New House: Moved in! (Kinda)

We have been moved in to the new home since December 11th and have loved every minute of it! It's a little strange to sit in the middle of a space that I saw as a construction site for so long. It has now been converted to a house, which we are still in the process of trying to make a home. We hit a bit of a wall with unpacking recently and seem to be okay living among boxes that we just don't know what to do with! I think it's a sign that it's time to purge some of it but we just aren't ready. Back to getting busy this week while Beau is home! In the meantime, here are some parts that are coming together. Please note that I made the mistake of taking pictures in the evening so the light from our fixtures assaults your eyes. My apologies. :)

Beau so kindly hung our new light fixtures that I'm positively in love with.  I fell in love with in the Stan Pac model home where we had a contract for 48 hours. It was a Level 12 upgrade with them. I got in online for a fraction of what they wanted. And I mean that!

The other side. Still a long way to go with getting things unpacked and figuring out where it all goes.

This baby gate was a beautiful thing around the tree. Not one kid touched it once! 

That dining fixture and these 2 entry lights were among the first things we did and they make me so happy.  I actually had these sitting at my parents' house for months waiting to move in! The builder refuses to install anything form the client. Boo.

Sorry for all the light. While they do light the house nicely, this is overkill.

Behind getting beds installed and fresh sheets on, getting Christmas up was a top priority. A sweet
friend made that canvas for me after I attended a craft night at her house and we all ran out of time. She surprised me with it! :) 

Sorry again for light. The breakfast area has a cute little bench in it that I have NO IDEA what to do with. Threw a few pillows up so it wasn't completely bare and I'll revisit with Andrea when "decorate bay windows" is closer to the top of the list. :)

OH. MY. In all my days, I have not been so happy about "things" like I am about these bar stools. They were for sure my splurge since I ordered them without knowing the space and had Restoration Hardware hold them for 2 months until the house was ready. I even had their delivery guys show up at the same time as our movers (who weren't happy about that). I HAD to have them as soon as possible. That's all I'm going to say about them. :)

I swear the underlighting is great and not obnoxious!

We don't have the living room figured out yet. This space is surprisingly a lot like our last house, where we were stuck with furniture positioning as well. We're getting a round ottoman, an area rug and nesting tables that should help pull it all together. (Fingers crossed!)

Beau surprised us with having lights put on the house this year! We arrived home to this! It was the icing on the perfect cake and a Christmas to remember!

Family Pictures & Soccer Season Wrap-up

We had a good friend of mine shoot our family pics back in October. Shannon D. is in my MOPS group and does these shoots as a fundraiser for our chapter. So how cool is that - we have wonderful family photos and a portion of our cost was donated to my MOPS group! 

Walker at 9 months

Grayson at 3 years 4months

Shannon's monkey sounds are about the only thing that can capture 4 smiles at once!

As luck would have it, Grayson also had his soccer team pictures (and last game) taken that day. 3 year olds hardly like one photo session, but two?! :) Regardless, he did great at both! 

This year of soccer was such a fun, frustrating, rewarding new journey for us! Coach Casey took a bunch of 3 year olds who had NO IDEA what was going on and assembled a team who, by the very last game, was running in the same direction, toward the correct goal, shooting goals and even playing some okay defense! Boy, did we not see any of that happening at the first game! :) We look forward to next year as Grayson has been saying that he wants to play again. Woo hoo!

Merry Christmas: 3 Men and a Lady version!

I have tons to write about but still no charger! And I dislike typing too much on the iPad. More to come on the big move (we're in!), the excitement of Christmas with a 3 y.o. and Walker's 1st one. But in the meantime, here is our 2013 family card and Santa pictures!

Haha, Walker went from crying to snacking on Grayson's sucker when he wasn't looking in 2 seconds flat! ;)

ICEmaggedon 2013

Here is the post on this crazy ice storm! Earlier this week, my favorite local weather guy started getting really giddy about the unavoidable ice storm we were certain to get and that the DFW area would be "entombed in ice." He was not kidding! This storm has been everything they promised with 1-4 inches of ice covering every surface of the metroplex. Many trees have lost limbs b/c they can't stand the weight of the ice, EVERY school district, church, city building has been closed and Christmas events canceled. Usually you'll get spots of cities who have delayed starts and don't cancel anything but not this time. The entire city has been shut down since Friday and because our temps haven't gotten above freezing, things will melt slightly during the day and then re-freeze at night making things more dangerous than the day before and putting cities in difficult situations not being able to keep up with the sanding/de-icing demands. Almost 200,000 homes have been without power - I can't even imagine! Oh, and we have learned about things like "freezing fog", "angel ice" and "thunder sleet." Amazing, really. 

I'm going to focus mostly on how fun this has been for us and what we've been up to but my heart is very heavy this morning with the images of hundreds of stranded 18-wheelers, some who have been there for days and one who called into the news b/c he is desperate. He has his 2 year old son with him, is running out of supplies and can't get a response from police or emergency systems. They just can't get to him when 35 is a parking lot of big rigs. We all joke about being stir crazy in our warm, roomy homes with young kids but I can't imagine being out of food and diapers and possibly gas and trying to keep a toddler happy in the tiny cab of a truck. Prayers go out to everyone!

So now that I've covered the severity of it all, I'll tell you what's going on in this house. Since we've known since about Wednesday, we knew we probably wouldn't close on our house and had time to go to the store and stock up with groceries for my parents' house! I also got some Christmas crafts from the Target $1 shelf! They have AWESOME crafts for a 3 y.o. and I don't care what happens to them since they're so cheap :)

Heavy sleet fell all night Thursday - the creation of inches of ice on the ground. It was loud
and kept us up through the night. Grayson was fascinated. :)

We awoke to this! This crape myrtle used to stand straight and tall. While it's beautiful, I'm not sure what it will look like after
days of weighted ice!

We've been keeping busy with crafts, playing soldiers, building things, iPad time and relaxing. Also….

Mere seconds in the ice ;)

bath time. It works!

Mimi made us hot cocoa from scratch.

Lots of cooking. This was turkey chili... 

Plenty of dressing up as Batman. And then taking off the costume. And then putting it back on. Repeat...

TV watching in PJs. Just happy that the cable stayed on!

Wrestling and horse play. Hey, they slept like babies. No complaints here!

A lot of baby brother getting in the way of Grayson's new duck hunt game. (Mimi and Pop brought out a Christmas present we were so desperate!)

Lots of play time with Pop.

And baking snickerdoodles with Mimi.

We have been out of the house twice. Once to see the new house and Friday night for Annie's 32nd birthday. Both times were pretty scary but manageable since we stayed on some well-traveled roads. We saw may broken trees, cars that had slid into each other or things and a lot of dumb drivers. I am so,  so lucky to be married to a man who just seems to be so GOOD in these situations. He stays calm and knows how to manage his 4-wheel drive! I didn't stress a bit with him at the wheel!

Our pretty church lit up in the distance.

The car is indeed entombed in ice! 

My parents' neighbor. Trees were completely snapped in half.

You'd never know there was an ICEpocolypse outside!

Enough with the noise! Cabin fever felt by all!

Praying for relief tonight and tomorrow although it doesn't look like it's warming up/melting any time soon!

Final House Pics and Update

My last post mentioned that we were supposed to close this past week but that an ice storm would potentially delay us. We indeed have had a fierce ice storm hit the DFW area! I'll write more on ICEmageddon 2013 (just one of the terms commonly used) but here, we talk all things house. Friday, Saturday and today, we have faced inches of solid ice all over so the whole city has shut down, including the title company, our lender, the builder's subs (we still have some outstanding items - boo!), and our moving company. So no way, no how were we closing/moving this past Friday/Saturday as planned. In fact, we are still iced over and it keeps re-freezing possibly jeopardizing our new close date tomorrow (Monday) and our move date of Tuesday. Who knows when we'll get moved!

Beau and I made it out yesterday and carefully got over to the house (the streets are crazy!) to see if the gas meter had been installed (another delay but from the builder's side). The gas meter is there but it still didn't pass city inspection. We are so over the delays from the builder. I can deal with unavoidable weather but their mindless errors are killing us. We could have closed this past week if it wasn't for their gas meter oversight. 

The housekeeper had also been there and the house is 98% ready for move-in! I snapped a few final pics but also realized the pics from my last post were pretty final too :) Here are the last few….

Shutters were added (but still need to be stained)! I'm worried about the fresh landscaping surviving this 3+ day hard freeze.  :/ I think the
house looks so pretty in the snow (ice)!

Mantle was repaired, floors cleaned and I can't wait to move in our furniture!

Blinds were installed throughout!

Under cabinet lighting was completed!

The paneling under the tub has been installed and stained. It's one of the last things they
did due to plumbing inspection/repairs if needed.

All light bulbs were put in - plenty were missing until the very end.

All closet rods have been stained and hung and shower curtain rods are in. I don't know why that is such a huge relief to me! I couldn't understand why everything seemed to only get 50% done. Why not install ALL rods at the same time? ALL light bulbs? ALL baseboards? ALL sheetrock repair? These are all things that they don't even want the home owner to see b/c it frustrates us but the builder knows it will all get done! (sigh)

I am praying they took appropriate measures to keep pipes from bursting and whatever else happens in hard freezes. I've heard everything from keeping your attic door open, turning the gas meter off and leaving kitchen cabinet doors open. We Texans don't know anything about anything regarding this stuff so just hoping the builder did all the right things! More to come on how we've handled the freeze. Going on Day 3 of being homebound………. :)

House Update: Almost finished!

I haven't posted in a while. For a few reasons. One, we've been busy with Thanksgiving and family in town! Two, I'm so frustrated with this terrible custom service we're receiving and Three, my macbook charger broke and I only blog from that computer. So there you have it.

The past few weeks have been met with lots of delays, many challenges, expenses and plenty of back and forth with completion dates, lack of communication, errors, etc. I don't want to focus on that but instead, let's see progress! We are supposed to close this Friday but of course the ice storm of the century is blowing in (OF COURSE!), so we are expected to be delayed yet again. The house is looking pretty finished though so we are very excited!

Appliances are in! The repaired kitchen is painted (again). Still left: Under cabinet lighting & touch-up paint

Since this photo was taken, floors were glazed/sealed. They look so pretty! Not that they will ever be
that shiny again with boys and a dog. ;)

I took this photo before stain a long time ago so I thought I'd shoot it again. Carpet and light fixtures are in!

Another view of the upstairs.

All hardware, including lights and door handles, are in! Electricity is on now too.
Heat/AC/Gas are all running.

This is one of the bedrooms I haven't shown yet. This will be the guest bedroom upstairs. 

We have had the replacement light fixtures sitting here at my parents' house just waiting to be hung! It's against the builder's policy to install the owner's fixtures so Beau will need to get up there once we move in. You can bet he's excited about that!

Same direction as the pic above but looking down with carpet installed.

Media room wall sconces and wet bar are in. Still needing countertop, sink and glass fronts on cabinets. Believe me when I say this whole thing will come down to the minute of close on Friday. There is a hole there for a fridge but we are buying that separately.

My most exciting update: Grass, trees and landscaping are IN! Oh, and walkway/driveway were paved a couple of weeks ago. They did make good on their promise to extend the driveway a foot and half on either side. That gives us plenty of room for Beau's truck to park and to step down on concrete instead of grass. 

Fence is up! We are big time 8ft board on board people but opted for the standard 6ft. and were very nervous about it! But I think it works for the space, goes well with the wrought iron and when it's time, Beau will build the 8ft one like he did at the old house. And for a lot cheaper than a builder quotes! Sheesh.

Backyard looking to the right.

Now can we just close already so that I can decorate for Christmas?! My heart aches to have a Christmas-filled home with my little family! That said, hoping everyone stays safe and warm during this looming ice storm!