Building: Week 4

Wow! Can you believe its been 4 weeks already?! I know I can't. Our house has come so far in such a short time. Now its on to the other 7 houses. There are only a few things left to do on our house. We need to sheet the roof and install the doors and windows. Those are two things I am really looking forward to for reasons other than the obvious. I can't wait for the roof to be sheeted because I am tired of shoveling snow out of the house. There is about 1 inch of ice with 1-2 inches of snow on top of that on the entire floor of the house and my job is to get it all out of the house. You really find out how much house you have when you have to clear out every square inch of ice and snow (even inside the walls.) I will feel so much better when there is a roof and windows so that once the snow and ice is all cleared out I won't have to do it again after the next snow. I look forward to the installation of the windows and doors as well so that we can keep the neighborhood kids out of the house. Last Saturday, WHILE WE WERE STILL THERE, a group of kids walked right into our house! A group of girls went right into the basement to skate on the ice rink that we have down there, and a group of boys stayed upstairs playing with all the cool "toys" (like boards with nails sticking out) they could find on the floor. You know that this was not the first time they have been in the house. I just would hate to think that a kid got hurt while playing in my house, or decided to brake something in the house just for fun. I can't wait to get the doors and windows in so that we can keep the kids and the house safe. Anyway, here are just some of the 50 pictures I took.

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Here is the "before" picture. This picture was taken that morning before the crane arrived.

Here is CJ attaching the trusses to the crane. (Lucky man)

These are (top) The trusses being lifted in a group and going in to the air. (right) The trusses being placed on the house (over the dining room/master bedroom.) (bottom) A picture of the house with only half of the trusses done (its one of my favorite pics of the day.)

This is the house finished with all the trusses.

CJ working in the rafters. (He was only a little scared.)
The "after" picture of the house. It really is starting to take shape and look like a real house now.

It was so much fun watching the trusses go on top of the house by crane. CJ got to hook the trusses to the crane and then use the guide rope to keep the trusses from tangling while they were being lifted on to the house. It's actually the job I wanted, but I couldn't do that and take pictures too so I had to do something else. My job was to be inside the house handing the men who were on the roof hammering in the trusses anything they needed. I thought it was going to be easy and I would have plenty of time to take lots of pictures. I was indeed wrong. They were very needy men. I had a hard enough time just trying to keep up with all their requests, let alone trying to take pictures as well. I didn't mind though because I got to know every board in my roof very well. It just makes the house seem more personal when you know every nail that goes into it. Just a side note, we had to get the trusses nailed on as fast as possible because the crane we use to put it up with is very expensive. We were hoping to get it done in as close to one hour as possible. Because this was the first roof and we didn't know exactly what we were doing we did it in 2 hours and 15 min. The supervisor said the next house will go even faster. That's just amazing to me because I thought it went really fast already.

Have pen, will write.

Megan just keeps coming up with new ways to make me smile. She is so funny. Back in September she found a pen and a postcard on the floor and started "writing" on the postcard. I thought it was so cute so I took a picture. It was so fun to see her just instinctively know what to do with paper and a pen. A few months later she did it again, and has been doing it ever since. She is almost always seen with a pencil in hand looking for any scrap of paper (or appliance) she can "write" on. She will sit for a long time just making her little marks on both sides of the paper. She will also bring the paper and pencil to you asking you to draw her a picture so that she can color it. Don't even try to take the pencil out of her hand because she has the grip of steel and she will tell you that she does not want to give up the pencil.
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Megan writing just before bed.

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She fell asleep before putting all her thoughts down on paper.

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She found a spot in the hallway where no one could bother her and made it her own private writing studio.

I watch her concentrating so hard on her writings and just wonder what novel or masterpiece is in there just waiting to emerge.

Tween Town

Everyone keeps telling us that having three girls so close in age is going to be h-e-double hockey sticks when they become teenagers. The fights about "borrowing" clothes, who stole who's date, who gets more bathroom time, and so on are not going to be fun. I however don't think its going to be that bad. I have some really good girls who have learned how to share and coincide in really tight quarters...all four of them still sleep in the same room on weekends. I know that it won't be a bowl of cherries but I don't think it will be all that bad. I know it won't be bad for one main reason. We are already going through some of the teenage drama. The girls are all in the awkward stage that happens before the teenage stage. The stage kids hit when they are 9, 10,11, and 12. The Tween stage (because they are between a little kid and a teen.) I thought this stage was hard because we could never figure out what to get them for birthdays and Christmas (they're too old for Princess toys but too young for make-up.) But I was wrong. This stage is hard because they are starting the hormone change and their emotions have started on the roller coaster ride they will be on for the next 10 years. Their interests go back and forth from listening to cool songs on the radio while chatting with friends on the phone to playing hide-and-seek with mom and dad. What you thought they liked they think was soooo yesterday, but then again its what they will want tomorrow. I never know which emotion to expect from one minute to the next, or from which tween child its going to come from. I guess this is just a taste of what's in store for when the real thing happens and it's not that bad...on most days.

Anyway, I just couldn't believe what happened last week. I was caught off guard and had to remember that my little girls are getting closer to becoming young women every day.

Elizabeth was in the bathroom (unusually long) with the door cracked open so I thought I would go in and see if there was something she needed help with (you know...playing the part of the nosey mother.) As soon as my hand touched the door she slammed it shut as quick as she could. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "nothing". I asked her what she was doing..."nothing". I asked her if I could come in..."NO!" My interest is piqued now. When a girl says that nothing is wrong that usually means that there is definitely something wrong. I ought to know since I am the Queen of "nothings wrong". I finally get her to let me in the bathroom and she has one hand to her forehead and the other is quickly trying to clean up my make-up. She said that she had accidentally spilled my make-up and was trying to clean it up. Okay, no big deal. I help her clean it up. The whole time though she won't take her hand off her forehead. I ask her if she has a headache..."no". Why won't you take your hand off your head?..."because". (This is going nowhere.) Elizabeth, let me see your forehead. She moved her hand away and I noticed that her beautiful eyebrow (she really has the most beautiful eyebrows) was almost gone. It took a few seconds before I realized what she had done and then it took everything I had in me not to laugh. She had her new Disney magazine in front of her opened to the page where there were pictures of her four favorite characters with a list of what she needed to do to look just like them. I really didn't think that she was that preoccupied with her looks that she would take that page seriously. She was in there with a pair of scissors trying to give herself some bangs so that she could look just like one of them. She had only cut a tiny amount of bangs before she realized that she had taken off half of her eyebrow. She wasn't sure what to do but she was certain that she was going to be in BIG trouble. I just looked at her and smiled. I told her that I would be happy to help her cut her hair. She was relieved. I told her that I would have to fix her eyebrows though because it was really obvious. She wasn't too sure about that but in the end she let me trim the other eyebrow to match. She really looks good with bangs. Dakota and Rebecca liked them so much that they asked me to do the same for them. I will miss her eyebrows but at least I know they will grow back. Their childhood innocence however is quickly slipping away.

I need to be more inviting and less scary so that my girls will think about coming to me first when they want to do something so drastic in the future. If not, the next time could be a lot worse than a missing eyebrow.



My beautiful daughter. (Her bangs are covering the eyebrow that she chopped.)

Building: Week 3

I'm sorry that it took so long to get this post up. I didn't realize that it has been almost a week since I was out at the house last.
Things have slowed down a bit for two reasons. First is due to the snow. It finally stopped snowing today and the sun has decided to come out and play. We got hit with almost two straight days of non-stop snow, and that is on top of the snow we had already gotten. We got over a foot of snow here in a matter of just a few days. CJ was trying to go to Payson last night to work on the house but almost couldn't because his car got stuck trying to get out of the large snow bank at the foot of our driveway (thanks to the snow plow who only clears the other side of the road by piling it all up on our side of the road.) It took a lot of digging, and pushing from neighbor kids and our Bishop (who lives next door) to get the car out of the driveway. Thanks Bishop. They are doing the finishing touches to our house this week, and are making sure everything is done before this Saturday when they will be putting the trusses on top of the house with a crane. Then we have a week to put the sheeting on the trusses and install the doors and windows so that the professionals can come in and start making the wood "play house" look like a real house. We were supposed to get a garage floor last week but due to the snow and ice...yet again...they were unable to poor it and will have to wait until we get a good thaw before any floor can be poured.
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This is the garage as of last Saturday. It is done and ready for a roof now.

The porch is starting to take shape.

Not a very good picture of the front of the house, but I was tired.

The second reason things have slowed down is because there were only three houses dug and poured before the snow hit, and one of the houses we found has the basement walls but no floor. Rural Housing didn't think this would be a problem because they expected us to take forever learning how to do the framing and thought they would have plenty of time to catch up. What they didn't count on was so many people in the same build that already knew what to do. We are building so fast that Rural Housing is making up little projects to slow us down because if we keep building at this rate we will have nothing to do in about two weeks. The framing of our house will be completely finished by the middle of next week and the second house should be completely finished in two weeks. Because the third house has no floor we can't do anything with it and, since there are no other houses dug or poured, we will have nothing to do. It wouldn't be so bad if we were building in any other season, but with all the snow they are just not sure when they will be able to dig and pour the other houses. So, there you have it. The good, the bad, and the ugly of what is going on with the build.

Happy New Year!!

I can't believe it is the start of another year. Even the kids said that last year was over too quickly. We celebrated in our traditional manor. We ate finger foods and played games together all night. We tried out a few new games the girls got from school and from Christmas. At midnight we turned on the TV to watch the ball drop in Time Square, then we made a toast to the new year. Dakota made the toast this year. We look forward to the ball drop and the toast every year, although I don't like the changes they have made to the ball in Time Square so we probably won't watch that anymore.

CJ is not much of a night person and usually prefers to bring in the new year in a quiet slumber. This year we were blessed to have him join us for our midnight celebrations. The girls thought it was awesome to have Dad there.

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Megan drinks to the new year.

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Party friends.

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Megan says that she was listening to the voices in her head and they told her that this will be a great year for you.

We want to wish every one a wonderful New Year.

Building: Week 2

CJ and the other families have been hard at work everyday (except Sunday) on the house. I went out last Friday and Saturday trying to help but not doing much of anything except shoveling snow because I kept falling on the ice in the house, and the snow covered hills outside of the house. It was weird knowing that the first time I had to "clean" my house I was shoveling snow out of my walls and throwing it out my windows.lol It was only 8 degrees on Saturday for most of the day. It started to clear up and get warmer just before we left...go figure. My feet were soaked for so long and I was so cold that my body couldn't fight the cold Megan had been trying to give me for 2 weeks. I now have a nasty cold. I must say that I am finding out just how much of a wimp and a baby I am. CJ goes out there every day...at night...after a long day at his real job... and never complains! I go out once a week and come home ready to give up...and its only been 2 weeks! I thank the Lord every night for my wonderful husband and the Angels that bare him up and keep him going. He hasn't gotten sick or injured and he comes home just as enthusiastic as he was on the first day (albeit completely exhausted.) Thank you so much CJ!!!!!!

We are excited as well because we are still way ahead of schedule (and under budget.) We have all of our outer walls up and all of the interior walls as well. I got to walk through my house and really see all the rooms. It was way exciting! Today they finish the garage walls and the stairs. After that our house is as done as it can be at this point. The trusses (skeleton roof) are the last thing to go on before they start the next house but they are not scheduled to be installed for 2 more weeks, so they have decided to start working on the next house this week and then put the trusses on the two houses at the same time (saving time and money.) That means that instead of finishing in August we may be done in July. And they said if it keeps going as well as it has been, we may even be in the house in June. I think that news is really what keeps CJ so well motivated every day.

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It's far away, but here is the house with the outer walls up.

The front of the house. (In the shadows is CJ working on the garage walls.)

Looking in through the front window. (By the way Dad, you were right. Our front window will be much larger than the one we drove by and saw.)

After next week I'm not sure if I will have many pictures to post because we will be working on the other houses and nothing new will happen with ours for a while. But I could be wrong.

Building, Snow, and Singing

Well its been a while since I had a minute to post so I have a lot to catch up on. I thought about saving some of it and posting one thing a day for the next few days so that it wouldn't be so long between posts again but just in case this is the only time I have to post for the next few days I want to be sure to get it all in. Anyway, here goes.

snow, Snow, SNOW!!!

We have had an unusually warm autumn and relatively snow free December until a few days ago. I guess all good things must come to an end. We have just been pounded with snow over the last few days and we're expecting more snow over the next few days. It wasn't bad at first but yesterday was unbelievable. It just kept coming and coming. I was out shoveling the walks and had the girls get a ruler to see how deep the snow really was. We had 7 inches at 1pm but the snow didn't stop until a few hours later and by then there was at least 2 more inches out there. Normally I wouldn't mind too much because I don't have to travel in it but this time I was hating every inch. I may not have to travel in it but CJ does. He has to go 30 miles south to Payson every day to build. I worry about him on that highway with all the other drivers who forget how to drive in the snow. Anyway, here are some pics of our snow.

This is the first day of snow. I thought we had a lot then. I didn't know how much we were about to get.

I let Megan touch the snow to see what she would think of it.

She didn't like it at all.

I went to take out the trash and was met with a happy stranger.

Rebecca and Dakota have made me promise not to shovel the sidewalk while they were at school because they wanted to do it. I thought they were doing it because they thought it was fun. Turns out they were doing it because they wanted to earn money. Oh well. I'm going to take advantage of them while they actually want to shovel the walk.

Here is the ruler. I know it's hard to read but it says 7 inches. That was before the additional 2 inches.All the neighbors made ginormous snowmen with the abundance of snow. My girls decided to make a snow fort/sledding hill.

School Holiday Sing.

Last Friday was the last day of school before the winter break. It is a tradition for the kids to have a holiday sing for the parents. Each class gets to perform a song or two. I was really tired and CJ had the morning off so he got the kids off to school. I forgot that I wanted to fix their hair real cute. Oh well. Maybe next year.

Building Week 1:

Last week was the first official week of building for our home. The construction supervisor decided to build our house first since he knows the plan better than the others. I'm okay with that now that I know what his plans are. We are going to frame our house first. When everyone is done with our house (the training house) they will frame all the other houses at the same time. The interior work will be done simultaneously so that all the houses will be done at the same time. Our house won't be done any earlier than anyone elses. CJ was out at the house every night last week. He is having a good time building and getting to know our neighbors. The biggest problem he has is that it is cold at night and they have to shovel all the snow away before they can start to work and that takes time away from the build. I was amazed when I went out on Saturday at how much work they had done. They had the basement wall done, the stairwell (minus the stairs) done, and the floor almost done. It only took a few hours on Saturday with everyone there to get the floor all the way done and start on the outer walls. By the time we left we had our first wall erected. It was so much fun to see the wall go up, I almost cried. CJ came back tonight and said that we have all four outer walls up. That is great news. We are way ahead of schedule. If we keep going at this rate we will be done way before August. It helps that a few of the families have people in them that know what they are doing and don't need to be trained. One of them just graduated from school with a degree in construction. It really helps having him there if we have a question.

This is the floor half way done.

The only time we will have 2 inches of snow in our basement...I hope.

How many people does it take to lift a wall?

The wall is almost up.

We have a wall!

CJ holding up the wall (that's our bedroom window by the way)

This is the view from our bedroom window. At least until a house gets built in the empty lot behind us.

I will be going out every Saturday so I will have more pictures every week.

The Many Moods of Megan

When my parents came to visit for Thanksgiving we took some drives. My dad who loves to take pictures was sitting behind Megan (who is still in a rear facing car seat) in the car so he took lots of pictures of her. I thought these pictures were so funny because they really capture Megan's mood swings. These particular pictures were taken in about a 3 minute period and as you can see her mood changed constantly from super happy to playful to frustrated and back again. What the camera didn't show you were the times she yelled at Grandpa for making her look at him and smile, lol, but I think you get the point. She is so much fun but she can be very stubborn at times (she gets it from daddy of course.)
I will post some pictures of the other girls as soon as they let me take some. I want you to see how beautiful they are too. It may take some bribing and maybe a few stolen camera shots but hopefully you can see them soon too.

Missed a photo

Sorry Dad. I don't know why I didn't post this one. It's a great picture. I love the pictures you took and I am so grateful you took them. CJ has them posted in his locker at work so that he can see them everyday.


Here we are with my parents (and a neighbor girl) in front of our big, wonderful hole.

Building: Day 1

Our house is evolving. The hole is now a basement. The small room in the front is the cold storage room that is directly under the front porch. Next to that is the garage. Pretty cool.

We got an email on Wed. that we were expected to be at the building site today, bright and early, so that we could put in window wells in the three homes that have been started. CJ and I were there and way excited to finally get started. Window wells is kind of a "get to know" you activity. It is not part of our 35 hour requirement (which technically starts when we begin framing) but is still mandatory. If all goes well with the weather we will start framing, and our 35 hour a week plus mandatory Saturday morning requirement, next Saturday. All 5 families that we have so far in our group were there and we all worked very well together. We had a lot of fun doing this assignment. We got to know the other families better and think that we have a really good group. This will make the very long build process much easier to deal with. Our home is scheduled to be finished by April 15, however, don't forget that we can't move in until all the homes in our group are finished. They are all scheduled to be finished August 31, with a move in day about a week later. That will be the hardest part to me. I will hate seeing my house every day for months and know that we can't have it yet. I don't want to think about that now though. I will just take it one day at a time and today was a great day.

Thanksgiving Cooks.

It was so nice to have my parents here for Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time with them. Time always flys too quickly when you're having fun though. For dinner my mom let me cook the turkey and the pies. They turned out pretty good if I do say so. The rest of the dinner she let the girls cook. I was amazed. She told the girls what to do and then let them do it. I would have been a basket case, having to watch their every move, but she didn't even think twice about it. The girls had a blast making the food and I loved watching them cook with Grandma. That was more special to me than anything else. I would love that to become a tradition. I found out that they are pretty good cooks. The food was fabulous! I really need to give them more time in the kitchen because they do really well. I am very proud of my girls.

Megan helped by making sure the floor was well swept. I had to buy a new broom so I let her play with it and she would not let it go. She took it everywhere with her.

It's a really, really big hole!

I have never been so excited about a hole in the ground. We didn't even know that they had started digging our home yet. My parents were in town for Thanksgiving so we took them to see the lot that we are building on. To our surprise we saw a big pile of dirt and a big digger on our land. At first I thought it must be someone else's plot but it was indeed ours. I screamed in excitement. We have finally started!! We should have footings poured by the end of this week. We should be able to start framing by the end of this month or beginning of next month depending on the weather and how fast the foundation can be poured and cured.

View to the north.

View to the south.

The kids had so much fun just climbing on the piles of dirt and in and out of the hole. It was a great Thanksgiving surprise. Two other homes have been dug with footings poured so we know it is going as fast as they can go. We are so happy and our prayers have been answered.