Looking More Like a House!

Framing began in the last week or two. The crew was off for two days last week because they donated their time to the Extreme Makeover house that was being built in Iowa. Framing of the main floor.

This is a view of the west end of the house. The doorway that is near the middle of the picture is the doorway to our master bedroom. The doorway that is on the left of the picture will be the laundry room/mudroom.

This is the kitchen area. In the left side of the picture is the framing of the walk-in pantry.

Living room area with a bedroom in the background.

Today the roof started to take shape also. Moving right along!!!

My Baby Girl!

Oh my sweet Olivia! Where have the past three years gone so quickly?? I remember the day you were born waking up about 2-3 a.m. having contractions every 5 minutes. I told Daddy that I was going to take a bath and see if anything changed. Since it didn't I called the hospital, Grandma Cheryll came up to our house to be with your sisters, and we went to the hospital arriving about 5:30 a.m. You were born right before 10:30 a.m. and have been a blessing ever since. You are spunky and down-right funny sometimes. You try to do everything your sisters do and I just want to make time freeze so you don't grow up so fast! I was talking at supper tonight with Daddy how about that time 3 years ago he and your sisters left me at the hospital all alone with you. I was sad that they had to leave us, but Daddy had to get your sisters home to bed because they had to get up for school the next day. How I would give anything to be able to have that quiet time with you all alone more often now!! We are so busy all the time, but you are so good about going with the flow! My hope for your future is that you enjoy life to the fullest and love your family beyond measure. Your dad and I love you so much and we just want you to be happy and healthy. We had Olivia's birthday party on Sunday and here she is after just opening a present. She was so much fun to watch this year - she knows her birthday is in September. She also knows she is three and she loved opening her presents and all the attention on her!!

Aunt Brenda got Olivia a Dora cup, plate, etc. Here Olivia is trying to open the Dora sandwich keeper. Not much luck!

This summer we went to the theater to see "Rio" when it was a 10 a.m. showing so cost was $2 per person. Olivia liked it and now we own it on DVD. So she picked out "Rio" for her cake this year. I also think she has watched it a bit too much. She recently took it to daycare and a little boy at daycare kept telling her shhh during the movie because she repeats most of the lines.

Waiting for everyone to sing "Happy Birthday" to her so she can blow out the candles. Her crown is from an "Olivia" dress-up set. She loves "Olivia" the pig and I love when she sings along with the theme song to the show. She also got a toy car from the show with all of the "Olivia" family in it.

The cake had lots of blue frosting so Olivia had blue lips and fingers. You can see her tutu a little in this picture from the dress-up set. She got blue frosting on that also, but it cleaned right off.

House Progress

Since last I posted, the basement is structurally done and now framing has begun.

Seal on one wall of basement, so backfill can be put in.

Looking at the basement. Backfill is done.

Garage floor ready for cement pouring.

Basement floor ready for cement pouring.

Garage floor poured!

Basement floor poured!

Framing began today!!!

Madison's Room in the basement. She can see where her window will be!!

Looking out the basement from another angle!

House Plans

Not sure how well this will work, but I am posting our house plan drawings. (I hope if you are interested, you can click on the pictures and see them bigger.)
This first picture is of the front and back of the house. The only thing that you won't see on these are the front porch railings and the deck on the back of the house.
This next picture is the two side views of the house.
This is the main floor living space floor plan. Main floor laundry, master bedroom suite with his and hers closets, walk-in pantry. Terry also made our garage big for all of the stuff we have. We can't have a shed in the backyard because of the lot covenants. Bedroom #3 in the plan will be Olivia's room.
This is the basement floor plan. Our lot slopes a lot, so we could have a walk-out basement, but we are not. We are just having a daylight basement, but we can take out a window in the recreation room and replace it with a door at some point if we decide to. Bedroom #4 in the plan will be Laci's room and Bedroom #5 will be Madison's room. Both girls will have walk-in closets and they will also have a bathroom to share. We decided to finish the basement right away also so that the house is completely move-in ready! So excited about the final results. Basement walls were poured Thursday, so they need to take the forms off on Monday. It is started and that is progress!

Footings are Poured!! Basement Walls NEXT!!!

This is the footings of our basement for our new house. It rained quite a bit on Friday after the footings got poured, so a lot of mud!! This is looking at the house from the back corner.

Today forms got set up so that the basement walls can be poured this week. More forms need to be set up tomorrow and then hopefully the cement gets poured for the walls on Thursday. This is the back side of the house.

This is looking at the front of the house. More forms set up for basement wall pouring on Thursday. Love going up each day to see PROGRESS!!!

First Day of School and Ground Breaking

The first day of school was this Monday, August 29th. 3rd Grade!

1st Grade!

Getting ready to go off to school together! We are currently living in a rental home and the front porch got a lot of sunlight, so not the greatest pictures, but ones to remember anyway!!

Olivia always gets in the pictures too. She will have to wait one more year to start preschool.

1120 Donna - our "to-be" address.

GROUND BREAKING occurred today!!!

The way our lot sits and slopes, it really isn't a hole in the ground for the basement. It is more of a cut into the slope. Just glad the digging is done and hopefully the basement will get poured tomorrow!!

Summer is Almost Over

So this summer has flown by, just like every other summer has. We started out the summer by getting moved and then Terry and I went to Mexico for a week. After returning from vacation, at the end of June, Madison and Laci had two weeks of swimming lessons. I was gone for work for a few days the beginning of July. Terry had foot surgery on July 15 - 4th foot surgery (5th procedure - the guy has bad feet). The end of July brought Vacation Bible School at our church and then the beginning of August the girls went to Vacation Bible School at our babysitter's church. I am glad to say that a routine will soon follow, but sad to see the summer end. I kept myself busy this summer by working on an on-line class, working on Olivia's cross-stitch birth announcement (it won't be done by the time she is three, I hate to admit), and doing lots and lots of reading.
Here are some pictures from the end of July to now: Laci and Olivia at swimming lessons. I scheduled them as soon as the schedule came in the mail so that Madison and Laci could get in the classes and be at the same time. Unfortunately, they called at the last minute and I had to move Laci to a different time because not enough kids had signed up for the session I wanted her to be in. Thus, Olivia had to sit through two sessions and I was ready to leave when they were done and get Olivia home for lunch and a nap.

The girls are constantly wanting to go get pedicures since I get them once in awhile. I didn't let them get full pedicures, but we went to the nail place one day and they got their toenails painted. Madison had green polish with black zebra stripes on all toes.

Laci had bluish-green polish with white polka dots on all toes.

Miss Olivia had neon green polish with flowers on just her big toes.

On August 3rd, I got a new niece. My brother Mark and his wife Cyndi had their first child, Chloe Jane. It is so awesome that she was born on August 3rd as this was my mom and dad's wedding anniversary. Dad was looking down on all of us that day!! Laci can't get enough of Chloe and loves to hold her a lot!

Madison holding Chloe. She likes to hold her too, but usually won't hold her for as long. This was similar to how it was when Olivia was this age. Laci loved to hold Olivia a lot and for quite awhile, but Madison didn't hold Olivia for as much or as long.

Uncle Terry even held Chloe at the hospital. Olivia held her too, but I don't have a picture of that and that is probably because I was busy making sure Olivia held Chloe and didn't drop her!

Now I for sure need to get Olivia's cross-stitch birth announcement done so that I can start one for Chloe. The girls got matching shirts at Target one day and they all wore them on the same day. Can you tell that Olivia is tall? We keep telling Laci to eat and grow so Olivia doesn't catch up, but I think Olivia will catch up anyway. Olivia is wearing a lot of 4T and 5T things and some items are things that Laci just wore last summer (she won't be 3 until September 27th). I also think there is only about 6-8 lbs difference between the two girls. Also, the shirts have a pug on them and Laci wants a baby pug. No more pets for us, but maybe for her someday. The shirts also say "What's not to love?" and I couldn't agree more.

This is a picture of Olivia on August 5th. Compare it with the first picture of this post and you will see Olivia lost a lot of hair at her recent haircut. She had enough that we will be sending hair to Locks of Love. Amazing since she isn't even 3 years old yet - she has a lot of hair! I don't remember the other two having that much hair at this age or it being so long.

Our empty lot for our house. Hopefully the end of this week it will have a big hole in it!!!

Final pictures - on Sunday, the girls got to go to Terry's uncle's house. Terry's uncle Alan has horses, so the girls got to ride a little bit. This is Laci riding with Alan. Alan made Suzy run a bit and Laci smiled so big. She loved it!

This is Olivia riding with Alan's daughter, Carly. Olivia wouldn't ride with Alan, but was willing to ride with Carly and they are riding Bandit.

Madison riding Bandit also while Carly walked Bandit. I didn't think that Madison could fit on the saddle with Carly. Carly was nice enough to walk Bandit, so Madison could ride too