A lot to be thankful for...

It is hard to imagine how 5 days off from work and school can pass by so quickly. Likewise, it is almost incomprehensible to me that it is almost December. It seems like the fall quite literally flew by, and soon we will be starting 2011. A lot has been accomplished since we broke ground in September, and even though we have hit a few bumps along the way, I would still say that we have a great deal to be thankful for this year.

This week was a slower one for building, as most of Keith's help was celebrating the holiday. Over the weekend, Bob and Keith worked on framing up the great room gable. On Sunday, Ronnie, Craig and Keith started sheathing the roof trusses. Weather permitting, we hope that we can make more progress on the sheathing next weekend.

The kids had a nice break, and Andrew spent some time with Mommy and Daddy alone. Julia had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house, as well as a girl's only shopping day. Andrew has always loved trucks, and apparently his new fascination is with trains. He was very busy lining up the chairs to make a train for mommy to drive and daddy and the dinosaurs to ride on. Pretty funny that he thought mommy should be the one driving-talk about a train wreck!

The kids also visited the new house Saturday and Sunday and spent some time running around and playing with gravel. Who needs Christmas presents when you have 3/4" wash gravel?

Raise the roof!

I hesitate to write anything in the blog this week, because I think the pictures in the slideshow speak so well for themselves. While the house did not have the same transformation in a week as the ones on Extreme Home Makeover, it is pretty impressive when you consider that only 5-6 people were working on it this weekend. We now have something that really resembles a house to those who pass by it. The exterior walls are now all up (including the ones for the garage and the screened-in porch.) It was fun to watch Keith, my dad and Bob work on the screened-in porch this week because I could start to visualize what it would really look like in 8 months. I have always said that after the kitchen and the laundry room, the screened-in porch is the room I am looking the most forward to once we move in.

Toward the end of the week, the roof trusses were delivered. I have included a couple of videos that show them being taken off the truck, as well as one with the guys hoisting it on top of the roof. A special thanks to Bob, Ronnie, Craig, Stuart, Andy and my dad who helped Keith with getting the trusses up this weekend. They all worked incredibly hard and we are very grateful for all of their help. While I always enjoy having my parents visit, it was so nice having my dad here to help Keith for two weeks while my mom and I could spend our time looking at paint samples and drink coffee!

I took the kids and my mom to the house both Saturday and Sunday so that we could see the progress. The kids enjoyed seeing our roof go up, as well as playing their own games in the grass and on Daddy's trailer. Andrew also got to take a ride with Daddy on his tractor. By the enormous smile on his face, it looks like he will enjoy being a "country boy" very much.

We have walls!

This week was a flurry of housebuilding activity. It began with the exterior walls being framed-up by Keith and my dad. My father-in-law and one of his friends helped with the walls too, as well as doing a fantastic job building the basement stairs. By Saturday, they finished framing the exterior walls and started on the sheathing. They finished sheathing the house today and started on framing the porch for the floor deck. In all, it was a very good and productive week with fantastic fall weather. A special thanks to my father-in-law, Kevin, my dad, Ronnie, and Craig who helped Keith tremendously this past week.

We had one disappointment this week when we found out that the roof trusses we were having delivered last Friday would not be ready. Long story short, they did not have a record of our order because the individual working on it was fired from the company. By midweek they got our trusses ordered and they will be delivered on Wednesday. There are a lot of trusses that need to go up, but with a little help from our friends and family I feel confident that we will have some great pictures to post about the roof next week.

My mom and I have been doing quite a few outings with the kids while the men are working on the house. This weekend we went to pick out and tag our Christmas tree . For the last 4 years I have been taking the kids to a place called Quailfield Farms in Charlotte Hall, MD. The tree farm is pretty small, but the family that owns it is great. In addition to the trees they have on the farm, during the holiday season they make weekly trips to WV and Pennsylvania to get additional trees. The kids love running around the trees deciding which one would be the perfect one for our family. We will go back a couple weeks before Christmas to cut it down and put it up for the holiday season. For the past two years we have picked out a white pine tree. I was never a big white pine fan growing up, but now I have a different appreciation for the tree. It's branches are tough enough to hold up some of my heaviest ornaments, but the needles are soft enough for the kids to touch if they are helping decorate. Even though it was 65 degrees this weekend, we were still able to pick out our perfect tree and think about how exciting it is that Christmas is right around the corner.

Knock on wood

Keith, Ronnie, Craig and my father did a lot of knocking on wood this weekend. They managed to get the I joists installed, as well as 2/3 of the subfloor Saturday and Sunday. Keith and my dad will finish it tomorrow and then they will move on to framing the walls. My father-in-law is also coming down tomorrow to deliver additional tools and build the basement stairs. The roof trusses will be delivered this week as well. Which means that by this time next Sunday, it really will take on the shape of a house. You can also see in the slideshow this week the basement slab which was poured this past week. The kids enjoyed running around in their new basement. Speaking of kids, not many pictures of them this week except for them playing dress-up with the winter clothes. Hopefully they will still think it is that much fun to wear them come February!