More House Pictures

These pictures are outdated, but I thought I would post them anyway. I stopped by the house about an hour ago and the appliances are there and a few of them are already installed. We are getting really close. Only 2 and a half weeks left. We are so excited! This is the play room on the third floor. There is also a guest room and bathroom up there.
This is the girls bathroom. Chase is standing in the doorway that goes to Madi's room.
This is the landing on the second floor and the stairway to the third floor.
This is the master bathroom. I can't even tell you how excited I am for the tub. I miss the tub in our Master bathroom in California. I just hope the hot water heater is big enough to fill it regularly!
This is the other side of the master bath.
This is the tile cutting workshop, aka the Master Bedroom.
The above view of the kitchen is looking from the dining room.
This is the entry way. We do not have a front hall closet, so the trim carpenter is creating a large wall plaque to go on this wall with large hooks to hang coats when guests come.

Mason is excited and loves checking out his room every time we visit. He is especially excited about his closet. I have no idea why.

This is the living room. The french doors go into the family room. They are going to sand and finish the floors at the end of next week.
This is a view of the kitchen from the family room. Our dream kitchen!!
Looking the opposite way now. Madi and Mason are standing in front of the fireplace. There are so many windows in the house. I love it.
This is a closer view of the fireplace. The mantle is in now. You can see the coffered ceilings in the picture. We decided against putting the t.v. over the fireplace. It will go on the wall to the left between the windows.

That's all for now. I'll take more pictures next week when the countertops are installed in the kitchen.

Mason

This is Mason. He is two years old and he completely runs this house. He has his dad wrapped around his finger, as well as his Nana and the next door neighbor, Olivia. He loves chocolate milk, and chocolate covered cherries. He likes to repeat lines from TV shows like Jake and the Never Land Pirates. "Let's grab them and gooooooooooooo." He is afraid of the dogs and says they are going to eat him. He is driving me crazy because he is in the "I do it myself" stage. Getting out the door and into the car seat takes 6 times longer than it needs to because of his independence. When we ask him to do something (like help clean up....) he says, "No, I can't. I super super tired." He likes the word super. A lot. "I super tired, I super cold, That's super scary." He doesn't like most food, but will usually try almost anything that a grown up is eating. He has a little stuffed bear that he call is "doll" and he is frequently looking for it. He misses the big kids when they are at school and so he follows me around and makes commentary on what I am doing. It's pretty cute. We love him and are glad he is ours!

Pictures of the House

Welcome to our house! I love driving by the house, and I do it frequently. I rarely get out and walk around, but today I decided to go in and take some pictures. I was so excited because no one was there working on the house so Mason and I got to explore without feeling like we were getting in the way. I must have come during a lunch break because there was a radio blaring in the basement. The house is all sheet rocked and primed, and there are piles of wood for the floors all around, but at least you can see some progress.

This is the entry way. My camera does not have a very wide lens, so it looks a little cramped, but it doesn't feel that way. The permanent stairs should be going in this week. Which is great because Abby refuses to go up the temporary stairs anymore because they scare her. She doesn't like going in the house because of her self imposed confinement to the first floor.
This is the view from the deck, which is right off the kitchen. It's beautiful. We have conservation land behind us so it will never be developed. It might not be developed, but it is inhabited by Bears and apparently Rattlesnakes. (Bears- true and verified by all the neighbors, Rattlesnakes, something Abby heard from a friend?)

This is the view looking from the family room into the kitchen. The sliding doors go out to the deck. The small area of dropped ceiling will be above our (massive) island.

The opposite view. Now you are looking into the family room from the kitchen. Mason is jumping for joy about our new house!!!
Since there really isn't much to see without floors etc.. I decided to include some of the more interesting rooms. This room above is Madison's room. It has two dormers, which give the room a lot of character. She has a closet and then a the other door is to the jack and jill bathroom she and Abby will share.

We are not finishing the basement yet, but as you can see we have these full length windows and two sliding glass doors. It's a great space and will be amazing when it is finished. The cement bricks are where the fireplace will go.

This is the back view of the house. You can see the sliding doors here. The backyard is mostly flat, with a hill coming down from the driveway area. Then at the back of the property there is a drop off (maybe 4 feet) to the conservation area. We wanted a flat yard so they had to do a lot of grading to get is as flat as possible. We are pretty happy with the results.

So that's it for now. It's been fun, but I am so anxious to get it finished. I'll get some more pictures when the floors go in and some of the trim work.

Welcome to Connecticut

I have had the following conversation many, many time over the last few weeks.

"So you just moved here?"

"Yes, we just moved here from California."

"How long have you been here?"

"Just a few weeks."

"Were you here for the storm?"

"Yeah, we arrived the Thursday before the snowstorm."

Then the person I am speaking to will either laugh, shake their heads, roll their eyes, gasp, sigh, but no matter what they ALWAYS say,

"Welome to Connecticut!"

Yikes!

It has been so, so crazy. But, I haven't felt the urge to beeline it to the airport and head back to D-Ville just yet. I'm just too excited.

I can't wait!!!!!!

A Special Gift

When Madison was a baby she was like a dream. She was so happy and smiley- and she drew people in with her sweet spirit. She has never been afraid of people. Actually quite the opposite could be said of her. She seeks out others, showers them with affection and wins over everyone she meets.

EXCEPT- when she is at home, and in a mood- which seems to be quite often. Abby might be hyper and impulsive, Chase can be stubborn and sensitvie, but Madi...oh Madi, she takes the cake when it comes to sassiness.

That's why I am so grateful for the experience I had with her at her school last week. The kids all had doctor's appointments in the morning so I was taking Madi to school late. We checked her in at the office, she was happily chatting with the office staff, talking about her flu shot and other activities of the morning. She was delightful, and it's always heart warming to see people react to her. As we made our way down to her classroom we passed by one of the other classrooms where the children were coming out of the room and walking to another building to use the bathroom.

Now, Madison is in a Special Day class (a self-contained special education class) for children with mild to moderate disabilities. Her school also has Special day classes for moderately to severely disabled children, as well as a county program for the more severely disabled children.

The classroom that we passed was one of the classes for children with moderate to severe disabilities. There were children in wheel chairs, children who couldn't speak, children who were making loud noises. I saw them coming out the their classroom and smiled at the teachers and continued walking to get Madi to her class.

Madison, however, just lit up when she saw these kids. She smiled her sweet smile and went directly to a girl in a wheel chair. She called her by name, put her hand on her shoulder and asked, "How are you doing today..." The girl did not respond, or even look up at Madi- her caregiver explained that the girl was tired today. That did not deter Madi, she just smiled and said, "Have a nice day, " and moved on to the next child.

I was so impressed that my little Madison, knew every. single. child. in that class. She knew their names and she clearly cared for them. My little Madison, with disabilities and challenges of her own, knows how to love. She is a valiant defender of the underdog and anyone who is sad or lonely. She has a natural gift to lift people's spirits and bring them happiness.

I am always impressed with Madison's ability to reach out to others. She seems to have no awareness of her own disabilities, which is a real blessing. But, even if she was aware, I'm not sure it would make any difference to her.

She is certainly giving us a run for our money at home with the talking back and attitude, but we are lucky to have such an incredible, sweet, sassy, firey, and loving little red head in our family.

We love you Madison Ann!

Funny Chase

I was laying in bed with Chase tonight talking about his day. He told me he had music at school with the music teacher, Mr. Gates. We sang some of the songs that he learned at school and then I started singing "Praise to the Man" (a hymn from church that the young children are learning this year). I was teasing Chase by asking him if he sang that song with Mr. Gates.

Chase: No, mom. Mr. Gates doesn't go to church. That's a church song.

Me: Well, Mr. Gates doesn't go to our church, but he still may go to his own church.

Chase was quiet for a minute.

Chase: Yeah, he goes to Teacher Church.

Ha ha ha. So cute.

Stage fright....what's that?

Our children have an enormous amount of confidence about their ability to perform. Whether it be dancing, singing or stand up comedy...they have no fear. And it's not because they are super talented. They just don't get embarrassed.

At least not YET.....

Some day, in the future, there will be a good time to pull these memories out, and then see how they react! Mason just pulled out the flip camera and I was looking at the videos on it over the last year. These are two that were taken at Aspen Grove (a BYU alumni family camp) I was dying watching Chase up on stage. He got a big thumbs up from the Teenage/Young Adult group at camp.

Yes, that's him. Blue baseball cap, red jacket.

What a character.

I didn't see Madison at the family dance on the last night of camp, but apparently she had a whole group of teenagers following her sweet dance moves. She wants to be a rock star when she grows up.

Enough said.