Happy Halloween!

Outside

Standing in the back yard. Left side is master bedroom, Rt side is morning room, middle is covered porch.

garage side of the house. The weird little window is over the master shower. Turns out it is a bit too low and Andy can look out it while cleaning himself. Awkward. The garage wall for the third car part is not up yet.



Standing at the back edge of our lot. It is a odd wedge shape that angles back toward the road. Lots of room for TREES..and the girls are hoping for a trampoline.



Inside

Front of the house. To the right is the garage. The window is into the dining room. Where there is white, there will be stone. There will be a porch that goes across the front with posts, no railing.

the dining room. There will be a wall between it and the great room.

standing in my pantry(that is as big as my old walk in closet!) looking through the kitchen area to the morning room in the back of the house

standing in the entry way looking into the great room. There will be a wall just to the left of where Jane is walking, that separates the kitchen from the great room. There is also a wall (outside of the picture on the Rt) that has a fireplace and built in bookcases. A balcony from the upstairs looks over this room. The ceiling is vaulted over the great room with nine foot ceilings in the other rooms.

Our side of the house. Our bedroom is the back room, then a bathroom and a closet. I am standing inside the garage entrance into the house. The hole in the bottom left is the stair case going downstairs. That is also where the stairs to the girls rooms will go up. There is also a bathroom, a computer nook, and a bonus room(over the garages).

Circle Time

Evidently Jane doesn't like to stop playing and sit down for "circle time" at preschool. Andy was told, by one of her teachers, that last week she got upset, threw a little fit, and didn't want to participate.
Classic Jane.
The teacher said after her little tantrum she eventually sat down and did just fine.
Classic Jane.
At bedtime on Sunday, Jane and I were talking about school being the next morning. Jane loves school and when she realizes it is "after this night" that she gets to go, she usually does an arm pump and  shouts Yes!
That night she asked to tell me something in my ear....which means a loud whisper that literally tickles the insides of my ear.
"I don't like circle time, but I do it anyway."
Classic Jane.

Blessed

The message series at church right now is about the Beatitudes and what it means to be "blessed." We are also discussing this with the youth for the last several weeks, giving me the chance to be a student and teacher of this topic.
I still have a lot to learn.
The thing I love about The Beatitudes is how it takes what we think it means to be blessed and totally turns it upside down. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn.....
I also love that our pastor has helped me wrap my head around what the word "blessed" means. If you are like me, you think that the word probably gets over-used a bit too much these days. Everyone talks about how blessed they are. Myself included. The descriptor our pastor is using is "God is on your side." The first week of the message series I thought this was a little too gimmicky...of course we feel blessed if we feel like God is always on our side. duh. But last Sunday we talked about how God never leaves our side, even in times of grief and mourning....Blessed are those who mourn. Ahh, now it makes sense. Good or bad, God stays by our side. And when we ask the "why me?" during the sad times, we have to also ask the "why me?" with all the good times. Why are these good things happening to me? Do you ever ask yourself that question? Do you ever wonder why good things keep happening to you and then consequently, wonder when the bad will happen?
Guilty.
We are building a house. BUILDING a house. The concept still blows my mind and makes me want to poop my pants out of fear of all the unknowns. I can't even explain how exciting and scary it is. Such a responsiblity to be good stewards of our finances. Such a responsibility to make decisions that will build a safe place to raise our girls.
such a responsibility to pick wall colors, and light fixtures, and drawer pulls................
We have been so fortunate to find a builder we trust. So fortunate to find a developer that wanted us to build in his subdivision. Fortunate to find a house plan we love, on a lot that we love, in the neighborhood we needed. We found a place to live while we save money, we are both able to earn extra money in addition to our paychecks at work to pump up our savings. We have been fortunate enough to not have any surprises thus far in the building process.
Do you see what I mean?
Why Us? When will the bad stuff happen? Is it possible that we will really get through this building process unscathed?
Probably not.
But we are blessed. Either way, God IS on our side.

Let's Do This!

We wished for rain all summer and now anytime I see even a 20% chance in the forecast I shudder....thankfully the rainy weekend was apparently a non-issue.

This is what is happening TODAY as I type....the basement is gettin' poured!

Kate's Tree

My in-laws were gracious enough to feed us lunch yesterday and treat us to a movie (Hotel Transylvania). What a wonderful change of scenery that we all needed. We pulled into their driveway and Kate let out a huge gasp.....her beloved climbing tree had been trimmed. Loren had done some pruning of the branches, and trimmed the limbs that Kate LOVED to climb on. He left the sturdy part close to the tree, but cut off the part of the branch that hung down and looked pretty got in the way when he mowed.

Kate was in tears immediatly, walked in the house, and with a quivering lip asked "why?!" I don't know which was more dramatic, watching her cry and demand answers from Loren, watching Loren defend his right/need to trim his tree, or watching Linda watch Kate and then look at Loren like he was evil for making her granddaughter cry. good stuff. 

Anyway, Loren and I went out to try and turn her frown upside down. It took a while but she finally realized her climbing needs were still being met, just in a different way. Change is hard. Even for tree climbing girls. After some minor adjustments to her climbing area-see pictures of Loren using his saw below- we finally came up with an acceptable compromise. 

Loren can mow without getting whapped in the head with branches and Kate can still channel her inner monkey.  

Assessing the "damage".....the upper right corner of the picture shows where her climbing branch was cut. Not exactly where she was able to reach anyway, but it evidently was still important to her overall climbing experience.

making some minor adjustments





Tree climbing = JOY