Building: Week 23

Sorry it's been so long since I updated again. I have no excuse. I just forgot that I haven't done it. Last Saturday the whole group worked on the home getting ready for the Parade of Homes. We had to do final clean-up and get the home completely finished so that they could inspect it and give the certificate of occupancy for the Parade of Homes that starts tomorrow. I think it gave the rest of the group the boost they needed to get going on the rest of the homes. There is still a lot of pettiness and selfishness going on so we'll see how fast we really do progress. Now that the Parade home is completely done and the 7th house is completely framed there should be no excuse to get started on the other homes again. Please pray for our group to get the work done before July. I truly believe that with many prayers the build can be done by then but it will take many prayers so I am asking for your help. Thank you.

P.S. Our Supervisor told some people in the group that because the Parade home has a certificate of occupancy now that the family in that home could move in as soon as the Parade is over and they do not have to help the group any more. Needless to say we are not happy about that. We'll see what really happens.

Megan antics

Lately Megan has been exploding with personality. She makes me smile and laugh so much. These are just a few of the fun things that she is doing lately.
*She still acts like a dog begging me to play fetch with her. If I don't take the toy from her mouth fast enough she'll stand up, give me the sign for dog so that I know she is being a dog, and then gets back down and begs me to throw the toy. She also likes to come up to me and lick me. I know most kids her age like to lick (Rebecca licked for years) but she does it while panting and barking. We live next to a Fire Station and close to State St. so we hear a lot of sirens. When she hears the sirens she starts to howl. I swear no one ever showed her how, she just started doing it. She also begs for food. When CJ or I are having a snack on the couch she comes up to us with these huge eyes, her tongue hanging out, and panting as she points to the food and then her mouth. Last night CJ was eating a hamburger and sharing it with her while she sat on his lap. He must not have given her a bite fast enough because she just bent down and stole bite after bite of his burger. I told him that she must have been a dog in her former life.
*Lately she has started acting like a teenager. When I tell her to get down, or put it down, or anything else that she doesn't want to hear she puts up her hand and turns her head as if to say, "talk to the hand, 'cause the baby anit listening." It cracks me up every time. I don't laugh of course because she still needs to do what I ask but inside I am seriously cracking up. I've tried to get a picture of it but as soon as she sees the camera she hams it up.
*After I get her dressed in the morning she stands up, raises her arms, and says, "ta-dah". Then she turns around two or three times and models the outfit. If its a skirt she will even do a little dance. I don't know where this is coming from but it is so darn cute.
*When her sisters were reading a book to her they showed her a spider in the book and taught her to scream and pull away when she saw it. Now every time she sees a picture of a bug, a plastic bug, or even a bug on TV she will scream and pull away or even run. The funny thing is that the scream is so fake. She's not really scared, she's just acting like she's scared. She always giggles when she's done.
She is so much fun. I wish I had a video camera so that I could record these moments forever. I am so grateful that she is part of our family.

Building: Week 22

Our home....still in the holding pattern. Home #7....taking waaaaaaay too long. Hopefully some progress will be done this week. We'll see.

Brace Face

Yesterday was a special day for Elizabeth. She has been looking forward to this day for a very long time. You wouldn't think so knowing that it was going to cause pain, but she counted down the days (and minutes) until she could go and get her braces. I knew her teeth were crowded and that she had teeth that were growing in too high (like mine) but it didn't seem like it was too noticeable. I thought that someday she could go to the orthodontist but that it wasn't that critical that she do it now. I was totally shocked when I took her in to the free consultation at the Orthodontist and they showed me pictures of her teeth and the gaps in her bite and crowded smile were so obvious. Ever since then I was keenly aware of how badly she needed braces. To say the least, her mouth was a mess. We set the appointments necessary to start the process and yesterday was the big day for installation.

It was really interesting to watch the preparation since I had no idea what to expect. They put this red retaining wall type thing in her mouth to keep her cheeks and tongue out of the way. It also had tubes coming out of it that would constantly suck the saliva out so that her teeth could stay completely dry during the process. It was so freaky to look at. When they put the tongue piece in and told her it was to keep her tongue out of the way I got claustrophobic and started to panic a little until I realized that it wasn't in my mouth, I could still move, then I started to calm down. She was so much braver than I think I would have been. She just calmly did everything they told her to. I was so proud of her. She said that it didn't hurt, it just felt weird.

This is a polish that they put on the teeth to prepare them for the cement they use to keep the brackets on.

She has the bottom set of brackets in place.

This light is what they use to instantly harden the cement and keep the brackets from moving now that they have been positioned just right.

Here is our new brace face Elizabeth. I'm not used to the amount of metal in her mouth yet. It looks so uncomfortable to me. I guess it doesn't matter what I think because I'm not the one with the new appliances. Elizabeth seems to be doing just fine with it all. She was expected to be in a lot of pain for the first few days so I was prepared to keep her doped up on pain meds, but she was only in a small amount of pain. She took pain meds twice yesterday but that was it. Even the Orthodontist was surprised when he called to check up on her and she was outside playing with the baby because she wasn't in that much pain. It makes me wonder if they missed a step. She was sore when brushing and flossing but is doing great. She does have to eat soft foods for the first few days because of the soreness and to prevent the brackets from popping off before the cement has completely hardened. Anyway, in two short years she will have a Hollywood smile. She is so happy and I am so happy for her.

P.S. When Dakota saw the pictures of how they put braces on your teeth she started to cry because she knows that she too will need braces and she does not want to go through that. Rebecca simply said that she didn't want them and wasn't going to get them. She will need them too though. We'll see what happens.

Building: Week 21

I was out of town last Saturday, (I'll blog about that when I get the pictures) so I didn't go to the build. CJ told me that they put the trusses on the seventh house so it is that much closer to being done. The framing should be complete on that house by the middle of next week and then it is on to finish work on all the houses. Nothing was done on our house again as we are still in the holding pattern. We did submit our landscaping plan so that the sprinkler system plan could be created. Other than that there is nothing new going on with the build. Hopefully there will be more exciting news next week...or at least some news anyway.

Building: Week 20

My mom keeps comparing the weeks of the build to the weeks of a pregnancy. It keeps things in perspective for me. It takes 40 weeks to grow and birth a baby, and we're seeing how many weeks it takes to grow and birth a house. This being week 20 the house if far enough along now that we should be able to find out the sex of the house soon. Are we having a girl house or a boy house? Comment and let me know what you think.

I can't believe we are in week 20! If you remember from a few months back my supervisor predicted that we would be coming down home stretch by now. Well that aint happening! The last house is taking soooooooo long to frame that we are now a full month behind where we should be at this point. It's a long story but we are soooooo done with some of the other families in this build. We knew that this would be a long hard process and that our nerves would be raw by the end but what's happening is just ridiculous. At this rate our June move-in date has been moved to the beginning of August. August!!! That means two more months of CJ being gone every single night. The other families don't seem to care because they only go out 2 to 3 nights a week to build so their lives haven't really been turned as upside down as ours. They all say that they don't know how CJ can go to work every day and then come to the build every night, because they would never be able to do it. It's not that CJ is Iron Man or anything, he does it because we have no other choice. We don't have the options that the other families have to just be able to take a night off when ever we feel like it (and by we I mean CJ.) I wish they could just get over the pettiness and selfishness and just work together to get this build DONE.

Anyway, I just needed to vent a little. Thanks for listening. As far as the work that was done on our house last week, the driveway and stairs were finally poured. That was scheduled to happen back in March but due to weather and other factors we just got it.

Because Saturday was another day of Spring downpours we were forced to work inside. Most everyone was sent into our house to start paint prep. That means that we took caulk and filled all of the cracks of the finish trim around the entire house. I was assigned to put putty in every single nail hole of the trim and on any exposed drywall screws so that when we paint you won't see any holes. This is a long and tedious process but I still like it a whole lot better than framing.

We won't start painting next week like we are supposed to but at least some progress has been made on our house.