Welcome to Our Open House!

Saturday we hosted our open house! So many people said they wanted to see our house when it was done that we decided just to host a day to invite everyone over.

We've been in since the end of November and I celebrated our first Christmas here before I finished unpacking. OK, so I admit, I probably should have worked on unpacking a little more back then.... it's made the time since Christmas go very slow as there was still lots of settling in to be done and I've only become more & more pregnant! Anyway, we've finally arrived here & I want to welcome everyone in - whether you dropped by the house or just drop in for the cyber tour.

Our house is styled after a barn - one of my Grandaddy's barns, to be exact. Of course, it didn't turn out looking exactly like the barn, but similar and I love it! Our siding and roof are corrugated metal, just like you'd see on an old barn in this area.

Our living room is the first room you'll enter when you come inside. It's open into the dining area and kitchen. Lots of natural light comes in. (This was after the open house, evidenced by Dad asleep on the couch!)

The hearth is kind of between the living area & dining area and is made from bricks that we collected from the house my great-grandparents lived in for a while when my dad was young. The house has since fallen down. Some other of the bricks came from another old house on Grandpa's property. The mantle is made from a mesquite tree that was here on the property, cut down by dad and GrandpaH helped dad finish it into the mantle. The clock was my Grandmother's and the jug comes from Dad's family! : )

Our large dining set belonged to Dad's grandmother.

When I planned out my kitchen, several ladies raised concern about me opting for windows rather than upper cabinets. Instead of upper cabinets or a walk-in pantry, I came up with the pantry wall. Nobody worries about my lack of upper cabinets any more.

We have a long hall that often gets referred to as "the runway" when the kids are racing back & forth! I didn't take a picture of the hall, because it's rather uneventful without the race. I have a cute video that demonstrates the runway in action on this post if you'd like to take a look.

The first door you'll come to as you go down the hall is the kids bathroom. It's decorated with sea life, inspired by David's interest in sharks & crabs. The painting that hangs over the potty is a watercolor done by David last year. (I drew the shark in white crayon, then he painted over it.)

You'll also see a unique door into the laundry room. This screen door came off the house my great-grandparents lived in for a while when my dad was young. Having this door here also allows some light to come into the hallway and helps keep the cats contained when we want them to stay in the laundry room.

The next stop down the hall is our master bedroom. It's dark to allow for daytime sleeping if our fireman (Dad) had a rough night. I haven't really decorated in here yet because I'm planning on putting my Grandmother's buffet in here & am not sure how it will be arranged. Rebekah will sleep in here with us for a while. I have a bassinet that rolls right up to the edge of the bed. This makes nighttime nursing a lot easier than me having to get up & go to another room to feed her.

Through our bedroom is the master bath. Much brighter than our bedroom! It's our "island getaway." I did the hand texture & painting in here. Our shower is one of my favorite parts of the house and the clawfoot tub came out of Dad's great-grandmother's house. It had been sitting outside for years, but refinished beautifully.

Next to our room is the guest room, where you're welcome to stay if you're ever in the area! That quilt was made by dad's great-grandmother for our wedding, the afghan was made by my grandmother, the painting over the bed was done by my mom when she was in college and the other painting was done by me in college.

Just inside the guest room, is my crafting corner. It's currently set up for sewing. I was working on some diaper covers when my machine continued to mess up. It's gonna have to go in for a check-up, I think.

Across the hall is Elizabeth's room, aka the ladybug room, aka the girls' room. When Rebekah leaves our room, the girls will share the ladybug room.

Next is David's room. It's a combination of fire trucks, Cars, sharks, and Wall-E!

I think that covers the inside. You may have noticed that we have a small front porch, but the back is our "entertaining porch." As the evenings are starting to warm up, we've enjoyed sitting out here watching the daylight fade.

We needed a retaining wall at the back of the house and choose to use cattle troughs (some new, some are old) as a retaining wall that we could plant in. If you hear me mentioning some plant I'm growing in one of the troughs, this is what I'm talking about. There's also a mess of toys in the back yard, and a slide off the back porch. And it's a very FAST slide!

From the back porch, we have a great view of the pond... and a fence to keep the kids from wandering down there. Yes, there are fish in the pond, but we haven't been fishing yet.

Some grass seed was planted in the back yard where construction disturbed the native grass. Then the doves, sparrows, cardinals & who knows what else came & cleaned out the place! Now sunflowers are coming up. Maybe some of the grass will still come up back. We'd like to add a swing set or something out here for the kids and we usually get a little pool in the summer, but I don't know if we have a place flat enough for one here.

We really enjoyed being able to incorporate pieces of family history into our house, because that's where we came from. I wish I could show you the family photo wall in the hallway, but I just couldn't get a very good photo of it.

For those interested in the building process, visit my Flickr photos. Be warned, there are a TON of house photos in the set, showing from before ground breaking to current, and I have re-ordered them so that they start with the oldest first and show the progress.

Our house construction photos on Flickr
The open house set on Flickr

We were also given a baby shower during the open house...

I have been blessed with water...

For weeks now, we've been living with this yucky, undrinkable water. I've been driving over to my parents' house to fill gallon jugs with their tasty, soft water. I had to clean my dishes after running them through the dishwasher due to the calcium in the water. The smell of metal (iron in the water) almost made me sick at times. I smelled it when washing clothes, showering & bathing the kids. The tub full of water was yellow from it.

Then Dad, my hero, installed our new water softener! The difference is amazing! It's clear, it doesn't stink, and while it doesn't taste as good as Momma & Daddy's it is now drinkable. My dishes are clean and I'm not worried about what long term exposure to the hard water will do to our clothes when they're washed.

But now I've been reminded that people all over the world would have been happy with what I called undrinkable. How spoiled we are to be so blessed.

A lot of people give this time of year because it's Christmas or because it's your last chance to get a tax deduction. Whatever your reason, think about giving more this year. Not because it's the thing to do, or for the deduction, but because even in hard times, we have been blessed. Pause the music & watch...

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded...

Watch the Advent Conspiracy video, too.

Getting Ready for Christmas & Great Giveaways!

We've been busy with Christmas activity around here! I decided I waited too late to make an Advent/Countdown calendar this year, so we went with the traditional Countdown Chain. And the crafts have begun!

So far we've played with glitter, freezer paper, markers, fabric and ribbon. I haven't decided if I'm going to post finished pictures here or not because some of them will be Christmas gifts! The pantry is stocked with flour, yeast, sugar, oatmeal, chocolate chips, and M&M's - all the essentials for Christmas baking! I started a Sourdough Starter this week, and I must say - this stuff is nasty! The only thing that's keeping me interested is the potential for all the different recipes I can make with the stuff.

And guess what? Our neighbor, Mr. Nick, has soft water. : \ Dad found a water softener that also has an iron remover setting, but when we went to Lowe's last night, they weren't in stock. Go figure.

And how about this - 5 Minutes for Mom is having an amazing some amazing Christmas giveaways this year... including a $500 Home Depot Gift Card! Wow, that would almost cover a water softener! I've got every appendage crossed that I can manage to cross and am trying to teach the kids how to cross their fingers, too! : )

And we also have 5 - yep, FIVE - chances to win $500 Kmart Gift Cards! Check out the following blogs to see how:

Chris Brogan
Loren Feldman
Jeremy Schoemaker
Wendy Piersall
Michelle Madhok
Julia Roy

Is it Christmas yet?

Hard Water Stinks!

The water guy came out to test the water today. He found no sulfur, but I always thought the water smelled like metal, not like sulfur. His iron test showed 2 parts per million, even after going through Dad's whole house filter he'd installed. So he guessed that it might be 3 ppm if it wasn't going through the filter.

Then he did a calcium test. He had to keep adding his drops into the water, waiting for the color to change. Drop, drop, drop... Finally the water changed, which showed 50 grains. Combined together, that gave us a hard water score of 60 grains. He said usually when he tests & finds hard water, the score is about 10-15 grains. We have extremely hard water.

That's why I smelled metal & the toilet tanks already have brown film inside (iron). That's why the dishwasher element turned white after the first wash, I have to clean the dishes after washing them, and I have to clean all the fixtures every day to keep them from getting white crust (calcium).

How is it that Grandpa has such good tasting, very soft water just a few miles away?

Yes, I have fallen off the face of the earth...

and I rather like it. I'd like to show you some photos of the new house, but most of it is still covered in boxes, Alan's computer has no photo-working software, and I can't get Grandpa's computer to work. My computer is not set up yet. My first priority when it does get set up - find some new photo software!

In the mean time I can load huge, uncropped photos on my flickr account - so click over there to check out what's been going on in my life. Here's a sample of what you'll see in the neatest corner of my house!


I went on my first "power shopping" trip last night at Kroger. But first, we took a quick ride through Wal-Mart to see if these advertised prices really were that much better... and they were. Armed with the store sale circular, customer reward card, Internet printable coupons and e-coupons, I saved a total of $28.54 off my grocery bill. If I hadn't been a child-toting newbie, I could have saved even more. Tiredness and inexperience go the best of me, though. What I learned for next time:

1. Study the circular even more before arriving at the store.
2. Try to go to the store early in the sale period for the best selection.
3. Make sure to hand over the store reward card to be scanned first! (I think that's why my e-coupons were not deducted.)
4. Go early in the day when Dad is off duty so he can keep the kids!

Now you can go look at my pictures.

Happy Halloween!

October was a busy month! I missed blogging several event because I was so busy, so I've put together a slide show. In addition to working on the house constantly, we also managed to visit a pumpkin patch, visit Aunt Erin in the hospital when Baby Mason was born, celebrate many birthdays, move our stuff into our house, attend a Fall Fest, and go Trick-or-Treating (to one house!).

I got a couple of videos so David's aunts could see his robot walk & robot voice:

Friday's Big Event

Oncor finally got the electricity connected to the house!!!

My Red Washing Machine!

OK, I admit it. I've been drooling over the red washer & dryer at Lowe's for months. This is the GE model, called Metallic Red. The Samsung model is called Tango Red. How cool is that?

I think the Samsung is what I've been seeing in the stores. But high efficiency, energy star and all... that's an expensive machine. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And I'd have to have a matching dryer, too.

So over the last few days, I've been working on my own washing machine, a.k.a. utility sink. And now I am quite proud to say that I do have a beautiful red washing machine in my yellow laundry room. And it pops! What d'ya think???


The diaper bucket will sit there between it & the cabinets. Won't that be glamorous?!?! Now I'll need to come up with some beautiful artwork to hang over it.

There's my Pumpkin!

There's my pumpkin on the front porch of my house that I don't live in yet!

Happy October!

We are entering my favorite time of year! (ok, one of my favorite times of year, and that photo is from last year.) As promised, I have a pumpkin sitting on my new front porch! We don't live there yet, but by golly, my pumpkin is there!

If Mr. Builder, or anyone else for that matter, has a problem with it, I'd be most happy to deliver a pumpkin to your front porch, too.... though not quite as lovingly as I placed my pumpkin!

I coughed so much today that I lost my voice. It sure is hard to parent when the children in the back seat can't hear what you're saying!

Sleeping Angel Contest

At this very moment, my babies are sleeping angels. Crashed in my old bedroom, where the four of us have slept for over a year now. David has his twin mattress on the floor against one wall...

Complete with shark pillow, Snoopy sheets, and his "Great blanket" that my Grandmama made for him.

And in a play pen that she's just about to outgrow, Elizabeth is up against the opposite wall with her snuggly pink blanket (completely under her) and her little lamb.

Mom & Dad's bed is sandwiched in the middle of the room between the kids. BUT SOON... and I've been saying SOON for a while now... but soon for real, we should be able to move into our own house! And wouldn't it be grand if we had a beautiful bedroom set for David's room?

Well, I was so excited to see that 5 Minutes for Mom was hosting the Sleeping Angel Contest! I could just envision David's mattress off the floor (it's been on the floor since he was 2) and WOW, storage underneath it!!!! I also love the bookshelf headboard. That would be the perfect place for his favorite books and, of course, a flashlight. This is the Summer Breeze set, but I'm not sure if I'd pick the blue or pine finish.

If you've got little ones, click on over to 5 Minutes for Mom and enjoy the goodies. I don't enter too many contests, but I couldn't stay away from this one!

And speaking of the flashlight... Grandma got David some more glow sticks recently. He went to bed around 8, if I remember correctly. When I started getting ready for bed about an hour later, this is what I found on my bed:

Bit of Tiny Talk from All 3!

David has been talking since last Tuesday. I mean literally since last Tuesday! I wanted to vlog for Tiny Talk this week. He was explaining the Grand Prix race car, complete with spoiler, that he built out of Legos. Then we had a tired meltdown & foiled that plan. But before that, as he was explaining it to me, I told him, "You're so smart, David!" To which he replied, "I certainly am!"

Elizabeth is quickly picking up non-stop talking from her brother and is labelling just about everything she sees. Tonight as we headed for bed, I called out, "Nite-nite, Grandma & Grandpa!" Grandma replied, but Grandpa didn't say anything. Elizabeth called out "Ga-pa, ni-ni, Ga-pa," until Grandpa finally told her nite-nite, too!

This morning I had this month's OB check-up. All it was really was a chance to hear the heartbeat, which I did. It sounded fine. OK, so that's not talking, but it is #3's first appearance on Tiny Talk Tuesday!! Anyway, I hadn't gained any weight since last month, so not being able to fasten my pants any more tells me that baby is growing and not me!

We're still working on the house daily. Meaning Dad & I are the only. ones. working. Grrr.... The plumber came today & left, saying he needs to have electricity on to finish his work & charge the lines (well water). The septic tank can't be installed until there's water, and there's no water until we have electricity. The painters can't do their finish-up / touch-up until there's electricity. Most of the electric company people are working to get the hurricane victims electricity again. So, Dad & I will continue working on what we can until there's nothing left we can do. Almost makes me wish for a cookie cutter house...

House Progress: The Mantle

All I requested was a mantle that I could hang the Christmas stockings from. Dad had bigger ideas. He found a large mesquite tree & cut it down. Then he found another firefighter with a saw mill and they cut the trunk into a board.

(Dad said he wasn't going to shave or cut his hair until the house was done. He finally broke down & shaved, but I can't get him to go for the haircut yet!)

Grandpa H was more than willing to offer his woodworking wisdom and shop to refine the board.

Dad helped as Grandpa ran the board through the planer to take off the saw cut marks. Then, after some pointers, Grandpa gave the sander over to Dad.

Before long, the board was smooth as glass! It was an amazing transformation. Back at home, Dad painted on some tung oil, which really brought out the grain of the wood:

Now it's waiting to be mounted over the hearth. Way to go above and beyond, Dad... again!

Another day (today actually), as I was doing a little work in the closets, David was doing a little work outside. This was, perhaps, his muddiest ever!

The latest floors!

OK, so it wasn't rocket science & I figured out how to resize my photos with Paint. How basic can you get? Anyway...

Here is the laminate flooring going into the dining room. The plastic hanging all over the place is the drape put up by the painters to keep the walls safe while they painted the cabinets, which you can see just a sneak peek of there on the side. Dad made walkways throughout the house of cardboard so the workers, who don't seem particularly careful, won't tromp mud all over the pretty floors!

And here you can see the master bathroom coming together! The tile was grouted today (after this photo, with a light colored grout) & I haven't seen it yet. We did 2 bands of glass mosaic tiles in the shower to pick up the blues in the room. It looks beautiful! The clawfoot tub from Dad's great-grandmother's house will sit there under the window. I'm imagining that will feel pretty good to soak in when I'm big & pregnant! Window sill & baseboards need to be added.

I hear that the cabinets were also finished today and that Mr. Builder's guys started putting the baseboards back up (they had to be taken down to install the laminate). They decided against working on the chimney in the rain. I surely wouldn't want to be on the wet tin roof!

If the fumes have cleared out by morning, I'll get back to work on some things that have been put off while flooring was going on. Now I need my bed!

It's Official

My hard drive is officially dead. Along with it went a ton of important emails in Outlook, my entire email address book, and my graphics programs. I had saved financial records, photos & documents onto flash drives before it went down, thank goodness.

So if you were in my address book, email me so I can save your email address on my web-based server! And be patient with my lack of photos until I figure out what to do about cropping & resizing them.

At the house: The laminate installers finished today, but we were short 2 rows of laminate, so we'll have to go pick that up later & finish it ourselves. The tile installers are on day two of their installation. The cabinet painters should have been there Monday finishing, but never showed up. Don't know when they'll be back to finish. Dad is frustrated at the people who don't show up when they're supposed to. Grandpa, Marvin & Dad started the corner post holes for the back fence this morning before the rain.

Sure is tiring building a house while pregnant

We worked on installing the laminate flooring for a couple of days... then we called the professionals to come in! I was amazed that they got all they could do (had to stop before they got to the kitchen because the cabinets weren't installed yet) - they got it all done in less than one day! That would have taken us at least a week... probably more at the rate we were going! You can see the beautiful flooring in this video below. You'll also see the wood stove sitting on the hearth still in a crate, potties sitting in the living room, and two adorable kiddos!



Finally the almost all of the cabinets arrived! Here they are installing the island:

And I actually helped Dad build the stairs leading off the back porch!

Tomorrow the remainder of the cabinets should be installed and the painters are coming to paint them white. Hopefully the cabinets arrive before the painters! Monday the tile crew is scheduled to do the bathroom tile and Tuesday the other flooring crew will return to finish the laminate.

Going at Break Neck Speed!

OK, I know I am so behind! It will all make sense soon! Here's just a touch of what's gone on since I last blogged:

Finished the tile in the mech room, kids bathroom, and one of the closets. There's David checking out the bathroom tile.

We got the second half of the laminate flooring to the house & unloaded it. Picked out & ordered the wood burning stove. Picked out & had delivered the vanity cabinets, tops, and matching mirrors for both bathrooms. (and found them all on clearance, saving a TON of money!) We've been to lots of tile/flooring stores trying to agree on and get all the tile we need for the master bath floor & shower. And we purchased the remaining cattle troughs that we'll be using for the back retaining wall. Electricians got all the lights & fans up. The wood stove we went with didn't require as large a floor space as the first one, so Dad adjusted the hearth and designed a new floor. Refrigerator/freezer and range were delivered today and the cabinet man says one more week before the cabinets are ready... which will cause a delay on the flooring.

We did a lot of clean-up (because apparently nobody can clean up their own mess) and Grandpa has been helping with haul-off and dirt work outside the house. His tractor & Mr. Nick's trailer have been a great help for work on the retaining walls, dirt work and clean-up! Grandma's babysitting has been invaluable as well, freeing me up to work at the house in the mornings.

OK... now we'll backtrack to a couple of weekends ago... I forgot to post any photos from the carnival at the Old Settler's Reunion! So here are some of my favorite photos from that:

Of course, we had to have a funnel cake. David wouldn't even try it, but Elizabeth loved it! The white stuff on her face is powdered sugar from her first funnel cake! We wore out before the fiddle contest.

This past weekend Grandma & I took off to enjoy a wonderful weekend at the Women of Faith Conference! We had a great time at the conference, hotel and dining out! Here we are Saturday before we left the conference:

Sunday was promotion day at church & all of us had new classes to attend! David's class was HUGE, so I wonder if they're going to need to break his age into another class (there's already 2 classes of 4 yo's) and we stopped by Elizabeth's former class to let them know that she was walking! They were very excited to hear it & sad that she was promoting to the next class.