The roof is on!

WELCOME HOME!!

The kids are yelling welcome home to you all!

Here are a few pictures of the roof trusses as they go on. What fun to watch this process and learn how things are put together! This week was rainy and drizzly most days, so we had a hard time going to take pictures that turned out okay, but they got a lot accomplished by the end of this week!

Back of the House in process

We continue to enjoy watching the progress. Here is the back of the house at several stages!

House Progress

This is what fills our days lately - the crew has been busy working on our house, and I've had to work hard to not stand on the place here at Pete & Marilyn's that gives us the best view of the action all day long! We enjoy our late afternoon walks to the house to see what the workers have accomplished each day. Right now, we have been quite excited each evening - I know things will slow down when the framing is done. I have been trying to take pictures from several points in the house each day so we can see the progress - as I look back over these, it's already hard to remember some of those beginning pictures.

This was the first day after they had been framing on the main floor - What fun to see sticks of lumber climbing into the sky to make the outline of our house!

Our driveway is so rough - I usually push Jenna in the stroller to the drive and then put her in the snuggly to walk the driveway - she has fallen asleep the last three times we've got out to investigate progress.

This is the view from the girls' bedroom at several stages.

These are all from the north/west end of the house, soon to be our mud room - looking through the house - Kitchen closest, then dining room, and then the kids bedrooms and the bathrooms are framed in the last one!

From our front porch looking in...

The sky has been amazing this week - what fun for all these pictures! :)

Free Time...

I went to the post office today for stamps with just Jenna and Jake before picking up Emily from Kindergarten, the lady there said, "I'd ask what you do with your free time, but I don't think I need to!" It was a good reminder of how valuable my days spent with our kids are. I am totally enjoying staying at home with them and not teaching. The only tear I've shed over not teaching tried to well up in my eyes when we were at Emily's open house for Kindergarten and the teacher was going over her parent information. I always enjoyed those evenings getting to watch the parents interact with their kids and sometimes saying to myself; "Oh, that's why he's the way he is!!" I think I was so excited to be on the other side of the paper, reading it along with her and not doing the explaining to the parents.

Today, the big kids were happily playing, so I snuck off with just Jenna to take some pictures of her around the yard. One of the fun things about living at Pete and Marilyn's is that it's almost like a park! The yard is always beautiful and the flowers are amazing. Here's Jenna showing you a few of her favorites...

Emily and Jenna's shirts were both so colorful, we had to have them together for a few pictures too!

Jake had fun smiling in this tree. While he was smiling and I was enjoying a photo opportunity, Jenna found Emily's collection of cicada shells. Yikes! We turned around to find them in her hands, mouth, hair and stuck to her shirt. I panicked, but did manage to take a quick picture to capture the memory!

House progress...

Pat had a coworker suggest we take daily pictures of our house going up so we could make a cool slide show when we compile all the pictures. I decided to give this a try. Here's what we've got so far. I tried to choose several spots so that we'll be able to see things throughout the process.

Below is a picture taken from our future mud room!!
We didn't have one at our old place, so I'm REALLY excited to have a place for our messy things.




This picture is taken from our front porch looking in about where the front door will be. This will all be clearer once they start some framing and the trusses are up.

This is from the girls' bedroom corner. We have had such fun going over to visit our house most days. The builder hasn't been there for about three weeks, which has been hard to be patient, but we've enjoyed getting to go take walks there after naps. The kids and I often bike, walk, and/or ride the little toy tractor to the driveway and then hike down the drive together so we can enjoy a can of soda in the shade on the basement floor. That's about the only shade, so we'll need some trees soon!!


The builder has had a job shack parked in front of our driveway since Saturday, so I've been checking with eagerness each morning to see if anyone is there to work. I'm excited to see what happens next in this process.

It's been awhile...

Hello - I'm still here, I've just been busy getting us all settled in the country at Pete & Marilyn's. The kids are loving the freedoms that come with country living, I'm enjoying watching the process of our house - we're at a standstill for a bit while our contractor finishes another job in Goessel. We have a foundation, and a large stack of floor trusses!! More fun to come with that. I know I've skipped a lot of life on the blog - but playing catch up was too overwhelming! :) So, for now, enjoy some pictures of Emily growing up too fast!!

First Day of Kindergarten

Emily started Kindergarten this morning!!
She was so excited that she woke up before her alarm clock. She was dressed and brushing her teeth by 6:15 - which was when I had planned to wake her since the bus picks her up at 7:05. I had to work hard to stall her enough to wait for breakfast so that it would last her through her day.


Posing for the camera excitedly!! Notice that the sky is still dark out!!

She even had time for a smile from the bus! What a sweetheart!

Happy Birthday to Pat also! :)
Nothing like sending your firstborn to school on your birthday.