Happenings

Here's what has been happening over the last few weeks:

The house continues to progress. We got our windows delivered and are really excited for when those go in. We now even have a roof.

Noelle got sick. You can just see it in her face. She couldn't keep anything in her for two days. It was ugly.

Beau went snowboarding for the first time. His school offered a day on the mountain for all the fourth graders. He got to spend the beginning with an instructor to learn the ropes. He had a blast.

Pierce and Cash rocked it in their Christmas singing assembly.

We got a little too ambitious with the annual gingerbread house. I thought it'd be fun to try to make it look like our house. After making a template out of paper, we tried to put it all together, but found it to be a lost cause. In the end, it probably reminds us more of our real house like this anyway.

The 2014 Family

We took our family picture this year in our back yard. With the stream and all the trees, it has been really fun to feel like we're in the woods a bit. It brings in all kinds of birds, squirrels, and deer that we love to watch from the deck or windows. I think this was shot #2 of the 30 we took, but was one of the only we got with everyone looking at the camera.

The Crane

They said we'd just need "the little crane" to lift our trusses into place.

I have to admit I was looking around for things we could potentially lift up and drop, but I don't think that the guy in the box was into the idea. It's looking a bit more like a house...

We Have a Wood Box!

New walls are up and spaces laid out on the addition. It's pretty darn exciting. We've set up in the basement and made it about as comfortable as we can, although it's still a bit cold down there with all this open space above us.

Trusses will form each end, and nine windows are framed on the other side of this sheathing.

Today is a big day as the trusses come in as well as a crane to lift them into place to form the roof. We'll then not be too far away from being able to actually have a roof!

In the Backyard

Floor Joists

We kind of have a roof

New upstairs floor

Halloween

Let me see if I can name who my kids were for Halloween without Google...well, there's Iron Man, and a monkey of course...hmmm...nope. Thank you Google. Beau is Sauron from the Lord of the Rings. He's never seen the movie, but knows all about it thanks to the Lego video game. Cash is a Lego Chima character named Gorzan thanks to Netflix.

Who Needs a Roof in October Anyway?

This is moving pretty fast now. The whole roof is off, and new pony wall extensions are being tied into the existing walls to give us 9' ceiling heights. The first new upstairs floor joists are now going in. We're supposed to get rain this weekend, so it's a bit of a race against the coming elements, but so far it has been pretty dry since we've started.

Once the new joists are in, the sub-floor can go down and then most of the house will be somewhat closed in so that we can at least tarp it easier. It also means we can start getting to new electrical and make the place a little livable again.

Very exciting stuff!

Demo Has Finally Begun

This is the beast that will be lifting our roof off over the next week.

Here we go for real now.

It's a Handsome Crew

Silver Dollar City

Cousins in Missouri

We were able to get a lot of the cousins together again this year in Missouri. We did this last year and have had a lot of fun getting these kids together. We now have a few yearly summer traditions:

  1. Swimming in James' pool
  2. Silver Dollar City
  3. Lego Party
  4. Dickerson Park Zoo

2 x 7

Pierce and Cash turned 7 while we were in Springfield this year. Pierce specially designed his own at Grandma's with blackberries from the garden.

Cash went with blue cup cakes for his cousins swimming party at James' pool.

Noelle figured out quickly how to eat corn on the cob. Her technique wasn't pretty, but it was effective.

Bust Some Mutton

 Our nephew Barrett entered the mutton busting competition at this year's Pleasant Grove Rodeo. Not being up to speed on my rodeo lingo I didn't know what that meant, but I knew it was enough of a reason for us to go to the rodeo.

 Mutton busting - an event held at rodeos similar to bull riding in which children ride or race sheep. Here's my nephew. Unfortunately, the sheep pretty quickly showed the four year-old who was boss. Clearly, he was not the only one last night...

 I already feel a little badly that we eat them, but the "Cash Cow" event added to my slight guilt about what we put these animals through. They stick dollar bills to a few cows and then invite all the kids to come chase the cash cows. It looked like what I'd imagine the opposite of the running of the bulls would look like.

I knew I had a pearl-button shirt and a big belt buckle for some reason.

House Plans

from this:

to this:

When we found this house in Holladay we knew that it would be a big project for us. One that would make our previous one seem kinda small. We fell in love with the location of our new home, but before we even put an offer in, we hired a structural engineer to inspect it to give us an idea of what it would take to add a second story. This is our "forever" house so we wanted to make sure it could be all that we wanted. Our plans are getting finalized this week, but here's a peek at what we've got planned.

Let the Demo Begin!

So this is how we do holidays once again...

This chimney, or more accurately, these three chimneys would run right through the middle of our new upstairs master bedroom. So, we had to take them out. The rub here is that we want a fireplace nearly exactly where it currently sits on the main floor. We'll take this whole monster down and then put back in a two-sided gas fireplace (that can be vented out the back of the house instead) in its place.

This demolition hammer has been worth every penny. The thing weighs as much as Marta but you should have seen her showing that chimney who was boss. I'm pretty excited this part is over. Our roof isn't too pitched, so we didn't feel too unsafe up there, but it's about a 40 foot drop off the back. We had a few rocks that I didn't catch quickly enough and they tumbled all the way down to the stream below.

Soccer Twins

Pierce and Cash played their first year of soccer this spring and had a blast. Lots of running, and even a few goals.

Noelle is 1!

 Our little girl is already one! We seriously cannot believe how fast this first year with her has gone. She is such a sweet baby and her brothers still just love to play with her and make her laugh. Her brothers still fight over whose turn it is to wake her up in the morning. She's not quite ready to walk, but she is climbing up on everything and starting to say a few words. She'll tell us when she wants more, loves saying hi/bye to everyone, and blowing kisses. We're very lucky to have this little princess as a part of our family.