Snow days, snow daze.

So obviously this is a back post, but I wanted to share these picture.  Shortly after we moved in we got be break in the wood stove

just in time for Sno-kahoma or Sno-magedon as it was so lovingly became known as, not just in Oklahoma but across the nation.  The first storm hit on a Monday night while I was a work and I had to drive home in blizzard and snow drifts and straight horizontal blowing snow.  School was closed for 3 days with this storm (if my memory is correct)  Loy got to stay home a couple of those days.  Friday Grace went to school.  The next storm hit just a couple days later, while I was at work, and I had to drive home in it, but this storm was much more pleasant because it was minus the 50 mile an hour wind.  Again, no school for another two days and Loy home one of those days.  This time we got to go outside and PLAY!  It was alot of fun and we had a blast.  Not great snow for making snowballs, although we did our best, or a snowman, but we still had fun.

Snow angels, with help from Belle.

Daddy and Claire

"I'm gonna getcha Momma!"

Watch out behind you Grace!!!

Claire was not having much fun.

The snow was so deep that Belle couldn't walk through it well.  It was so funny to watch her run in it.

The dogs had a blast too

Andrew, Belle and I went for a walk down to the pond, but Belle couldn't make it so I had to carry her.

Awww...

The White House in the white snow.

Catching up

I uploaded some pictures from my camera finally and decided its time to do some catch up postings with pictures.  First I'll start with the last pictures from our building process.  This will be quite picture heavy, so just be aware.

A few of the kitchen.  We ended up having to get a different dishwasher because the silverware drawer hit the handle of the dishwasher.  Its not a Maytag like the rest of the appliances, but I do not care, at least I can open my silverware drawer without having to open the dishwasher every time.

My faucet that was another had to have items.  I love it.  Its from Huntington Brass and is brass and heavy.  I really like it.

Drawer pulls in the kitchen. Still dirty and dusty.

Door pulls.  Plain and simple.

A full view of the kitchen.  Before paint and stain touch up, thats why the bar legs are still unstained.

On to the bathrooms...

Powder room.  

Bathroom faucets.  All look the same.

Kids bathroom.  Best picture I could get of vanity, mirror and light.

Cute towel hooks for all three kids.

Master bath vanities.

His side of shower.

Her side with personal hand shower.

Lighting is really bad, but this is the family room from the kitchen

From the family room looking into formal living room.

Looking down the stairwell. (still dirty)

Master bedroom with carpet.

Looking down hallway towards stairwell

Hall and banister going around to master bedroom.

And last but not least a family picnic in our new house before we moved in.  It was fun,  nothing fancy, just sandwiches, but the kids liked it.

Flylady, routines, couponing and more

Wow, I have been bad about keeping up.  I have just been busy trying to get use to my new surroundings and trying to get into a routine (which hasn't really set in yet).  I am still not fully unpacked, but I have my kitchen clean, and well, most of my downstairs.  I have no decorations up on the wall yet, I need hangers first.  Plus, I'm nervous about punching holes in my walls.  But I need to, I need some sound dampeners.  I still need to go through several boxes, especially in the garage so I can get it cleaned up.  I still have stuff in our shop building, but I asked Loy to let me get everything taken care of here first before we brought more over.  I plan on having a huge garage sale this spring then what ever doesn't sell will go to Goodwill.

I need Flylady back in my life.  When I started school I used her to help me keep a house cleaning schedule and I did well for a little while, but became a slacker and now I need to get back to it.  My laundry is out of control still, I need to clean my bathrooms regularly, keep my dishes up and sink empty.  I also want to be able to spend more time with my kids and I think this will help me get the things done that need to be done daily, instead of letting it get out of control and then have to spend hours on getting it caught up only to ignore my kids.

My next adventure is couponing.  A few of my friends went to a coupon class a couple weeks ago and I started reading the blog www.couponcloset.net and learning lots and decided I was going to try and do this to save money.  I have gone two weeks and done ok.  Then last night I went to one of her classes and learned alot.  I am very excited about using all of these tools to save lots of money on groceries for my family and then be able to turn around and give back to others.  I will keep you all updated on my progress and share how much I have saved.  Then I plan on saving a ton more when I start my adventure in gardening, canning and freezing.  That is a whole blog in itself and I am very excited about getting that started with my friend Danielle.  With the weather getting so nice after our blizzards the last couple weeks has really get me excited about getting outside.  I have ordered a couple seed catalogues, but haven't got them yet.   I will be starting from scratch and have lots to figure out.  I need to find my book that I bought a couple years ago about vegetable gardening.  Anyway, more on that later.

I finally got my PRN position at work.  After this week I will switch over and I can work as little as one day a week!  Of course, I have to pay for my new house so I have to work two for the most part. My goal for my hours is enough to pay the mortgage and maybe I can work one extra shift a month to save for other things like decorations, plants, furniture, stuff to make my patio outside and other things that come up.  It will be so much easier on me to keep  up with everything else around here and hopefully be a better mom and housewife.  

Geeze, I feel like that is alot for right now, so I will leave it at that and try to be better about keeping things updated and post more.  I promise I will add pictures soon.

We're in!!!

We are finally in our house, all moved in, but not settled.  We moved last weekend, Friday and Saturday and finished up the last tiny bit Sunday.  They they came to get the trailer ready Monday and Tuesday it was gone.  We are loving our house!  There is so much room and its beautiful.  I bought some furniture and Friday Loy picked up my rug, buffet and a chair and ottoman that will match my couch and chair that I have ordered.  We still have boxes everywhere and I am still trying to catch up on laundry, but its coming along slowly.  I had so much laundry, like every laundry basket in my house (which was about 5, some had dividers) plus clothes on the floor, clothes that we found as we were packing, under beds, couches, behind dressers under toys in the closets, there were clothes everywhere and that all added up to about 3 LARGE, black trash sacks!  So while I am trying to catch up on all that, we are still doing our normal thing and dirtying more clothes, which just back piles, and it just seems never ending.  I am hoping to have that under control this week and we can start getting in a routine.

As for the boxes, I have lots of purging to do!  I accumulated so much junk, I had no idea!  I mean, I knew I had stuff, but not as much as I ended up with.  I believe I let it get out of control because I just did not have the space to organize and go through stuff and so I just shoved it into the corner to get it out of the way and there it stayed and then more stuff got piled on top and it was just a vicious cycle.  If I did try to do something about it, it would get strewn about or messed up, or I just took on too much at one time and got overwhelmed and didn't give myself enough time to finish it so I just didn't do anything after a while.  But now I have the space to go through things and start getting rid of stuff.  Toys, clothes, and whatever, its all going!

I do not have pictures to share because,well, its just kinda boring right now and kinda messy.  But hopefully in the next couple weeks I will have everything fixed up.  I am having my first playdate with my mommy group on Valentine's day, so that is my goal!  I am so excited to finally have people over!  Its been 4 years since I have had company!  We have been so extremely blessed by being able to build this house that we now need to use it for the Lord's work and glorifying Him, since He is the one who made it all possible.  I still feel a little unworthy of such a beautiful place, but I know God has great plans for us and we plan to do His work with the blessings He has given us.

In other news, which i will blog on later are changes in my work, plans for our home, schedules, organization, weight loss and healthier eating, couponing, Flylady, and much more.  There are many things that will change now and I am very excited to finally have a place of permanence and I feel like we can actually get in a routine of some sort.  So obviously this blog will change a little bit since we are not building our house anymore, but I still want to continue the blog.  Any ideas on what to blog about?  Share them with me.  And I want to get better about blogging more often.  Well until next time...

Day two install

Day two we called in some recruits to help with the bigger stones.  We figured we couldn't do it with Loy, weakling me and the one armed man.  We had a friend from church come help and one of Loy co-workers came by.  We pulled out an 8 foot piece and got to work on the piece that goes around the sink.

Drilling the holes for the sink cut-out.  Our friend, Billy helped us so much.  He is a cabinet maker and has worked with alot of these tools and was such a blessing.

The spectators...

After cutting the piece out, they had to flip it over and work on routing out the underside of the edge where the sink sets because it was just sightly taller than the cabinets and it would not fit if they didn't do all this extra work.

Covered in soapstone dust.

Loy got many new toys for this project, including the router, orbital sander, belt sander, grinder, and he also got to use some other toys that he had, just haven't had the opportunity to play with yet, those were the circular saw, jig saw and drill.

The grinder.  Notice it is dark now.  They stared about 1:00 that afternoon and did not set the piece on the cabinets till about 7:00 that night.  It took a long time and Billy is just as much a perfectionist as Loy so it took a long time, but it looked GREAT once in.

Billy's daughter drawing with the kids who came up to see the progress.

Its in!!!

After they did this they cut the next big piece and got it ready to set the following day.

I don't have pictures from day three of four, but Sunday night Billy came back and between him, Loy, me, my mom, Ashlynn, and one armed dad, we got the other large piece installed.  After getting it done we decided it would have been better to do it the opposite way we did it, but we got it all in and set.

Day 4, Monday after work Billy came back and the guys epoxyed the seams and tried to place the bar, which didn't end up working and we had to have the trim carpenters come back out and fix the bar area.  The guys got it set and waiting for the new posts that will support the other side.  More pictures to come...

Soapstone install, day 1.

Our soapstone arrived a couple weeks ago.  The FedEx called me on a Friday and told me they were on their way and then asked me if I had access to a forklift to unload it off the truck.  Um... No, I do not have a forklift.  Well after much discussion, we finally decided to wait till Monday so Loy could use the tractor to get it off.  He said it was very stressful and nerve-racking.  But he got it off and in the garage waiting till we can working on it.  My mom and dad arrived on the following Thursday to help.  Friday, after a final (or so we thought) trip to Lowe's Loy and my dad got started.  By late lunch they had gotten the first piece cut and up on the cabinets.  I went with them after lunch to help with the next piece.  They got it cut and we were carrying it inside and my dad tore a muscle in his bicep and he was out of commission for the remainder.

Cutting the stone.  He used a diamond blade on his circular saw.  Dad held the vacuum.  It was VERY dusty cutting that stuff.

Look that dust.  That dust is EVERYWHERE now.  Had to wear masks and glasses.

A couple of the pieces were oiled when they got to our house so you can kinda see what it will look like oiled.

At the end of day one this is what was done.  Two pieces installed, or at least on the cabinets.

Also placed the sink that night.  

This is one of my had-to-have items.  This is a fireclay farmhouse sink.  It is the 36" sink and it is really big, but I like it.  I wasn't going to get the bigger one, but at the time we were purchasing it the 30" was still in production and wouldn't be done in time.  But our contractor worked his magic and we got the bigger one for the same price as the smaller.

When the day was done, we had one tired  little boy.  He worked hard.  He was waiting for dinner to finish cooking and he fell asleep.  LOL.