Home Sweet NEW Home

We're all moved in and loving our new home! We officially moved on June 2nd. Thanks to the help of our wonderful families...cleaning of the new house, packing, moving in, unpacking and organizing was quick and pretty "pain free"...although I'm sure that some of our siblings, parents, cousins and aunts are thinking of submitting our story to the show, Hoarders. Thanks to everyone for helping us!!! It was a big job and there was no way we could have done it without all of their help.

As far as living here, it's went by so fast. The actual building process from start to finish took a little over 9 months for us. At times it crawled by...so it's hard to believe we're here now! We're loving all of the room we have but still find everyone congregating in the same space together. This was something I was afraid we'd lose after moving out of our sweet little home where we couldn't really escape one another. Although there's still lots of work to be done, we're getting settled and it's beginning to feel like home now. It's a dream come true.

Here's a few pictures...

Dining room & kitchen are in the same room...the first piece of furniture we bought for the house was a table and chairs since we've never had one! We've enjoyed hosting a few dinners now and being able to eat at a table (we ate at a small island in our other home).

Kitchen- I especially love our butcher block island, apron front sink and oil-rubbed bronzed appliances

Great Room...we have a beautiful view of the Royal Slope, Saddle Mountains and our Orchards

And at the top of my favorites...the laundry room/craft room/office. I haven't had time to make any projects yet, but getting this space organized has been really fun.

this week is the week!

We are hoping (with fingers crossed) that we'll be moving to into our new home this week! We've had some "bumps" these last couple of weeks with the house (a little flood, wrong stain for the floor then a total stain re-do, as well as other typical issues that go with house building) but it looks like we're going to be living there by the end of the week! Busy doesn't seem like an adequate word to describe our days right now...along with packing, cleaning, organizing, lifting, loading, unloading, cleaning and more packing, we have "normal life" going on like head colds, family get-togethers, preschool graduation, baseball games, a spring concert, kindergarten graduation accompanied with some trips to town and trips back and forth to the new house (which is 8 miles). I can't wait for life to slow down a bit for us and to be in our new house!!!
I have lots to post about these three and will get to it once I have some time! I'm procrastinating on packing right now and the computer was calling my name :)

more on the house project...

Thought I better document our house project with a couple of recent pics. I haven't posted our progress since here. It's really moving along and I'm sure since I just said this, we're jinxed and it's now going to drag on and take forever. Oh well, I'm just excited to share about what takes up 99% of our time...

It's all sealed up for inside work now and sheet rock started this week. The outside still needs painted as well as brick layed. We're both keeping busy calling and meeting with subs, getting bids, researching products, and trying to finish up all of the loose ends. But it does feel like we're on the down-hill slide now. Maybe the next time I post about it, we'll be living there ;)

what a process

We have officially started our house! So far it's been a 9 month process...just like having a baby! I'm thinking we're going to learn patience and we're only at the beginning stages. We started designing our plans in January, submitted the plans to the county in July, broke ground in August, poured our footings in September and basement walls will be poured this week! We're so excited and just hope that we can get it enclosed by the winter! Our current home is pretty "squishy" as Caden called it last week, and we all really look forward to our new home. We won't know what to do with ourselves with so much space, room to play and run, and grow up in! Our beautiful view of farm ground, orchards, our little town, Saddle Mountain and even Mt. Rainier on a clear day... our house sits in the middle of the "main orchard" and new apple trees will go in around it this spring. It really is a wonderful location and place to build a home.

Bryan moving ground on the Cat...this took a couple of weekends, we had to dig down about 8 feet. That accounts for A LOT OF DIRT!!! The kids have loved going up to the house site...lots of dirt, hills to climb and slide down and it's perfect for great truck playing and of course getting really dirty.
I even ran the backhoe one day, and boy was it exciting!!! Really, it was lots of fun :)
I happened to be at the housesite when the inspector showed up to inspect the footings.
Our basement foundation after the footings were poured.
Jace and Cade are standing in their bedroom in this pic. Currently, the basement forms are almost all up and walls should be poured this week! Yippee, progress!!!