Finally moved in!!

It's official! We are home owners again!! Wahoo!!!

Troy and I signed our lives away on March 25, 2011! The closing only took 45 minutes and after we were done, we moved all our of stuff out of storage into the house! We are so happy and excited!

As soon as I get things around here settled, I was going to have a housewarming party for anyone who would like to come see my new digs! More information to follow....

Also, here is a picture of my new bedroom set!!!

House almost Complete

Here is a video of a quick walk through of our home!

House Update!

I've been chastised to post updated pictures of my house! I don't know why I haven't been posting updated pictures! I apologize! We have been visiting our new house everyday to see the new changes. Yesterday, our appliances came and were installed by the plumber. Here are the various rooms...

Here is our kitchen. Still some work to do. That cabinet between those 2 walls is where the fridge will go. That cabinet will go above the fridge.


Here is the kitchen sink...


Here is what my bathroom looks like...


And, here's my potty!!

So nice of Ryan to model it for us.

Here is a picture of the unfinished shower. We are going full euro with the shower which means there will be glass surrounding the shower with only hinges holding it together.



Here is the boys bathroom...


And, here is the half bath just off the kitchen...


We are super close to closing on the house. Just a few more weeks. There is a problem though that probably will prevent us from closing. We are waiting for the temperature to warm up and everything to dry out to pour the cement in our garage, our driveway, our steps up to the front door, and the walkway to the driveway. I guess those are the perks for building in the winter right? I now need to pray that March will deliver it's spring weather! Come on Spring!!

I'm so proud of Ryan! He can write his name all by himself!

Our House So Far!

I went over to our house today and took some pictures. Here's what the house looks like as of today... January 12, 2011!

Here is a view of my bathroom. I'm going to have a corner tub with a shower to the left...


Here's the corner tub!! I'm sooo exicted!!


This next shot is of our front porch. They have a covering over it because they poured the front porch a couple of days ago. To the right is the front door. The window to the left is the living room...


And last, here is a picture of the back of the house...


It's coming along! We're getting excited!

I'm stuck!

Troy and I went by our house this last week because they are framing it. Ben liked to go between the walls and say, "I'm stuck!"


Christmas Eve story:

I forgot to mention in my last post about something funny Benjamin said...

We were putting Ryan and Ben to bed on Christmas Eve. I wanted to have a little family moment before we said our prayers. I wanted to sing some Christmas songs with the boys because they both like to sing... like their mother.

First, we sang, "Santa Claus is coming to town". That was fun. Then, I said, "Ok boys, let's sing a song about Jesus because Christmas day is Jesus' birthday." Ben then thought about it for a minute, then started singing "Happy Birthday to you...." to Jesus. Troy and I both laughed out loud. It was a pretty funny moment.

I just needed to write that down before I forgot about it. I'll remind Ben that he sang that when he's like 16 years old.

Happy 2011!

Here are some pictures of the boys during Christmas time...

I think the Troy and the boys had a good Christmas. I sure didn't. I was sick as a dog for the holidays. I think I either had pneumonia or bronchitis. It was absolutely horrible! I stayed in bed most of the day and Troy stayed home from work taking care of the boys. It was really hard on me and Troy.

One night, we got a foot of snow and my FIL wanted to build some snowmen.


We had fun with those snowmen. They were huge! I like the look on Ben's face here. That was a lot of snow for him to walk in. He kept getting stuck. Poor short kid. I wonder where he gets his shortness.

Christmas presents for the boys were easy. Ben LOOOOOVES trains. We bought him a train and he loves playing with it. It's LEGOs so we are losing pieces already. That's frustrating.


Here is a picture of Ben with the train we had going around Grandma and Grandpa's tree.

I think you can say that Ben is OBSESSED with trains.

Ryan got a mirror ball for Christmas! He likes to turn it on at bedtime.

Ryan also really wanted pillow that has speakers in it so he can listen to his music in bed. He uses it every night and doesn't go to bed.

We also had fun watching Grandpa going out to be Santa for many families that have him come over. Here's a picture of "Andy Claus"!


Now that the holidays are over, we are moving forward and are excited to moving into our new house. It's being built right now. The house is being framed and we love going over there almost everyday to see the progress. All the walls are up and I love walking through it and seeing where everything is going to go. I would post pictures but all you see are wood walls and they would mean nothing because you can't tell what is what. It is projected that the house will be done sometime in March.

Since we don't live in our house right now, we are living with the in-laws in the apartment. It's a 1 bedroom apartment so we transformed it to a 2 bedroom apartment with no living room. It's a pretty tight squeeze but we are truly grateful for a place to stay.

Since we are going to be in our home in a couple of months, Ryan has transferred to a new school. He is going to an all-day kindergarten and he's loving it already. He's been going for a week now and he has already learned some new songs and loves to eat lunch at school. He loves his new teacher, Mrs. Smith and seems to be fitting right in. I'm so happy that he's getting more time at school and more services. The only drawback, I have to drive him everyday... drop off and pick up. It takes about 40 minutes round trip each drive. So, an hour 20 minutes everyday. Fun for me. But, it's worth it for Ryan and his needs. I've noticed that I really miss him during the day. I'm sure I'll get use to it but for the first week, it was kind of hard. I missed my boy.

Poor Benjamin
Benjamin hasn’t had the best of luck with cavities. On his last visit, we discovered that he had 14 CAVITIES!! Can you believe?? Poor little guy! We had to take him to a surgical center and completely put him out to perform all the fillings. Here is a picture of him before they took him back. He got a new shirt and played in a wagon.

He's still a good lookin' kid though. This picture always brings a smile to my face.


As of now, I am training at my gym for my last triathlon of the year. This will be my 4th one to do. After this, I think I’m going to take a break from the gym and pursue working out on my own. That will sure bring some extra savings in our pockets instead of paying my trainer. Hopefully, I can keep up my workouts and use my treadmill a lot this winter.

Fun in the apartment!
Since we live here now with the in-laws, Ryan and Benjamin are having a blast spending time with their grandpa! They’ve been having fun helping him rake the leaves in the backyard. Andy gets his tractor out and puts his trailer on the back. He loads all the leaves in the back and throws the boys in there. They love it.


One Sunday, my brother-in-law Cody brought over his big semi-truck. The boys were ecstatic!! Here are some pictures of them playing around!

Recently, I had to bring Ben with me to get some samples of carpet and wood for our home. (Ryan was in school at the time.) There was a nice little area with ducks and a pond. Ben begged me to stop so he could take a closer look.