House Progress 1

We have been busy! Since we signed our contract there have been so very many questions...the first of which was which lot was best. There were not tons of options, but enough, and it seemed like each one had pros and cons. We finally weighed them all and decided on this one. It is a larger lot that will give us a big (for Colorado) backyard, backing to open space. We do have the one house you can see above us and this lot was not set up for a walk-out basement so I had to compromise there, but we feel so lucky to have got this one!

Sorry about the dark pic and the random cars in front...the huge pile of dirt is right where our house will sit.

Next we went to the Design Center to have our first session with our designer...we got a lot of exposure and learned a ton, but between sick kids and all the options smothering us, I felt like we didn't get too much accomplished in the first session. We did find out that you can upgrade yourself by thousands in no time at all. And I'm told I have expensive taste...hmmm

After that it was off to Utah for a little break for Thanksgiving...while it was a welcome break, it was hard to leave when things felt so pressing. It turns out the break was just what the doctor ordered and after returning home we have gotten right to business and we have almost everything picked out.

This is what we went with for the exterior (that is our stone on the counter next to me that you can't see very well. I know this isn't the greatest pic but do what you can with it.

I guess our first visit to the Design Center was more productive than I thought because when we went back we were totally ready to make decisions and things moved pretty quickly. We didn't get many pics but there will be more to come, I promise.

This is our kids and guest bath color scheme.

And our master bath.

We did end up going with the wood cabinets with the cocoa glaze instead of the white. I was definitely leaning the other way, but after much deliberation I decided we can always change them to white later if I still dream of a white kitchen. And we may do the laundry room cabinets white!!! For now, we are waiting on the laundry room because it is huge and it is a laundry/mudroom so we want custom cabinets there to make it more organized for shoes, coats,backpacks, and things.

We decided to go standard on somethings to save money and we will change them out hopefully just after we close, before we move in. The design center prices are a little inflated and we should be able to do better this way, despite the extra work.

Here is the hardwood we want...probably the biggest upgrade by far.

We still have to decide on carpet and granite, but that will come a little later since we are doing it this way. They also didn't have a fridge we were happy with so I am shopping around for one of those if anyone has any ideas. It has been a fun and stressful process so far. I love that we get to make our decisions but at the same time it really scares me that we are responsible for it all.

We Did It!

This is kind of old news if you are on Facebook, but if not...We are finally buying a house! We started looking a few weeks ago and to our surprise ended up in a new construction area. We wern't really planning to build, but after looking at our options decided this is the route we would take. We are so excited! It has been a long time coming. During the next couple of weeks things will be really crazy. We have to decide everything from exterior paint, shingle, and rock, to carpet and light fixtures, and everything in between. After that we just wait. The build out time is 5-6 months, so we are hoping spring but planning for summer. We will definitely keep progress shots on here so we can document this exciting journey for ourselves and anyone who is interested.

After we signed our contract, we got to put a little red monopoly house on our lot.

4 wheeling

Thanks to some great friends who let us try out their 4-wheelers and some other great frineds that came with us to share the fun, we had an exciting day. We rigged up the wheelers to make the ride comfy for the kids and off we went with food, gear, and a U-haul full of wheelers (only Brady would think of these things). The weather was perfect and despite some small mishaps that cost us at the 4 wheeler rental shop, we all came home with smiles on our faces.

We had some guys stop and ask if they could take pictures of Avery chillin in her seat, you gotta love Brady's unique ideas.

Thanks Travis and Vickie for sharing your day with us...we had a ball.

Soccer Celebration

After another fun-filled season of soccer, we ended with our first win and had a pizza party with our team. Caden had a good season, he really enjoyed playing but was discouraged because the field was bigger, there were goalies, and it was harder to score. He had a great time with his team and was thrilled to get yet another trophy in the end.

The Halloween Wrap Up

The kids loved painting their pumpkins this year. They were very intent on getting them just right.

Here we are all dressed up and ready to celebrate. We had a fun dinner with some friends and then went Trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.

Our adorable Cindy Lou Who

Our vicious Pirates

The whole gang before the ward Trunk-or-treat.

I think I am slowly starting to appreciate Halloween. As a kid it was definitely my least favorite holiday but it is gaining ground. I have fun getting the kids dressed up and even dressing up myself and there is so much you can do if you get into it a little.

Sugar Cookies Make it Official

Making sugar cookies has always been a really fun tradition for our kids. They love decorating them and I love eating them so really everybody wins. This time we even had some friends join in the fun. It's almost like once we make sugar cookies Halloween is really coming.

Everybody loves dough!

Kamrie always works extra hard decorating and then says she will eat it tomorrow. Either she really doesn't like them or she just can't eat the masterpiece she has created.

Caden usually has a much easier time eating his and loves to make more and more.

Fun for Everyone, sort of

After picking our pumpkins, we couldn't wait to carve them into glowing Jack-O-Lanterns. We had pizza that looked like a pumpkin for dinner and then started in on the fun.

Caden was so excited and loved every minute of it, He even confessed at one point that he wished he was me so he could CUT!

Kamrie wanted to like it, she really did, but in reality...

this is how she felt and her participation didn't last long.

She and Avery moved on...

hard at work...(sorry I forgot to turn this one, just turn your head, it is much quicker)

At last...

We had lots of fun, the only bummer is that we couldn't involve the kids more. It's a little hard for them to do too much when your activity involves playing with knives. They enjoyed what they could and we painted pumpkins later so that they could all do their very own.

Pickin' Punkns

We love Colorado, but I have to say we have yet to find a pumpkin patch that compares with Waterman's in Indy. Even though is wasn't Watermans...we found a pile of pumpkins to chose from and loved picking the perfect ones.

Caden wanted white!

And Kamrie just wanted something small. She picked one for her and an even smaller one for Avery since she was sleeping in the car.

Brady and I helped choose bigger ones to carve into Jack-o-lanterns and we were on our way!

Really???

So Caden is totally into reading lately, and he is quite good at it; although I'm not sure he is quite ready for this! This picture is 100% real...he was on fall break for 2 weeks so I think he was missing school.
Now for the proud mama talk...I am so proud of this little guy. He has done so much already in first grade and he just continues to amaze us. Everything seems to come easy to him so far and we are happy for that because if for some reason something fouls him up he get frustrated pretty easily. He loves to goof around and be the center of attention which makes for trouble when he can't figure out when it's time to focus. It is so fun to see him grow and become a KID! He is a fantastic friend and a great brother complete with teasing, making the girls cry, and comforting them when it wasn't him that made them cry. He loves school, friends, video games, sports of all kinds (he even thinks he may want to give tennis a shot), and playing anything with daddy. What a kid! We LOVE you Caden!