared about that).  We decided that we love Orem, and began searching only in Orem.  The home prices in Orem are quite a bit higher than the surrounding areas, and very few lots to build on.  We walked though a home in South Orem that we feel in love with.  The details were exactly what we had been wanting all of these years.  We found out the builder who built the home, and decided to build  on the west side of Orem, which is on a golf course called Sleepy Ridge.  Over the past year we felt very hesitant to build there. One, because it is so close to the lake and 2, for all the bugs that are associated with the lake.  But we spoke to quite a few people who love the area, and they helped put our reservations at ease.  So after 12 years, we are building a home and we are so excited.  We move out in one week, and we actually have nowhere to go while we build our home.  So for now, we feel stressed and crazy.  But though things feel up in the air, we know that the Lord is always aware of us, and hears our prayers.  Through this whole process over the last 6 years, we've been very aware that the Lord has been watching over us, and directing us in the right direction.  We certainly don't operate on our own timing, that's for sure.  He has a plan for all of us.
   We are very grateful for our blessings, and feel so blessed how everything has turned out.  We are so excited to move onto the next "phase" in life.  We haven't really had time to let the idea of building our own home set in yet.  Everyone keeps asking us if we are so excited, but we really haven't had time to actually be excited.  We just pray that things will go smoothly, and that it will all work out for the best.

Spring Break in Vegas

For Spring Break this year we went to Las Vegas. We had planned on leaving early in the morning, but instead left 6 hours later due to fixing a leak in the car's transmission. The kids were not happy. The drive was pretty much the worst weather ever. We drove through serious rain storms, which turned to snow storms and zero visibility. We did make it to our destination safely though. On Tuesday we went to the Childrens Museum and loved it. Later that day we ate lunch at a park in the middle of this great outdoor mall called Townsquare. The weather wasn't quite as hot as we were hoping. It was pretty windy which made it a little chilly. On Wednesday we went to M&M World. Which is just a huge shoppping center. We thought we would park and walk wherever we needed to go. We planned on going to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory which was at the Forum Shops a Ceasars Palace. It looked alot closer than it really was. We walked..FOREVER!! Approximatley 1 hour and a half. Oh my goodness!! Once we got there, the restaurant was of course at the very end of the shops. Bryan and I looked at eachother and realized that we had to walk back after lunch. Ugh! Bryan said he wasn't going to make the kids do that again, and decided to go alone but Ethan was so brave and wanted to go with his dad. Cute. Our heroes! That night we swam purely to soak our feet in the water. My sister Jenny and her family, and my parents came late that night to join us for the weekend. On Thursday my dreams came true, and we went to the Williams Sonoma Outlet (insert music here) haha. It was heaven, of course! For no one else but me. Thanks to my family for letting me go! We swam the rest of the afternoon, and had so much fun! We had planned on going back home Friday for Ethan's best friends baptism, but Ethan had found himself having too much fun and wanted to stay another day. So Friday was a little crazy, we ate lunch at Planet Hollywood, and went to Ethel M's Chocolate Factory. YUM!!!! The chocolate was divine! On Saturday was had a great morning swim for a few hours and headed home in the afternoon. It was a great vacation, now I'm ready for another one!