Boy Toys

I had barbies.  And dolls. And all kinds of pink and girly toys.  I LOVE having boy toys all over my house.  Trains, Blocks, Cars, Boats, Firefighters, Construction Toys.  It is so fun!  Anyway, Charlie and I were playing and he asked me to take a picture of his train.  Here's what we ended up with:


In case you were wondering, this is MightyMac.

This is Emily.

And let's not leave out that cheeky Thomas!

 Charlie will set up tracks and play for hours.  It is so cool to watch.

Charlie got this cool set of roads/boats/construction/firemen stuff for Christmas and his birthday.  Martin found pieces of brio track that allow the road system to work with the train tracks.  Some mornings we set ALL of it up and then you can't walk through our living room.

 I love the whimsical style and colors that the hearthsong set brings in- its a cool contrast with the trains, but still very fun!

 It is so neat that he is finally getting to the point where imagination kicks in.  His play is more than just pushing trains- they are talking to each other and having fun!

Love seeing those chubby fingers!

Match

My niece calls Matthew "my Matchew," so Match is starting to stick as a bit of a nickname for our cutie pie!

The poor kid gets called, "the other one" more than anything else!  Anyway, he is a smiley, happy boy that gives you this look like he's in on a joke with you.  Here a few pictures from the past month (not many, but more are coming in other posts).  He also popped out his first tooth on March 27th!

The end of another one of "Martin and Kathleen's" Sap Seasons

Last year during the maple syrup season, I was pregnant and nauseous- I am only just now finally able to enjoy syrup again!  This meant the big project fell onto my Dad.  At the end of the season, he pulled the taps and said, "That's the end of Martin and Kathleen's Sap Season!"   

 He enjoyed it enough that this year he tapped more trees.  We were again pretty useless in the help department- though we brought Charlie up to gather sap with Gaga a few times.

 Dad cooked down most of the syrup outside this year. 

I just love this picture of Charlie and my dad.  Charlie just adores him!

When the going gets slow.... yell at your builder!

So after they set the house, we went in to check it all out.  Its been a few weeks since then.  The outside work is now finished, but the inside looks sadly the same!  I got on the phone with the manufacturer to tell them how unhappy we were with our builder- mostly the fact that they haven't been there to do any work!  I won't bore you with details regarding the other issues.  We are simply at the point everyone who builds a house gets to.  We are anxious to move, and frustrated with our builder over issues we shouldn't even have to think about!

Anyway, ten years from now this won't matter.  We'll be in our home and it will be a story to laugh about.

The kitchen is essentially done.  We have our stove and are just waiting on the rest of our appliances.  One thing we realized is that we never picked out hardware for the cabinets- I guess that will be a project for us to complete later on down the road!

The living room is mostly done.  The floors are even in under that pad!

These stairs will be stained and finished to match our floors.

Charlie's room.  And no, this isn't a fancy photo technique- the left half of the picture looks torn because the door frame isn't up yet.

Master bedroom from the doorway.  All that wood flooring piled in the middle of the room- it is still piled in the middle of the room.

 Master bedroom closets.  The bathroom is beyond them.

I will say that the basement stairs are a lot nicer than anything I expected they would provide.  For whatever reason, this part of the house just fascinates Charlie.  "Can I go to the basement?"

Anyway, after a lengthy conversation and being on the receiving end of more attitude and swearing than I wanted, there are actually a few guys there working this week.  If they keep it up it could be just a few weeks- but we have been hearing that for awhile, so if we are in by the end of April I will be thrilled!

It's All Coming Together...

On Monday, they were back to put the house together!  It was so exciting to watch.  "The New Driveway House," as Charlie calls it, will be done in just a few short weeks!

The entire first story was put together by the time we got up there at 9 AM, but Charlie and I did go watch the second story get put on with his Aunt Cara, Grandma, Uncle Dave and Luke.

I wanted to stay pretty far back with the kids, so we are actually watching from the side of the house, up on a hill.  My father kindly painted images in my mind of the house blowing around in the wind and the cables on the crane snapping, so I wanted to be super careful with the kids.  Obviously (or thankfully, I guess) it went up without any issues.  The weather was beautiful and they had it all together by 12:00. 

Grandma brought up juice boxes for the boys, and they drank them in the back of some guy's truck.  This was an extra special treat for Charlie- we never buy juice boxes.    At one point I had to say to Charlie, "Look! The crane has the house in the air!"  Apparently the juice box was a bigger deal to my three year old  :

 He was so thrilled to have his cousin Luke there to watch with him!

While watching, my grandmother and I both said, "He better watch his hands!!!"  

I get the feeling this wasn't his first time- just ours!

The pieces seemed so small when they were sitting in the driveway- but put together they appear overwhelmingly large!  A few weeks of site work left and we will be moving in!

We've been inside a few times, but I keep forgetting the camera.  Next time we are up there I will definitely take some pictures to share!  

We're almost there.....

This will be picture overload for some, but I'm so excited that I just can't help it!

--The four pieces of our house came today--

They will sit there until Monday (because of the weather) but they are there!  We have a long checklist of things that will all come together in the next few weeks, but with any luck, we will be moving within a month!

We are so grateful and overjoyed to see the completion of this process.  We are truly blessed to be able to move close to family and to have our own home again!

Here, the first and second pieces arrive.  

The second portion arrives:

 They used a bulldozer to pull them up the driveway.

 Charlie, watching with Aunt Cara:

We told Charlie they will be putting it together, like a puzzle.  He doesn't seem as excited about the house as he is about the trucks and machinery :)

We've been very happy with the process, so here is a shout out to Bill Lake:

 We went halfway up the driveway to watch the second piece come in.  It was a lot colder than it looks. Trust me. 

 Two of the pieces are wider than the other two, so it was a tight fit at the top!

 The first two pieces, along with the crane they will use to set them.  You can see the foundation between the pieces of the house.

Hours later, the kids were nearing nap time so we decided to leave.  On the way out, we passed the arrival of the third and fourth pieces.  We decided to stop and watch again.  Matthew slept through it, but Charlie was pretty excited.  We stood on the opposite side this time, so don't let the different angle throw you!

So that's it! A few weeks and we will be moving into our new home!  

I can't wait to start this new adventure!