31/365

All settled in... 

For a long winters night. 

Well...almost.

The coldest temperatures of the season are moving in and I'm just a bit worried as to how well we are going to be able to stay warm in this little house.  The space heaters just don't do much for the house when it drops below 50.  We are looking at being in the 20's for the next 3 days with the wind chills being much colder.  It is going to be interesting.  The boys are sleeping together and Jaci is sleeping with us.  Hopefully we can all keep each other warm.

Stay warm wherever you are!

30/365

Today I attempted to get the floors in our house cleaned up.

It was NOT easy. 

I didn't get much done.

Let's just say this is going to be a long process. 

After spending 2 days out at the new house the kids were ready to come home and relax.

Jaci kicked back on the couch with her IXL listening to music. 

The boys jumped into the bath.

When I went in and found them laying back relaxing together I couldn't resist snapping a picture of them.

(Ignore the bad hair...it is on my list of things to get taken care of!)

29/365

We had another average Saturday here which consisted of getting out the the new house around 10 and working most of the day.  Today we had a TON of bricks and rock to clean up.  It wasn't a lot of fun.  The good news is that today when we got there we were able to find out who stole all of our firewood.  It had disappeared the day after the mud men came out there the first time and sure enough today when we went out there we discovered a lot of wood chips in the back of their truck.  They finally admitted to taking it and we are working with our builder to resolve it.  Jacob was so angry and it took everything he had in him to not go off on them.  Thankfully he kept it together. 

Tomorrow we will head back out there to clean up inside the house.  It is a huge mess from all of the sheetrock and mud.  I am not looking forward to that either.  It is going to be another full day. 

Jackson also has his first basketball practice tomorrow afternoon.  He is so excited!  From what I can tell he has improved a lot since he played in Kindergarten so we will see how it goes.

28/365

I love Fridays!  It is the one day that I feel like I am not running around non stop taking kids places.  Today we all stayed in our PJ's until around noon.  It was nice...especially after running around all day yesterday. 

The weather here has been beautiful this past week.  Today we got into the 70's.  It is so nice and I am so thankful for the nice weather for the house as well as for us.  It sure is nice to not be freezing in this little house.  Next week it is supposed to get cold again so I am going to enjoy the next couple of days. 

Tomorrow we have A LOT of clean up to do out at the new house.  The brick and rock have made a huge mess! 

They finished up most of the rock on the front part of the house.  All they have left to do is the corners of the house with rock and then finishing up the gables on the sides and back of the house. 

I am loving how it is turning out! 

I think that it will really look good once the front door gets stained the same color as the cedar.

The mud men will be in there tomorrow finishing up the texture and then our builder will be there on Sunday finishing up the garage to get ready to put on the garage doors.  We are to the point of being able to seal the house up completely so that others can't get in there.  It will be nice to not have to worry about others walking around in our house and possible tearing things up.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

27/365

Today was a busy day full of decisions! 

After Jaci and Tyler got out of school we headed to Abilene.  We went to 3 paint stores and 5 carpet stores.  I finally picked out the carpet for the bedrooms and playroom as well as the paint for all of the rooms but our room.  I have agonized over these choices for a long time now and it feels wonderful to have it done!  Only a few more details to take care of and I should be done with all of the decisions.  Whoo hoo! 

I knew I wouldn't be home in time to pick Jackson up so I arranged for him to go to after school care at the sports center.  He LOVED it and came home so tired.  I am so glad we have something like this here and will certainly be using it more often. 

Much to my surprise they started our rock today.  I love the pattern and it goes really well with our brick.  The only thing that I am not totally loving is where the rock and brick meet.  I wish I had told the mason to pull the brick along there to give it some definition.  It is too late to change it now so I am just going to focus on all I love about it! 

I also had the mason stand the brick up along the top and he pulled every 3rd brick which gives it depth (you can't really see it here).  I love how it turned out!  My brother in law suggested this and I am so happy he did.  It really adds something extra to the brick.  I still have moments of hating our paint but it really depends on the light.  It looks much better in person than in any of the pictures but still can look off depending on the time of day.  Thankfully it is looking so much better now that everything is coming together.

26/365

Today I kept Jaci and Tyler home from school.  I hate when others bring their kids to school sick!  Even though Jaci was hadn't thrown up through the night and Tyler never got full blown sick I just didn't want to risk passing this along to others.  I decided that since I didn't have to get out and go anywhere this morning that I would take the time and do our taxes.  It wasn't my smartest plan with 2 sick kids at home.

Our taxes are usually pretty easy, but moving and selling our house added a whole new dynamic to them.

SIX hours later I finally finished them!

Not fun! 

By the end of the day Jaci and Tyler were feeling perfectly fine and thankfully Jackson never got it! 

I am so happy because tomorrow is going to be a super busy day for me!

I have a TON of decisions to be made by TOMORROW!

This is the current state of my kitchen island.  There are many more samples you can't see as well as about 12 tiles laying out around the kitchen floor.  This house is so dark and the light changes so much.  I need to have it all out and look at it at every point during the day.

I love building this house but right now I would really love an interior decorator! 

Anyone want to volunteer for the job?

I'll bribe you with a toy from Dollar General.

(Hey...It works for the kids!)

25/365

I had feared that if we went to Gattieland that we would pick up some kind of sickness and sure enough we did.  The lovely stomach virus has invaded our house.  I just thought Jaci didn't want to school when she said her tummy hurt, but when I picked her up and she was crying and came home and passed out with a fever I knew it wasn't going to be good. 

We kept the boys as far away from her as possible! 

They didn't mind because that meant more Lego's for them!

By the end of the night Tyler was feeling a bit off but nowhere near as bad as Jaci.

24/365

Monday morning we headed home early. 

Jacob and Jackson headed out around 5am to make it in for work and school.

(Jacob had been in S. Texas hunting with a friend and got in really late so they just headed out in the morning rather than drive so late at night.) 

Thankfully this was the last of the traveling that we will have to do for the next month or so.  We have only been home 1 out of the last 4 weekends and it has just been too much.  We need to do some serious catch up here on both the houses!

23/365

Sunday morning we were moving a bit slow but had to get up and going to head to San Angelo for Rhett's party. 

The kids did get in a little bit of play time before we headed out. 

 

The party was at Gattieland and it was a great success.

The kids absolutely LOVED it! 

Ignore the bad picture quality.  I didn't bring my good camera and my little one just doesn't take good pictures in low light. 

The bumper cars were definitely the hit of the day! 

It was a great party!

Happy Birthday Rhett!

22/365

Sorry for the unexpected break from blogging.  We headed out of town on Saturday for Rhett's birthday party and I didn't bring my computer.  When we returned on Monday I was enjoying the break from the computer and just stepped back for a couple of days.  I have been online a lot researching stuff for the house etc. and it felt great to just disconnect for a little while.

On Saturday Jackson had a birthday party here in Albany that lasted until 8pm so it was really late when we got in to mom's house.  Tyler headed to bed before I got a picture of him and you can tell that Jackson was less than pleased with me for taking a picture of him.  He was wiped out from the party earlier in the day. 

Jaci snuggled up with Grandma and watched the end of Enchanted before I made her head to bed.  It was a late night.

21/365

Finally Friday! 

This week had just kind of done me in and I'm not sure why.

I have a feeling the weekend won't be much more relaxing either. 

But tonight we enjoyed a semi-relaxing evening.

(After a trip to Breckenridge to Wal-Mart!)

The rock was delivered today and I am thinking (and praying!) that it is going to look really good.

Depending on the time of day I either love or hate our paint color and our brick.

Not sure why our brick is throwing me off, but it just doesn't look the same as it did on the other houses we looked at.  The rock appears to match it perfectly so I am just going to have to trust my choices.

20/365

The tooth fairy came last night! 

It wasn't the easiest thing to pull off with our current sleeping situation and these floors that make noise with every step.  I was really worried that one of the kids would wake up.

Thankfully they didn't! 

Ty was so excited to see what the tooth fairy had left for him and couldn't wait to go spend his money at dollar general. 

After supper the kids all got to play games.  Jackson got to play the Wii because he made it into the Super Readers club at school and made a 102 on his spelling test.  It is a rare treat for him to get to play the Wii so he was thrilled. 

Jaci and enjoyed 2 rounds of Candy Land.

It was a nice way to end the night.