Close!

We are getting SO close!  Things are looking great.  We have the siding up,  hardie board/cement board ... we still need to paint it.  We have the porch decking on, Fiberon compsite decking with a vinyl covering, I LOVE IT!   We have the soffit on the porch, a beautiful tongue and grove pine that we'll stain to match the porch.  And the sheet rockers will finish putting up the boards today.  They will start taping it on Monday.  We have had wonderful subs all along the way and still feeling VERY blessed!  I tried to take pictures of the interior but it wasn't working SO I will take you on a video tour of the house (The video links are below).

First here's a picture of the exterior of the house and the porch.

And here's the video tour (I had to break it up into three different videos) ... I apparently can't video, talk, and walk at the same time.  I messed up a couple of times with to the left (and then went right, lol).  But you will get the idea :)  Just click on the link to see the movie.

MAIN FLOOR VIDEO

SECOND FLOOR VIDEO

PORCH TOUR

Heaven on Earth!

Here we are today!  The house is closed in (we just need to get the tyvex on).  The framers have one more day, the HVAC guy has been in and is getting things set up, Cody is framing out the faux beams on the interior, my windows and doors are in place, and we will be roofing the house the week after Christmas ... and I am IN HEAVEN!  I drive past and get butterflies (it's like we are dating!)  I stand in the house and just want to stay forever.  I look out the upstairs windows and am in awe of the beauty!  This place has always had a special place in my heart, we would come visit and I would just say, this is my heaven on earth.  This is my favorite place to be and now I get to be there forever!  I get to live the dream and I am feeling VERY blessed!  From a great husband who is letting me build my dream house down to the last board, and to a Heavenly Father who blesses us with good weather, great subs and financial peace.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I promise, we are building a house.

US Bank likes to keep tabs on where we are at in the building process to make sure the money we are taking out is actually going to the subs/materials we say they are.  So~ they have me sending pictures to go along with each draw.  So~ here was the latest draw and the pictures I took (you can get a look at the inside of the home this way.)

Let it SNOW!

We got the house dried in JUST in the nic of time!  Like literally two hours after the roofers left it snowed for two days straight.  Again, BLESSED!

Next stop, closed in ... windows and doors on.  At this point some of our doors were there (one of the french doors had broken glass due to a wind storm that blew it over, thank heavens that was the only thing that broke and Colonial Lumber replaced the glass for free).

Starting to take shape.

I am so lucky to have a great husband who knows how to get things done!  This house is "flying" up (as we have been told by those same people who keep asking us what was taking so long when we were waiting on the county and US Bank).  We have some great framers who are making sure all the details are covered and have been here EVERY weekday getting it done.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here is the overbuild over the front door.

Dormers built.

Oh I love it :)

Rooms with a view.

Since the 2nd floor is going in the trusses we have BIG dormers that come out (each one of the dormers is a bedroom except for one that will house the stair way).  It was fun to see the house that we had been looking at on paper for almost a year actually start to take shape!

Up to this point we had been really lucky with the weather.  This is December and we had a few snow storms and occasional rain but overall we have been VERY blessed with decent weather.  But look at that mud!  The workers are going home with inches of clay/mud on their shoes.  The cement trucks that poured the foundation got stuck and had to pull each other out!  No wonder we had to monitor our water ... pretty high water table, glad we didn't do a basement.

Sheets of snow!

Our biggest push with the county near the end was to get our house dried in.  PLEASE let us start building our house! We wanted to get started, get going, get building!  So~ when the snow started to come we were VERY anxious to get it "dried in".  Cody had me painting water sealant on the sub floor so that it wouldn't get ruined or squeak (I don't know if Cody hates anything more than a squeaky floor, I am sure there is, I just can't think of it now, lol).  We spent Thanksgiving day as a little family putting tar on the foundation and roasting marsh mellows on the wood pile.

We needed a roof!  Here's some pictures of the framers working in the cold and snow getting the sheeting going.

I have to admit, my favorite part up to this point was seeing the porch posts go up!  I am SO grateful to a husband who despite the cost is letting me have my DREAM of a wrap around porch that goes around the entire house!  It makes me giddy like the little girl inside me who dreamed about it!  I sure love him ;)

Trusses ... The waiting game

The trusses were supposed to be delivered one day ... they came two days later.  The crane for the trusses was supposed to come one day ... it came 3 days later.  Every day I would drive by (I am sure the framers think I am crazy!) and I would check to see ... so I was SO excited to finally see the trusses going up.  The second floor will actually be in the trusses.

HOME!

They say home is where the heart is ... I CAN NOT wait until we are there too!

The framers started ... our first "hired" help!  One story down ... one more to go!

Foundation + Foundation

Because we decided to do a wrap around porch around the ENTIRE HOUSE we decided that the best way to accomplish this was to do pretty much 2 foundations.  One for the house and one for the porch. We could do spot footings for the porch but we worried about critters getting under the porch and dealing with that all of our days, so we spent the extra $2000+ and did a complete foundation for the porch.  Again Cody and his family and friends worked their TAILS off and poured 84 yards of concrete in one day (the house will have a craw space so they not only poured two foundations they poured the subfloor for the craw space so we can use it as storage!)  WHAT MEN!  I can not express how grateful I am for hard working men.  This is a picture of them putting up the forms.  I can't find any of them actually pouring or taking down the forms (which they did in the rain and MUD) ... but you get the idea ~ AWESOME MEN!

The house saga ... let it begin!!!! PLEASE!

Where to begin ... (I by NO means will be trying to go back 4 years and catch this blog up) I will use this blog to post about the progress of our house adventure :)

In August 2011 we started this LONG process of building a new home in Liberty.  It has included 6 months monitoring water with Weber Health, 4 moves, 139 days dealing with Weber County creating a new "subdivision" (every time you divide property in un-incorporated Weber County you have to create a subdivision), and an amazingly long construction loan process including signing our construction loan papers on Sunday at a Wendy's fast food restaurant!  BUT~ we made it!  Hooray and on Halloween 2012 we poured our footings!  Hooray!  Cody, his dad, brother Chad, and some friends did a great job and got 'er done (as Cody would say it).  Best Halloween EVER!

Hey! Look at that!

I was going to make a new blog to post about the home building process but HEY ... look at that ... I already have like 1800 blogs, lol~ why create a new one!?!?

Kid's Say the Darndest things . . . and classic grandpa.

First short story. Little Katie said to me today . . ."Mom can we keep Abby forever and EVER????" ha ha ha. Too Cute! (Of course I told her yes). Then we were at the gas station (filling up to finish mowing the lawn) when she said, "I want a kid, not a toy kid, a real kid". I said, "we have a kid . . . we have Abby" she said "no Abby is a baby . . . I want a kid." And lastly, we (well I) was watching the tale end of a tevo'd soap opera (horrible I know) when Katie walked in to see a couple kissing. She then said, "hey they are kissing and biting" ha ha ha. And because I laughed she decided to say more, "kissing and biting and knuckle and five" (knuckle is the thing you do when you put your hand in a fist and bump knuckles together with someone and five is . . . well, a high five). Apparently these are all ways of showing affection to another human being. (Minus the Biting Part!)

Second funny story.
I LOVE Cody's grandpa Don, but I tell you what he is a saver like I have never seen. He is known to keep things long after their "due" date and try to make something out of pretty much nothing (or other people's trash). So . . . with that being said. Onto the story . . . Cody and His Dad had been haulin' hay and stopped by to drop Grandpa off when he offered them to come in and have some cherry pie that he made "all by himself". Cody was weary but he followed his dad and enjoyed a semi-decent piece of cherry pie. Then his dad asked Grandpa, "so you really made it all by yourself, crust and everything?" This is when grandpa smiles and says, "do you wanna know where I got the crust?" (Cody is saying NO in his mind, but biting his tongue.) Grandpa continues to tell them that he went and bought a 99 cent pumpkin pie . . . and ATE the pumpkin out of it, then refilled the crust with cherry, to make this yummy pie, they had just enjoyed!!!! Oh MY! I love ya grandpa, that's classic!

Knock Knock . . . who's there?

Katie: "Knock Knock"
Mom: "Who's there?"
Katie: "Horse"
Mom: "Horse Who?"
Katie: "Horse stuck in the mud".

Katie: "Knock Knock"
Mom: "Who's there?"
Katie: "Sheep"
Mom: "Sheep Who?"
Katie: "Sheep stuck in the mud."

long delay . . . maybe even 10 minutes . . .

Katie: "Knock Knock"
Mom: "Who's there?"
Katie: "Horse"
Mom: "Horse Who?"
Katie: "Horse stuck with sheep"

he he he, One of Katie's favorite things right now is knock knock jokes. Most of them don't make a lot of sense (other than the interrupting cow joke) but she put a lot of thought into this one.

Katie also has been asking me all sorts of questions these days. It all started with a story I told her about when she was little. I used to take her for bike rides in the little trailer and we would stop and get the mail. When we got a magazine in the mail, she would pretend to read it in the back seat. My little old lady (I think she was two). She also sat on the little potty and read a magazine (not sure who she got this from, he he he). So now she gets the cutest little look on her face and says, "tell me more about when I was a baby." Too cute (I had to document the face.)



And then there's the neighbors. We just got new neighbors on the west of us. I am happy there is actually people living in the big empty house now. A lot of the houses up here just sit. BUT . . . now they are building a house on the East side :( I do love people, but it sure was fun to have all the wide open space. We went out and took pictures of the "hole" that they just started to dig yesterday (note the fabulous dirt we have up here! Can you say rocks and clay???) Katie wanted to be sure to have her picture taken with the dirt . . . what a girl.

Ok, let's try this again :)

Alright, I am going to try this again. Hopefully things will slow down and we can get everything back in order. Here's our "christmas letter" update, ha ha ha!

Cody is working in Payson building a Walgreens (yes that's a two and a half hour drive ONE WAY!) But he is almost done. When he's not at work he's either watching kids for me (so I can go take pictures) or he's working in the yard (YAY for a YARD!)

Ann is still BUSY with photography and trying to get the studio all fabulous. I just got my window signage yesterday (haven't seen it yet, but know it's there) The past month or so have been a little crazy health-wise so we are trying to slow things down and get healthy! (We also downloaded a 62 page e-book on how to "guarantee" having a baby boy, ha ha ha!) I have found it very relaxing to work in the yard.

Holly (Cowgirl) is growing up so fast! I can't believe she will be eleven in August. She is in 4H down in Hooper and is loving it. We got to go down there last week and it was fun to watch her learning. She also just received a FREE lagoon day pass for taking some brownies and flowers to a neighbor who lost TWO dogs (I would love to claim this was my idea, but I LOVE IT EVEN MORE THAT IT WAS HER IDEA!) So the neighbor girl bought her a Lagoon pass to thank her. I am so proud of her :)

Katie (Princess) is still a princess. She is taking antibiotics for an ear infection and hasn't complained once about her ear hurting?!?!? She got her kindergarten shots (even though she won't start for another year and a half) and keeps reminding me that she cried but she got band-aids. She turned four on April Foul's Day and loves her new princess bike (she rides it all over the house).

Abby (Baby) is HILARIOUS! She is such a mellow kid (attitude wise) but when it comes to just sitting back and chilling - there's not a mellow bone in her body. She does a little shoulder dance that is so cute (we MUST purchase a video camera for this). She has eight teeth and a new crib (due to a horrible "overflow" accident in her crib).

We love life and hope to remember (just like my mom says) THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES! Summer - - - bring it on!

The Blog Wagon . . .

Ok so I have completely fallen' off the good ol' family blog wagon! I have to say, I haven't missed it much :) I have so much going on with my photography these days that trying to keep up three blogs is just too much! So I may be back, but don't hold your breath. I will have to keep journaling the old fashioned way with a pen and paper and maybe some day I'll get those scrapbooks printed out. In the meantime visit my photography blog or testimoments blog if you are interested to see what my life has been up to, and then there's facebook . . . I'm there :) AND I just got twitterpat'ed and joined twitter (for my business) so (oh dear!) you can view that here (join me!) TWITTER So bon voyage for now (my life really isn't that interesting anyways!) THANKS!
Ann~

The little baby bean is ONE . . .

Today is baby's birthday and she is officially one year old! She turned one at 10:14 am and as I held her when the clock hit 10:14 am this morning, I can't help but remember the chaos of her birth. I am actually thinking that this moment is just a little better than that one :) To see her smiling, happy, and healthy is a great gift! We are always giving her nicknames and one of them is Abra Cadabra . . . so . . . here's her birthday party invite that I just emailed, ha ha ha . . . it was fun to make, the kids and I giggled all the way . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY BEAN!

Fun little adds . . .

My cousin Parker Jacobs posted these videos on facebook, they are like 1970 LDS ads and they are too cute and still true . . . so enjoy . . . my cousins are in two of them . . . the little girl at 5:06 and the boy at 8:03 . . .

Snow Revisited . . .

Ok so I posted these on my "facebook" account, but I intended to post them here. As it seems like everyone has heard, we got a TON of snow up here on Tuesday. The final count was 33 inches in 24 hours. CRAZY! It is actually the first time in my life where I have felt totally and completely SNOWED IN! All the other times, it was like, ok, I shouldn't go out in it, but I could :) This was I CAN'T! It was a lot of fun to just hang with the girls and cancel anything I had going and just chill (literally). So here's the pictures from that glorious storm.





Then last night Cody and I ventured out to the great city of Wendover (note my sarcasm) for a little get away it was a lot of fun and when we came home we found that we had left our front door WIDE open! All the way! The house was freezing and the heater had been going none stop (we are so excited to see that bill). Luckily we live in the middle of nowhere and no one came in and stole our stuff :) Note to self, whenever leaving to go somewhere . . . close the door behind you.

And last but CERTAINLY not least, we are SOOOOOO excited that Dave and Kathryn had their baby early this morning! Little Cole Richards Todd came in a hurry. I'll let Dave and Kathryn do the official announcing but I am so excited to talk to them and see the newest little MAN! YAY YAY YAY!