All the small things...

Today was another cold day at the house, but the kids were excited to bundle up and head out to see the changes occurring at our new house. They each grabbed a hat and coat and put it on by themselves. 

When we got to the house, we discovered that we had arrived just in time to watch them install the office window!

Daryl used his saw to trim off any unnecessary trim from around the window, then held the window in place while Dan screwed the window in from the inside. 

Then in all my excitement from watching them install windows yesterday, somehow I missed noticing that they had also built the hearth for our fireplace. I was pretty excited to notice it today though!

Then we continued on our way up the stairs to check out our new window in the office. 

We journeyed on to the girls room to inspect the new window again. 

The kids had fun exploring the girls play space in their room. 

A view of our great room with all of our windows installed. 

Then we headed down to the basement to explore the changes in the bathroom. The girls LOVE to play in the pile of cement. Nikki loves to pretend she is digging in it - and it's all I can do to keep her out of it so she doesn't get cut on something! :)

Then we noticed that they have taped around the windows for a better seal against the outside elements. I love seeing all the little details that get put into this house that I never would have known to do if I had to do this all on my own. 

The kids also had to stop and admire their handprints in the cement again. 

We walked to the stream where I took a couple pictures of the house while the kids had fun splashing in the stream. 

Tommy and Becky decided that they'd seen enough of the house, so they headed home. Nikki had other plans for me and the camera before we were allowed to go home. She wanted me to take pictures of her modeling the giant cement pile in the bathroom...

...posing in front of the hallway in the basement...

...and finally showing off the beautiful window in the guest bedroom in the basement. Then she allowed us to continue home for lunch. 

We stopped for a second or two (ok fine, a few more minutes) to watch Dan and Daryl install the house wrap around the office window. 

Then I reluctantly let Nikki lead me back home to make lunch for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - can you guess who's favorite that is and why someone was in such a hurry to get home? :)

When Tom got home that evening, we were able to go see the house while supper was cooking. 

We admired how the laundry room looks with its new plumbing connections. 

...and how nice our fireplace looks with the new hearth. 

Here's some plumbing for the kids bathroom. 

Our office.

The girls room. 

All four angles of the girls room - starting in the playspace, The wall where we will put one of the girls bed, the other wall we will place a bed/door to the room, and finally the wall for the dresser/closet door. 

Then we inspected Tommy's room. 

We will put a bookshelf here for Tommy's bed with room for a lamp. 

A view of the header above Tommy's bed. I just thought it was neat seeing how it was put together. 

Tommy's window.

Tommy's door and closet.

A view of Tommy's closet and bed. 

The great room again. I love the view out these windows!! So pretty. :)

At last, it was finally time to say goodbye to the house and head back inside to enjoy our weekend together as a family. :)

Surprise Take 2!

Well, we got to surprise two kids this morning. 

 Tommy was SO excited about his new bed in his bedroom. He couldn't believe that he had such a cool place to sleep and play in his room. I'm pretty sure he inspected every inch of the new space and even noticed the storage underneath where he said, "Look - I can keep my Legos there!"

Nikki wasn't quite as sure about what was happening, but she was glad that Tommy was so excited. 

 She was more than happy to make crazy faces for me though! :)

 Then Tom and I took them to see Nikki's new space. She was excited about walking on the new floor of her new play space. I told her she could decorate that space however she wanted, but she didn't understand what that meant - she was just happy to run around her new room and try not to fall down any holes in the floor. :)

 We walked around the outside of the house and got to watch them install a window in the playroom. 

 The back of our house. 

 View of our house from the pond. 

The roofer carried up a HUGE pile of shingles up that steep roof. Tommy was very impressed with him.  

Then we watched them lay some of the roofing materials down around the chimney.  

 That evening we went back out to see the house. They have finished a good portion of the roof so far. 

 The plumbers arrived and had started working on the plumbing for the kids bathroom. 

 Then we toured the rest of the house to see the windows. This is Tommy's window. 

 One of the windows in the playroom. 

 Window in the attic storage next to the homeschool and playrooms. 

The window in the girls room.  

 Our Dining Room with the windows and ceiling. 

 View of some of the plumbing that has been installed in the kitchen. I've actually decided to move the kitchen sink over a few more inches so it is more centered on the counter, but you can't see that in this picture. 

 View of the dining room window from the porch. 

 Dining Room window from the screened porch. 

 The windows in the Master Bedroom. 

 Window in the shower of the master bathroom. 

 Another view of the transom windows in the guest bath and master bath.  

 Closeup of Shower in Master Bathroom. They have added the floor bracing for the shower pan or whatever it's called. :) I don't know what it's called since I'm not a plumber! 

 Our Great Room with most of the windows installed. 

 Windows in our Garage. 

 The windows in the office and top of the great room are curved, so they created a special piece to fit over each window. I always wondered what they did to match the wall over the window. Now I know! This piece is waiting to be installed tomorrow in the office. 

Here's what that piece looks like installed in the Great Room. 

 I also took a picture of the window ratings. I'm not sure exactly what the numbers mean yet, but I plan on figuring that out. 

 I told the plumbers that we were putting in a laundry room sink, so they put the plumbing in for that today as well. 

 They have also connecting some pipes to the washer/dryer hookup. 

 This is where the stove will go in the kitchen and there will be a pot filler above it. The pipe is to the kids bathroom, which is directly above the kitchen. 

 Downstairs in the basement we decided to go ahead and finish the downstairs bathroom. It wouldn't be fun to have to finish it later and it will be nice to have another bathroom to use. 

The windows have been installed in the basement living room. 

 The window in the future basement bedroom. 

Window in the basement storage room or office. 

 They have also started putting up HardieWrap house wrap on the house. The other cool thing is that they are taping the windows around the house wrap. Extra protection from the outside maybe?

 View of our main garage. 

 A final view of our house before we went inside for Supper. :) Loving those windows! I still can't believe how quickly this house has popped out of the ground.