Our floor plans

So I mentioned that Troy is using some software to design our "dream home." He is pretty pleased with his work and thought some of you might be interested in looking at his plans. I know others of you will look at this and wonder what it all means. I am one of those who have a hard time looking at lines on a paper or a computer screen and figuring out how it converts into a house. Luckily, the software has a feature that renders the plans into a 3-D view, so It's like taking a virtual tour. That is something I can visualize.

The two images are not drawn to the same scale. There is also a basement that will be another 2700 sq. ft., all unfinished. So the first image shows the main floor, plus our current house. We will continue to live in our teeny tiny (950 sq. ft.) 2 bedroom house while we build the house shown below. When it is finished, we will move into it and convert the existing structure into a very large garage. (Troy's dream come true.) The second image shows the second story, with yes, 4 bedrooms. Don't go making any assumptions- we may or may not fill them all with children. We would be content to have one of them be an exercise room and one be a craft/scrapbooking/sewing room for the time being. Also, not that there is an office/nursery on the main floor- that is for convenience. I don't want to have to go upstairs every 2 hours when my newborn baby wakes up in the night. There are no eminent plans for a newborn. Our current house is just getting too crowded, so Troy and I agreed that we would have a bigger house before we have another baby. Besides, Spencer is only 9 mos old!

Main Floor 2700 sq. ft.

Second Floor 1850 sq. ft.

So, here's the plan! We have been meeting with architects and draftsmen for the past week and will select one on Monday, tomorrow. Then we should have the plans ready to submit to the city for our building permit the following week. Then, we'll let the dirt fly as we break ground for the basement. If any of you want bigger plans, Troy would be happy to email you a PDF of these. We're so excited to have a big adventure to begin.

"When it Snows, We're Going to the Beach"

I went to manage my pld posts and found this post with all the pictures ready, but no text, so here it is:

The first week in December, ( same week as the "Duck, Duck, Goose" post) we went to California. We told Timmy tha we would go to the beach when it snowed, and lucky for us, it snowed the day before we left for California. Here are a few pictures of us on the beach at sunset and in the dark. Timmy was terrified of the water and we had a hard time getting him to smile for the photo shoot, so here are some pics of a screaming Timmy, a happy Spencer and a Mom struggling to hold them while Dad takes the pictures. These are old, so I am not going to write too much. It was Newport Beach, and they have a Fun Zone with a ferris wheel and a merry go round. Timmy loved the horses and it was a lot of fun. It was also a good motivator to get him to eat dinner. Troy isn't in any of the pictures, because he was the photographer, but he was there, too.

Finally! Some New Pictures

We're ready to go play in the snowEnough pictures, already. We want to go outside!

Spencer is happy to help Mom unload the dishwasher. Unfortunately, he isn't tall enough to reach the shelves, so the silverware is all going on the floor. Oh, well.

Can you see my 4 teeth?

Whew! Tromping around in the snow sure is tiring. Timmy taking a rest on his snow chair.

No matter how long we stay outside, he never complains of being cold-even though he's got bright pink cheeks and a cherry red nose.

Spencer waving good-bye to all of you.

It's a good thing he's so adorable, or else throwing all the clean silverware on the floor would get him in trouble.

These pictures were taken in January, but I hadn't downloaded in over a month. Call it Lent. :-) I haven't felt like getting out all the stuff, so I temporarily gave it up.

I've been tagged!

So, my pal Julie tagged me, which, I'm told means that before I can post anything to this blog, I have to list 6 facts about myself.

1. We are planning on making a large addition to our house. For Valentine's Day, Troy & I are "giving" each other an architect. Or, in other words, we are looking for someone to draw up the plans we have designed. How romantic...

2. I have a new calling to work in the nursery, as of Jan 1, 2008. Since that time, I have gotten sick 3 times. Any chance those are related? At this point, Troy would comment something like, correlation does not prove causation.

3. I hate snow. I don't want to sound too negative, so I will leave it at that. If you really want to know the details, call me and I would be happy to have a gripe session about snow.

4. Yesterday, I (with the help of my lovely mother in-law) re-arranged the boys' room. I am really pleased with the results. Although it is a small room, the way she suggested we move the furniture really opened it up and makes it feel more inviting and spacious. It also helped that we took 2 baby swings, and 2 boxes of outgrown clothes out to the shed and moved my hope chest into another room.

5. We are hoping to go to visit the folks down south in warm country for Easter/ Spring Break/ My Best Friend's Wedding. My friend Tonya, is recently engaged and is hoping to get married the day before Easter, which coincides perfectly with Spring Break, so the uncles will be out of school. (A note to all other friends: don't get your feelings hurt that Tonya is my BF, I still like all of you, too.) Timmy said something funny about the uncles the other day, "Garrett is the big uncle, [streched his hands high above his head and used a deep voice] and Kirby is the little uncle [pinched his fingers together and used a squeaky voice]."

6. We spend a minimum of 2 hours a day reading books, often more than that. Some of our (Timmy's) favorites are: Curious George (no thanks to uncle Shannie G.); Mercer Mayer's Little Critter Books; Big Al; Go, Dog, Go!; most of Eric Carle's books, especially the Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider; Clifford; King Bidgood's in the Bathtub and he Won't Get Out; and Bears on Wheels. We go to the library at least once a week because I get sick of reading the same books over, and over, and over, and over...

I don't feel like tagging anyone else specifically, especially since not many people visit our blog, and of those that do, very few have blogs of their own, However, if posting 6 random facts about yourself sounds like fun, consider yourself tagged!

Happy belated new year! Here's January in a nutshell.

I thought that since today is the last day of the month I should post something. I usually manage the blog during nap time, but other interests have been keeping me entertained. I have read 8 novels this month, sewed 4 flannel baby blankets, applied for 3 different health insurance plans, and got multiple home and auto insurance quotes, shoveled mountains of snow, baked homemade whole wheat bread from scratch 2 times (including hand cranking the wheat into flour), finally took down Christmas decorations, although I haven't them out to the shed (I didn't want to brave the sub-freezing temperatures and foot + of snow), written in my journal, come up with an idea of how to organize a team for the Diabetes walk for a cure at Hogle Zoo this summer, and have acquainted myself with my new video camera. I am hoping I will learn how to post video clips soon, and the kids will make their debut. (Julie- any tips or advice? your videos are always good, and easy to view.)

Sorry to be so absent this month- I am trying to be a little more balanced.

Oh, the Lights on My Tree, I Wish You Could See...

Putting up our tree this year was a 4-day process:

Day 1 Saturday We went Christmas tree shopping. First stop: Home Depot, second stop: Smith's, third and final stop: Christmas tree lot where we found our perfect tree. We dragged it to the guy, who cut the base and also told us they only accepted cash or check. Nicole didn't have her purse with the checkbook and accompanying wads of cash, and Troy's wallet only contained cards. The guy was really nice, and let us take the tree home with the promise that we would return later and pay for it. We did. We couldn't decorate it that night, because we had tickets to the Glenn Beck Christmas Show. So, we stuck it in the snow in our front yard and left it there.

Day 2 Sunday We rested. So did the tree. It snowed Sunday morning and flocked our tree. It looked like we had a live tree growing in our yard. We thought about leaving it there, but decided against it.

Day 3 Monday For family home evening, we decided to bring in and decorate our tree. Troy pulled his chainsaw and the tree stand out of the shed and made a fresh cut on the tree. He shook off as much snow as he could, but it had frozen to the boughs, so we had to put towels on the floor under the tree to absorb the water as it all melted. Timmy had fun picking clumps of snow from the branches and eating it. We decided to put the lights on Monday night, but to wait until the snow melted to put the ornaments on it.

Day 4 Tuesday Timmy, Spencer and I put the ornaments and candy canes on the tree while Daddy was at work on Tuesday. It took a very long time because Timmy would take an ornament, hand it in one place, then remove it and replace it on a different branch. He repeated this process about 5 times for each ornament until he found exactly the right, perfect spot.

Day 15 Today Our tree it now bare on the bottom third is bare of any decoration other than lights. The candy canes were the first to disappear, then one by one the ornaments showed up in places other than the tree and I put them on the upper half of the tree. So, we have a funny looking tree, but it is still our perfect tree.

We wish you all a merry Christmas!