Building: Week 26

What a great week this was. We just feel like real progress is finally being done. The only drawback was the exterior stone. It was finally delivered and everyone was eager to get it done. After a full day of stone work there was little progress made. No one realized how hard stone work really is. Those who thought they would have their stone done in one or two days now realize that it may take weeks to get it done. That will slow us down schedule wise but the second wind I was hoping for has taken hold and everyone is showing up at the build more often so that all the remaining work gets done asap. Yeah!!

The first thing done was the installation of the linoleum. This is in the dining room.

Here it is in the kitchen.

This is the master bathroom.

After linoleum we hung the doors back on and added all the hardware to the doors.

Here is our exterior stone. This stone doesn't look at all like the sample I picked from. I sure hope it looks all right because it's not what I was picturing in my head.

Next came the cabinets. The one standing by itself is part of the island. The space between the cabinets there is for the dishwasher.

Here is the other half of the kitchen. The round cabinet in the corner is the lazy susan. I've never had one of those before.

Here is the master bathroom cabinet. It will be wonderful to have two bathrooms.

Since so much progress has been made we took the girls out to see the house. They were so excited to finally see the house again. They wanted to play on the back porch.

Rebecca and Dakota in their room.

Elizabeth and Megan in their room.

Happy family on the front porch.

Before we left Megan decided she wanted to help. She took the dirt from the big pile and put it on the sprinkler system trying to cover it up. She was having fun and didn't want to stop but we had to go.

All in all we are happy with the progress that is finally being made. The seventh house that took forever to frame is almost at the same point as all the other houses now. It won't be long.

Girl's Camp

Last week Elizabeth went to Girl's Camp with the Young Women. My first little girl at Girl's Camp. I can't believe that she will be in Young Women's next month. Man, I'm getting old. She was so excited to go to camp and I was so excited for her. She started packing about a week before. I told her that probably wouldn't work because she still needed to wear the clothes that she packed. It was really cold and rainy (possibly snowy) where she was going so she packed like it was winter. I was fine with her going to camp until the day she went. All of a sudden I realized that she was going to be gone for a whole week! What if she didn't have any fun, what if she didn't have any friends, what if she is too cold, what if her sleeping bag gets wet, what if she couldn't eat any of the food because of her braces, what if she gets lost , what if she gets hurt?! I didn't think I was so wimpy when it came to sending my kids away but I guess I am. I knew everything would be fine, but you just don't know how you're going to react until it really happens.

So, she was gone for a whole week and I really missed her like crazy but I knew she was having a good time so I was okay. There was something I noticed that I didn't expect (and feel really guilty about. ahhhh!) The house was really quiet and peaceful all week. There wasn't one fight all week and we all worked really well together. How horrible am I for not wanting that to end. Okay, change the subject.

She got home Saturday morning around 11. We were out at the house so I kept calling to see if she was home and how things went. She told us all about it as soon as we got home at 2:30. She had a blast! She was cold the first night but after that she was just fine. She can't wait to do it all over again. About an hour latter she laid down on the floor and fell asleep. She slept the whole rest of the day. She had a lot of fun but she was worn out. She hasn't slept that much in a super long time. Last night they had an award ceremony for the girls and showed a video of the week at camp. Elizabeth was awarded the "Camp Crazy" award. She said that when her friend Tasia was there (Tasia went for one day) the two of them acted really crazy. I'm so glad that she had such a good time.

I can't believe that next year I will have two girls at camp!

Baby #5

It's official, we are expecting baby #5. Thank you all for your support and wonderful comments. I just felt different in the beginning of this pregnancy like there were twins or maybe something was wrong with the baby, so I didn't want to say anything until we saw the ultrasound and saw the baby and heard the heartbeat. The baby (there is only one) was so active during the ultrasound that the doctor had to chase it to get a picture. It wouldn't stop moving. That was at 10 weeks, imagine how active this child is going to be at 2 years. I'm a little worried that I won't be able to keep up with this kid.

The girls and CJ are of course hoping for a boy. I would love a boy but part of me is scared to have a boy. I only know how to do girls and they are pretty easy (before puberty anyway. lol ) I am expecting it to be a girl because that seems to be what the pattern is. If it does happen to be a boy that would be a wonderful surprise. As of right now we don't plan on finding out the sex of the baby at the next ultrasound. We didn't know the sex of our first baby and we want to be surprised about the sex of our last baby as well. Boy or girl it doesn't matter this baby will be totally loved. It's really more exciting on delivery day if you don't know if your delivering a boy or a girl. That's my opinion anyway, I think CJ wants to know right away. Plus I may change my mind in a month or two. We'll see what happens.

I am almost 13 weeks now and I'm still deep in the throws of morning (actually its 24 hour) sickness. It's starting to wear me down and I don't know how much more I can take. I know it will be gone in about 2 weeks but that seems like a lifetime from now. Anyway, the baby is due New Year's Day. The girls are really excited about that. I told them that babies rarely come on their exact due date but we can always hope. They are so excited about the baby. They are already talking about names but to me its too far away to start thinking names. We'll work on that latter...much latter. For now I'm just focusing on making it through each day (and night).

Painting With Water

One of the girl's favorite activities is to take a bucket of water and a large paint brush outside to the driveway and paint with water. This was Megan's first time and she was taking it so seriously. She did like putting her hand in the water but when she went to make a picture you could see the wheels turning in her head. Rebecca and Dakota had so much fun teaching their sister their favorite activity.

Happy Sisters

Graduation

During the last week of school in May Elizabeth graduated from 6th grade and Elementary School. There was a really nice ceremony and then the kids all got certificates. I can't believe how much she has grown. It doesn't seem that long ago that she was running around in diapers. She really is growing into a beautiful young woman. Here is a look back at my little Elizabeth's Elementary years.

Kindergarten

1st Grade

2nd Grade

3rd Grade

4th Grade

5th Grade

6th Grade

Next year she starts Jr. High. It is still hard for me to wrap my mind around. She is so excited and I am excited for her.

Building: Week 25

We are moving at a good pace. Three of the last six homes are being done all at the same time. Soon we will catch up the other three. We are still looking at the end of July or beginning of August for open house and move-in. Thank you so much for your prayers, they are working. We also want to say a big thank you to our friend John Romney who came out to volunteer last Saturday and brought a volunteer with him. Every pair of hands helps and with their help we were able to paint prep an entire house in one day.
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Here are the latest pictures....

The sprinkler system was installed.

The house was painted. It's all down hill from there. Here is the picture of the doors set up in the basement for their paint that I thought looked really cool. It was like the scene in Monster's Inc. where they had a bunch of doors in a line and each one opened to a different place. It was fun imagining what exotic lands were on the other side of each door.

The finish electrical was done (by professionals thank goodness.) We now have outlet covers and lights as well as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

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This week we will be getting our linoleum floors and the cabinets will be installed. We're also hoping that our exterior stone will be delivered this week. It will take a long time for it to be installed since the family they have doing it has never done masonry before but that's okay, we just hope it gets started soon. More progress...yeah!

5 Reasons why I love being a Mom.

Elizabeth

Rebecca

Dakota

Megan

Peanut

Building: Week 24

PROGRESS!!!! We are finally making progress on the houses again. Every one's house was in the holding pattern while the last house was framed and the Parade home was done. They are both finished now so work on all the other homes have started again. Here is some progress on our home.

The final grade and leveling of the yard for the sprinkler system has been done.

The gravel next to the driveway was delivered and spread.

The back porch has been poured. We were only allowed a 12x12 patch of concrete so the porch does not go all the way around the window well but what can you do. They should pour the stairs fairly soon.

The sprinkler system has been delivered.

The paint package and finish hardware have been delivered.

The cabinets have been delivered. After paint and linoleum they will be installed. We moved them into the basement to protect them from the paint. (Side note: a pet peeve of mine is water bottles. See the water bottles on the cabinets? Those are constantly being left behind in all the houses and I haven't figured out who's doing it yet. When I do find the culprit, I will have some words with them. They may not clean up after themselves at home, but it is so rude to leave their trash all over other people's homes.)

We are getting the house ready for paint this week. Paint prep is a boring, tedious, painstakingly detailed job because so many little things must be done in order to insure only the things that are supposed to be painted get painted and all the construction work is covered up by the paint so that everything looks smooth and flawless. Even though it is not a fun job everyone in the group is so happy to finally be doing finish work that we are nearly done with paint prep on all the houses except the last one that just finished framing and doesn't have drywall yet. This picture is of the doors being prepped. We had to take them all off the hinges and cover the hinge holes with tape so that paint does not clog the holes. We had to cover the spot for the hinges on the doorways as well. The doors are now in the basement standing upright waiting for individual paint. I forgot to take a picture but it is amazing how they got all the doors to stand upright. I will hopefully get a picture in this week.

We had to tape off the tubs and any underlayment that was already installed.

We had to cover all the windows and take the hardware off the main doors. Since we couldn't take the doors all the way off we had to tape these hinges while still on the door. The outside of the main doors will be painted a different color than the inside so that is why we couldn't take off the doors. There are so many other little things that have to be done before any painting can take place. But the house is prepped and should be painted this week.

We are also hoping for linoleum this week but the underlayment that was started so long ago needs to be finished. Lets hope I can have busy updates like this every week from now on. It feels so good to finally be moving forward.

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.