Birthday

Birthday Date!

I got to my parents house on Tuesday and with the winter storm coming, we weren't sure what the following day would hold.

We were wanting to spend the day at the Mall of America, just Nathan and I, while my parents watched the kids, but with freezing rain and snow expected, we didn't think the trip to the cities was worth it.

We waited until wednesday morning to decide and I actually thought that we were not going since we could have done it on Saturday if the weather had stopped us on wednesday. But at the last minute my dad suggested that we just go and have our fun. So we left home about 6am, stopped at the granite place to get a better idea about our granite selection that needs to be made on Monday and then we were off to the mall!!

The weather was still clear on our way there and we made it to the mall in an hour..not too bad! We walked around for a few minutes until the stores opened and then pretty much headed right to Nickelodeon Universe to start on our rides! It's been a loooong time since I've been on rides and I think my body knew that! After several roller coasters, log chutes and looping rides, I had a headache and it was time to stop and get something to eat!

If anyone's been at the MOA, you know it could possibly take all day to decide where to eat in that place! We finally decided on a restaurant called Cadillac Ranch. It's an American Bar and Grill that had real yummy food! During lunch, my dad called and said that the weather was taking a turn for the worse and it had been snowing up there for quite a while. We decided that after lunch we should wrap things up and think about leaving the cities since the roads could be bad.

We walked past the rides and decided to go on the log chute one last time.

That was a bad idea.

I sat in front and while on the ride, a huge wave of water came up and over the front of the log and all over my legs and lap! It was freezing and I was soaked! We actually went up to a store and looked for a new pair of jeans that I could buy off the clearance rack but we didn't find any. i went to the bathroom to try to dry them with the dryer, but that didn't work either. Oh well. I'll just walk through the mall and out to the freezing cold car with wet pants that were soaked from my hips down to my ankles in the front and then all around the butt! I actually made Nathan walk right behind me so people didn't notice as much....how embarrasing! The longer drive on the way back (due to weather) gave me more time to dry my pants on the heater in the van...hehe :)

We stopped at the furniture store on the way back and checked out tables, couches, chairs and the like. We found some nice things and it gave us a better idea of what we need for the house. After that we went to Mexican Village to eat to get my free birthday dinner and that concluded our wonderful date day!!! It was definitely a very special time for me!!

On our way to our date!


My desert at the Cadillac Ranch....mmm....


Homemade Poptarts! (Take flaky pie crust, roll out, cut into rectangles and slather some jam in between two pieces and bake!....great snack!)


Sneak peak of a part of our house ;)


Decisions, decisions, decisions
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eek!

I'm counting down the days til we go back 'home'! 2 days!!

It's been hard not being able to put up pics like I would like to on here...our internet is too slow :( So once I get to my parents house next week, I'll be glad to update y'all with some pics! Although I'm not sure if I'll be able to post any pictures of the house. Nathan has told me that he doesn't want me to post any more pictures so everyone will be 'surprised' when the house is done :) I'll ask him again next week and maybe he'll change his mind.

They are still crusin' on the house...the septic is in, well is in, electrical is finish, framing is finished, plumbing is finished, retaining wall is built, backfilling is done, lp tank is buried (yes, buried...we got an underground one...much better than the ugly big silver tank sittin' in the yard!), siding is delivered and will start whenever crew is ready, insulation starts Monday and sheetrock gets hung next Friday! Whew! I am meeting with the builder one more time a week from Monday to finish and finalize selections for granite, tile, cabinet color, cabinet hardware, etc. I'm so excited!

Other than being excited for the house, we are soooo looking forward to our date at the Mall of America, just hanging out, shopping, walking and going on the rides! It's been a loooong time since we were at the MOA and we haven't been there without the kids since way at the beginning our of dating days. I can't think of a better way I'd want to spend my (29th!!) birthday! It should be a great time!

I bought a Dyson last time I was in St Cloud and LOVE it!! Thanks to the 15+ people I talked to that have one before I got it. They all said they love theirs and that I would too, and they were right! I also bought a Shark Van then Steam at the same time but I will be bringing that one back. I love the steam part of it but the suction on the vacuum is way in the back and therefore doesn't vacuum up stuff close to cabinets, etc. Therefore, I will bring this back and get just the steamer!

Better get going for now...my 3 yr old is begging me to grab his "school work" off the shelf for him!

hot cocoa

What a nice relaxing weekend! I thought I was going to be at my parents place through the weekend since the Ymca was having a 'free day' including a free zumba class that I wanted to go to but since the weather decided to get icky and snow, I figured I better make it back here before the snow. So Friday afternoon I left and came back...and I'm super glad I did because that night it started to snow here and the wind was a-blowin'! We ended up getting about 6 inches over night and the next day. Enough to make a mess and enough to keep Nathan from working on Saturday! He left for work at 5:30 and was back in bed by 6! He didn't even get a few miles down the road before he figured that he wasn't going to be making it any further. He called in and the foreman said that they'd be calling it off for the day anyway. So he had Saturday with us and today as well since they aren't working Sundays for the time being.

The kids had fun in the snow, spending as much time outside as their little soaked mittins would let them! They even got to build a snowman.


It was also a wonderful weekend to drink some hot chocolate! Here is the recipe I used for my hot chocolate!

1/3 cup water
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup sugar (you can use rapadura or sucanut to make it even more healthy!)
5 cups whole milk
1 t vanilla

Stir together water, cocoa, and sugar in saucepan and heat until boiling. Add milk and heat again til very hot. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Enjoy!!


While I was at my parents house, I spent most of the time making selections with our builder! The first day I was in town was the same day Nathan had class in the cities. He ended up leaving class by 1:00 and coming up to do the electrical walk-thru with us! It was such a help having him their for some decisions because I had no idea about some stuff but I knew Nathan would have an opinion. He spent the rest of the evening with us (checking out lighting, tile, stone) and then drove back down here that night.

The next day I met with the builder again for most of the day and went to lots of places and had LOTS of choices to make!! We checked out cultured marble, visited our builders house for ideas (for those of you who don't know, our builder just happens to be Nathan's first cousin...so it's nice getting to know him better! And he builds beautiful homes!! :) Then we checked out granite (wow, lotsa choices!), picked up our flooring samples, went home to pick up the kids and to take them to my brother's house so my sister in law could take over childcare for awhile, met back up with Steve (builder), checked out laminate counter tops, lighting, and tile.

The next day I was able to run some errands (like to pick up my Dyson and Shark vacuums!!) and then to met with Steve again for stain and paint colors, lighting and more countertops! Whew!

It was actually really fun being able to visualize some stuff that is going in our house. As of now, the shingling is done, framing and plumbing are almost done, and the electrical and heating is part way put in. This week they should be install the septic, hooking up the electric, digging the well, siding, and continuing to work on the inside! They should also be fixing the front window situations, getting those to be the right size.

We cannot wait until we can move in!!

We will be back there next week over Thanksgiving so I will be able to update more then. We will be going to my parents next Tuesday and Wednesday is my birthday so Nathan and I are going on an all-day date to the Mall of America! We are both super excited to spend some time together!!

house!!

Here is our house!! I was out at the site today and when I pulled up there were 10 trucks outside! The plumbers, electricians, framers and shinglers were all workin' hard! And the thought did cross my mind "I am paying ALL these people to work right now! yikes!" :) It was SOOOOO fun to see the house inside and out and see our dream coming to life! There was a mistake with the windows in the front by the lumber company and the top window in front will be changed to a smaller window since it is now 22" too long. See how it is right up against the roof? Yeah, it's not supposed ot be like that. But once that is fixed, it should be good to go!

The other thing that the lumber company added to the plans that weren't there before was vaulting our front bedrooms! It actually added some character to the rooms, making them seem much bigger than they are, and at no additional cost to us since it was a mistake, we'll take it!




I'll have more pics of the house in the next couple days since I plan on taking more and blogger's being difficult again! :)

Our kitchen when we got home from St Cloud last time....CLEAN!


3 mins after we got our stuff out of the van and into the apartment...not even kidding you. How in the world does that happen?!




Marker fun....uh...maybe I forgot to give them a piece of paper?!



Typical scene at our house when Daddy comes through the door after work...


This is just one reason why I'm so excited about the house being done...I can finally have a dresser and closet space to put the kids' clothes!! I try really hard to keep their stuff organized but when you have little kids dressing themselves, throwing what they don't want to wear aside, etc...you get this...


There, that's better....



School time...


Brayan fell asleep at the table...that rarely happens!


Tiernan with his puzzle...


I found this with Caedmon behind the couch....

...it's his yogurt. He dumped it into his bag to eat later. Once he realized I saw him behind the couch, he gives the bag to me and says "I don't want this bag anymore." Ya think?? Gross! It went through the wash and then he was happy to have it back :)

muffins

Why didn't I get all caught up on my blogging while I was at my parents house with internet that actually works??....I have no idea. So I'm trying it again today with posting pictures. It's loading as I type this, but it might take forever so I might have to wait until I'm back at my parents next week. Blogging is a lot more fun when I can post pictures :)

We spent the week last week at my parents house. We visited with my Grandparents, who met Ariella for the first time! She loved them and put out her arms for Grandma to pick her up right away! She also loved to bring both of them books so they could read to her. We also spent quite a bit of time out at the land, watching our house go up and meeting with our builder to do our selections (which I posted about last time). It was nice to hear this week that we were "under budget" with picking out our garage door, our flooring, and our appliances! You don't hear those words together too much when you are building a house, especially when unforseen things start happening like you need to do a mound septic system instead of a natural gravity one, which doubles the price of the septic system....or when the water level is too high for your basement so you have to raise the house up, causing you to lay more block. So it was real nice to be able to stay within our budget on those areas :)

If I can get blogger to actually upload my pictures I will post one of the house that our builder sent to us yesterday. The roof is almost done! The house really looks like it's coming together now and we are actually seeing our dream that has been on paper for so many years become reality!!

In other news....well, there really isn't any other news. We've just been hanging out and looking forward to the next couple months! I made my own pita pockets the day before yesterday, yum! I will post as soon as I get the pics to work. After I made those, I made a loaf of bread and then some breakfast burritos for supper and when Nathan got home, he walks in and says "It smells soooo good in the hallway" (of the apartment building). Thinking he'd say something about the smell of the bread or compliment me on supper, he follows it with "The neighbors are making blueberry muffins!" I guess ya can't win 'em all :)

I will wait for a few more mins for the pics.....no luck...sorry, will have to wait til next week! :)

selection day

Here is what we did today:

Started at 8:30am with a meeting at the plumbers place to pick out tubs, faucets, sinks, etc.


To cabinet guys place to discuss cabinets, colors, style, etc.

To flooring place to pick out carpet, laminate & vinyl.

To the lumber company to pick out siding-soffit-facia colors, door styles, front door, other exterior doors, trim size and style, railing, door knobs, and shingles.

Drove around to check out homes to get ideas on colors for stucco and stone.

Went to pick out our garage door and opener

Went to paint place to pick out stain color for doors and trim and look at paint color options

Went to appliance store to pick out appliances--fridge, range top, oven, microwave, dishwasher, washer, dryer, & a chest freezer

Drove out to land to check out the house and see if the guys made any progress!! Here's what we saw.....

Front of the house....Nathan's standing in the garage.


Our view out of the window in the living room


Looking at the master bedroom


Back of the house...getting dark out!


View into living room, dining, kitchen area

grasshoppers

(My pics for this post are not loading...surprise, surprise...so I will continue to work at it and when they do, I will be sure to share! So sorry it's not as 'exciting' without pictures...haha :)

Sorry, sorry, sorry!! I do have great intentions to blog more often, it just doesn't seem to happen!! For example, last night I was all ready to blog. "I'm going to get caught up!" I thought. Well, when it was time to sit down, I started helping Nathan with his workbooks and an hour and a half later, it was time to go to bed! So I didn't get any blogging done but I can identify and name most all of the lineman's tools! :) I do have to say that he got a score of 100% on both sections I worked with him on...so I might just have given myself another job each night :)

So obviously the big thing around here still is the building of our house!! It is hard to be away from the construction site, only because we cannot see it whenever we want to! Our builder does do a great job of sending us pictures, almost everyday so that has been awesome. My dad was also out there the other day and he took a few pics so they were nice to see. The process has been going great, only one surprise so far. The water level in the ground was up a lot higher than we had expected and that left us with no choice but to raise the level of the house. They hardly had to dig at all to make our look-out rambler, which means they will have to fill in a ton in the front of the house to make the front of the house underground. For example, when looking at the block on the front of the house, you can see an opening that a window is supposed to go in. It looks as though it would be the level of a normal window, but that specific window is an egress window!! We are super excited to go and see it next week!..it should be mostly framed by then!

The kids and I have been loving the beautiful weather as we try and make it out on a walk every day. We usually walk to the grocery store or the dollar store, which are right next to each other. It's fun to just walk through the dollar store but I did have to threaten yesterday that if I heard "mom, can we get this?" one more time, we wouldn't be going back to the store for a long time. :) In order to get to the store, we need to walk through town and then we take a walking path which takes us almost right to the grocery store. While we are on the walking path, we usually see tons of grasshoppers. Yesterday the kids decided that they wanted to catch the grasshoppers so we brought a glass jar and caught about 8 or 9 grasshoppers! They saved them until Dad got home and then they let them go outside :)

Puzzles are another thing we continue to keep busy with! The kids LOVE puzzles! Tiernan will sit for hours and put puzzles together...yes, my Tiernan :) Brayan can do 25 piece puzzles without help, Caedmon has 'graduated' to doing 100 piece puzzles by himself (a Toy Story one in particular :) and Tiernan flies through the 100 piece puzzles, even putting together 200 piece ones with little supervision! I love the kids loving puzzles!...great eye-hand coordination skills, attention spand skills, trial and error skills, and they are QUIET! But the down size is that they are a pain if they don't get put away properly. Just a minute with a little sister playing in the puzzles can create a days worth of work putting them back in their correct boxes and counting all the pieces, esp if you have over 20 100 piece puzzles...not that I would know anything about that!! ;)

Nathan fixed the other side of our couch...remember the recliner on one side didn't work? Yeah, it works now! So our $50 couch from the garage sale has 2 recliners and we love it!

I am almost done building my website for my business and once I think I have it mostly complete, I will share it with you! We are super excited about it and we hope to be a blessing to people! Along those same lines, I am still sooooooo excited to go to Dave Ramsey's counselor training one day. It didn't work out this fall to go b/c we up-and-moved right before the training and since we live a little farther from Tennessee now and I can't just drive there as quick as I could before, it'll take a little more planning. But I WILL GO! In the meantime, I continue to help and advise those to contact me through email and once we are settled in our home, I plan on being able to meet with them as well! I get so excited when I see people starting to win with money, it's such a blessing! By the way, I think I've mentioned it before, but if you have an iphone, you can get Dave's free app and listen to certain calls and get your daily fix of 'what would Dave do' without having to listen to his radio program :) I love it!

Next week when we go home, we will also be winterizing our camper and putting it in storage for the winter time. Come spring, we will take everything out of it (because we'll finally have a place to put everything!), clean it up real nice, and will be putting it up for sale. If you, or someone you know, is in need or want of a super nice 5th wheel, let me know!! I seriously have not seen another camper with as nice of a layout as our camper! I've looked at a lot of them online, even the brand new 2011s and it seems as though most of them are still made with the ugly blue and gray typical 'camper' decor! I can't believe it! Ours is beautiful neutral earth tones! Another thing is the height of our ceiling. Most campers have a lower ceiling, making it feel a lot smaller inside. Ours has a super high ceiling, making it feel really spacious! And one last thing that I think is truly unique with our RV is the kitchen layout. The campers I see online or in person always have the kitchen sink in the corner with about 3 inches on one side of it and then the stove on the other side, leaving you with ZERO counter space. The way our kitchen is with everything along the wall leaves you with a ton (in rv standards!) of counter space on the end! So anyway, if know of someone who is interested, let me know! :)

Well, it's time to make lunch....ya know because it's been a whole 14 minutes since my kids have eaten...and they are starving!