pictures to post

Just a bunch of pictures I wanted to post now that my laptop is working!!!



Saying goodbye to the old house...



Sam on Saturday. We put alot more in there on Sunday, including the washer and dryer.




A layout I did a while ago, but it's one of my favorites of Maddie!










At the birthday party, Kaycey just happened to sit down to eat and this bottle of beer was sitting there!





Cal being silly at the birthday party.




Maddie at Ethan & Grace's (my niece and nephew) bday party

Mom & Kaycey eating lunch at school.

I love this picture of Maddie. From Easter Sunday.

An incredibly exhausting week...

Yea, I have the internet at my Dad's. So the moving is over. Just like that. We closed today, and we left with no house, and no money (every penny instantly transferred over to the construction loan). As for the move, I worked so hard at keeping things organized and labeled, but by the time Saturday rolled around, there just wasn't time for that anymore. That's when things got put into drawers, partly because we were running out of time, partly because we were worried we'd run out of room in our pod, which is actually from a company called SAM (Store and Move). So appropriately our little storage thing had a name, we called him Sam. Sam currently resides in the driveway at the new house. Anyhow, thankfully we had lots of help over the weekend from Mike's parents, and my Grandma, as well as my Dad. And yesterday one of the Moms from school (Big Bend) called and offered to watch all 3 kids while I finished packing stuff up. Her daughter is in class with Kaycey, and she also has a daughter Maddie's age. They live not too far from our house, so it'll be nice to have someone we can walk or ride bikes with, and play with all summer. She is really nice, and she seems interested in getting more into scrapbooking! Yea, another scrapbooking friend for me to have!! I can't get enough of those : ) even though I haven't seen my scrappin buddies for weeks, since I took off of work to concentrate on packing and moving the past week and a half. I miss them!

It was a long week. We have so much stuff. I am so glad we only have to do this one more time. The move to my Dad's went much smoother than I anticipated, though bedtime for the kids gets tricky. They are sharing a room. But they've been pretty behaved. I th0ught for sure Maddie would ask to go home, but I think she understands what is going on. We ended up bringing way too much stuff along with us, but it all has a place at my Dad & Stepmom's house, so it doesn't look to crazy cluttered unless you walk into the 2 bedrooms we are occupying or the basement.

In new house news, we had a couple things to take care of in order to pass inspection. I think the insulators were going to come out today anyways and get started, though Mike wasn't sure they should. With the wonderfulweather we had this past weekend, the ground really had an opportunity to dry up more, so we have our fingers crossed that drywall will be ready and able to come in within a couple weeks. I still have decisions to make on the lighting, some sinks, and we meet with the cabinet guy soon to go over exact measurements and specifics. The front of the house still is unchanged, but once the guys get moving on insulating and drywalling, that will give Mike a chance to work on the outside.

I have pictures to post of the move and other stuff, but until my laptop is up and running, I won't be uploading my pics anywhere. It was so sad to close the door the last time at the now old house. It's sad we lived there for 5 and a half years and just recently (since fall) the kids started finding neighbor kids to play with there. I decided that will be my next scrapbooking page, "so long little house". To think of everything over the past 5 and a half years...all the things that happened there. So many birthdays, a new baby (Maddie), Kaycey's awful year, Cal riding a 2 wheeler...so many things happened in our little house. I didn't get the chance to really enjoy the last week there, I didn't even really think about it until it was time to say goodbye. We always wanted a bigger house at some point, esp. since it seemed it was bursting at the seams nowadays. No matter, we loved our little house. So many memories, good and bad. Goodbye, little house. We'll miss you.

Internet issues...

SO our internet has decided to sporadically work. It works on and off throughout the day. Whenever I seemed to check if it was working it was not. Finally it is working for me tonight!!!

In house news, Mike has been working his butt off this past week. Twice he was at the house until near 10pm, and the rest of the week till almost 9. He is working like crazy because we have our inspection Monday (done by the building inspector). I think this is the last inspection until we are about to get our occupancy permit. So he'll come to inspect the inside work, plumbing, electrical, the rough framing of the house to make sure it is within code regulations. We don't forsee any problems, other than being able to begin insulation. We have scheduled that to begin late next week, but being that there are some areas of the inside of the house that are still open to the outside (because there is no soffit in place yet) we wonder if insulation will have to wait a couple days. With the cold, snowy, crummy weather, we are not expecting the restriction on our street to be lifted anytime soon, which totally sucks, too.

So all the electrical is wired. I walked through the house a few times this past week to see it all and kind of make believe I was turning lights on (switches and fixtures aren't in, won't be till drywall is in). Or tried to picture where I will plug things in, which is impossible to plan really. After walking through I realized a few other spots that could use more outlets, but I knew Mike didn't want to have to send the guys out there again. Conveniently enough somehow the eletricians forgot to do the entire outside rear of the house, so they have to come back out anyways. So then I will get my few more outlets. I think Mike is done with the central vac system, and has been working on the wiring for TV/cable/internet and phone. We ended up going with a stepped ceiling in the dining room. I really preferred the beams, but Mike doesn't care for that so stepped it is. I did well yesterday and even went to the lighting store and spent hours in there looking at fixtures. I know what style I like, that's no problem at all. It's what color/finish to get that is driving me bonkers. I have no idea. Does it have to match the door handles? Does it have to match the sink faucets? I am so confused. I also went to check out appliances at Colder's because they have this half back promotion going on. It was obvious to me they marked everything way up in order to make the half back more appealing. I didn't spend much time in there at all, and realized also it pays to look so young sometimes because not a single sales person approached me once, which I thought was way weird. I think we'll end up goin through Sears for appliances. I really like the Kenmore Elite line, though we've heard that brand of fridge has not so good reviews. Oh well. We'll have to check that out. Oh, also the fireplace was put in on Monday. It looks alot bigger than I thought it would, but it's so hard to picture what it'll all look like when it's done with stone and flooring and painting and stuff!!

The kids had a fun spring break, relatively uneventful, but they were really behaved for most of it which is really unusual for having them home so many days in a row!! They had a sleepover with my grandparents and dear little Maddie actually wanted to come home with me. I think that is the first time one of our kids actually wanted to come home instead of sleeping over somewhere.

Anyhow, I haven't taken many pictures lately, of the house or the kids, which is just awful. I did take a bunch today of the kids, as it was our niece& nephew's bday party. Hopefully I'll get around to uploading them soon. Way too much packing to do, and we have to be out in one week. YIKES.

Easter Blizzard

Sorry it's been so long...I worked 3 out of 4 nights this week till close (3 or 4am) so I was pretty exhausted and wasn't on the computer a whole lot. But it's so worth the lack of sleep-I'd have to work almost 50 hours at the Scrapbook Store to make what I made in 7 1/2 hours on Monday alone. And the other nights I did just as well. I really wanted to go to an employee crop tonight where we all scrapbook together, but I was asked if I wanted to bartend. So I will be bartending again tonight.

So a few days ago all the snow was almost completely melted, other than a few stubborn spots of deeper snow, or some slushy ice patches here and there. Yesterday we got bombarded with 10+ inches of snow!!! We really need the ground to thaw in order to get that drywall truck in a few weeks, so the snow on the frozen ground will not help that along at all. This next week isn't supposed to warm up a whole lot either.

The fireplace was supposed to be in as of Thursday. I didn't go past after school like I usually do, so I don't know if anyone was there working or not. Mike doesn't think they were there--today will be the first time he is out there since Tuesday when he met the electrician out there. Mike is now working on putting in the TV/cable/phone wires along with the central vac. All of that needs to be done before insulating! I need to take a ride out there tomorrow and decide where I want all the TV outlets to go.

I officially have started packing now!! While packing, I am going through everything and throwing stuff away, and packing up stuff for a rummage sale or whatever. I have gotten through the living room almost entirely, and started the kid's rooms but it will take me a while to get through them I am guessing. The kitchen will be the last to get packed since we will need to use the stuff until we move. The basement will be the hardest to get through...all my scrapbooking stuff! I packed up picture frames, movies and CD's, and alot of toys last night. So I am getting somewhere. My Grandma even came over and helped go through Cal's room--it took hours just to get through what was under his bed!!

Have a safe weekend if you're travelling in this crazy weather. Have a Blessed Easter!

Big news...

so the roughing of the house is officially finished as of today. That means all walls are as done as they'll be before being insulated and drywalled. There is backing (extra 2x4's) on walls throughout where things will hang--curtain rods, flat TV's (uh, someday!), etc. Mike said the sliding doors are in, but I don't know if he meant the actual doors themselves or if the framing for them is finished (we have sliding doors between the laundry and mudroom, between the mudroom and kitchen, and between our bathroom and walk in closet). This also means everything is done in order for the insulation to happen--once the electrician is done. Which by the way he never showed up Thursday or Friday. That's a little irritating. So I assume they'll be out there tomorrow? Who knows I guess. So as if there aren't enough decisions to make, another one has come up that needs to be done now--do we want anything fancy done to the ceilings in any of the rooms? Examples of this would be wooden beams (I LOVE beams), coffered ceiling (don't like that much at all--the kind that looks kind of like a grid on the ceiling), stepped/tray ceiling--and there are numerous ways to do that last one. Tray ceilings are kind of cool because you can do different things when you paint, or you can put lights inside one of the tray areas. I guess it's a little pointless to do any of these ceilings upstairs since it's mostly for looks. Our kitchen and great room are already cathedral ceilings, so we can't do anything different in those rooms. We could do something in our bedroom, but it's a bit of an odd shape so I'm not sure how you'd go about even doing something in there. So really the only room to consider I guess is the dining room. We'll do something in there, it's just a matter of what... We have realized some more (insignificant) poor planning on our part...initially we thought we'd have open shelves above our closets and pantry, meaning there is literally an area above the actual closet (or pantry) about 1ft+ tall to place things--plants, decorations, etc... Well, we have realized we aren't able to do that anywhere we thought we could. The closet near the entry has plumbing that goes through the wall and up through the ceiling, so it's impossible to do there. And I don't quite understand why we can't above the pantry seeing as the ceilings are 9 ft tall. But I guess there's a reason. Oh well...we talked about having the closets in the kids rooms open above to have a shelf, but I am guessing we won't. Just another place to become cluttered I guess.

I have not officially started packing but I spent countless hours sorting through everything (well haven't finished quite yet) in basement. This includes kids toys, games, barware, gift wrap and bags, and my scrapbooking stuff. I have also taken breaks in sorting to do something I've wanted to do for ages: go through all my digital photos and delete many that didn't turn out, or some I copied the same folder 3 times. I have gotten through 2002 and 2003. After looking at so many pictures I am so in the mood to scrapbook! My plan is to eventually print all the pictures I want, put them in journaling photo albums, and scrapbook only the best ones (there are many many of those...) So I'm actually looking forward to it, and I am hoping it is a project that can keep me busy while we are in between houses. I might need a little something to keep me from going crazy!!!