We have windows

We have windows, and some more walls.  The fixed and open windows might be in the wrong place, but they are in 😲! The house is coming along, fast.  The basement has been poured and framed walls are up. The fire place is in and now plumbing rough in's are happening.  We mark all the electrical stuff on Friday and pick out more things for the house on Thursday.  We picked out our stone for the outside, plumbing, and cabinet style along with if we want drawers or roll outs in certain spots. We are stressed to the max with things moving so fast!  We put our house on a silent list so we have spent a ton of time getting the house ready. Lots of cleaning and organizing.  Our house looks brand new again.  We go live on the MLS next week most likely, so wish us luck for a speedy sale!
Here are some pictures of house progress.

a view from the back

we have stairs!  we can make it in the basement now!

the fire place is roughed in

the basement has walls.  this is the main family room. the far windows are where the couch will go and the tv on the opposite wall. the middle set is where the hockey and foosball table will go.

this is a view of where the buffet bar will go with our fridge. next to that is the doorway to camden's room and all the way to the right is the doorway to the storage room

This is the view from family room with the stairs (out of the picture) to the left. the opening to under the stairs closet and then the doorway to carters bedroom.  but we are going to push that doorway back.  It got moved in the plans and we didn't know it.

carter standing in his walk in closet in the bedroom

camden standing in his room

callan posing in his room upstairs

us in our master bedroom

shenanigans 

climbing on everything is their favorite part

the front door and side lights are in.  (the door is not painted)

the view from the living room. the pvc is where the island and sink will go

the front of our house

Camden's Birthday Party

This year for Camden's birthday he really wanted to have a friend party.  He wanted to have a party close to his birthday so we obliged. We were able to rent out the pool where the boys take lessons for a decent price so we asked Cam if that sounded like fun.  He thought it was a great idea.  He wanted to have a pokemon themed party so I set out to make the invited and secured the pokemon dessert for the party.  We had his party the Sunday after his birthday.  He invited the boys from his class and a few other friends plus some family.  It was a nice little get together and the kids wore themselves out! I think Camden had a great time and enjoyed his birthday being celebrated alone.  :)
The kids and some adults played in the pool for about an hour and a half and then we enjoyed Eileens cookies. Some family came back to our house after the party to watch Camden open his gifts and eat pizza.  It was a fun day and we enjoyed celebrating our new 8 year old.

pool party fun with friends!

It was hard to stop the kids long enough to get some posed pictures

they enjoyed jumping in and trying to get the flags

The whole gang

They did an impromptu jump in 

ready for pokeball cookies

The kids were worn out and ate a lot of cookies! I think the burned off a ton of calories!

Happy Birthday Camden! We hope you had a wonderful party!

Camden Turns 8

Camden Parker is 8

My pokemon loving middle child turned 8 yesterday! He was really excited to celebrate his birthday in January this year. (we always made the day special with cake and a few presents, but celebrated with family in the summer)  So we spent the day spoiling him and he will  have his party next weekend. He requested powdered lemon paczki for breakfast.  Due to the impending ice storm the store didn't have them done so we got him glazed ones.  He had that a chocolate milk to start his day.  He then got to open up some presents and we headed off to church.  After church all the boys went over to my parents house for lunch and cupcakes.  All the cousins did a few more stamp pages with disney, olympic and animal stamps.  They came home in the afternoon and we just had a lazy day waiting for the storm to hit.  I made a tie dye cake and spagetti for dinner per his request.  We ended the night by watching the end of the Dallas/Green Bay game and then watched "The secrect life of pets".  All in all I think he had a pretty good birthday. He is looking forward to celebrating with his friends next weekend.

eating breakfast with the birthday boy

opening his presents

loving his new little pokemon figurines

stamp collecting with grandpa

working on his disney stamps

the whole group

lunch time

cousin shenanigans 

cupcake time!

I bet this picture was hard to get

eating his spaghetti dinner that he chose

ready to cut into the tie dye cake

blowing out 8 candles

it turned out pretty cool

it looked pretty close to what the box said it should

dessert time

watching the secret life of pets (and the end of the football game)

House Update

they painted the wrong address on our home - doh!

We had a little lull in our house progress due to all the holidays and cold cold weather.  But this week they started moving again and it is going up fast!  They finished up the walls and some footings in the basement and then moved on to framing!  They had the basement framed for a little while and blocked it all off with heaters in the basement to allow for cement curing? (I think)  This week they started the main floor framing and it went up really fast.  We headed over there this evening to take some pictures and do some measuring to make sure everything is the right size.  So far so good.  We have picked out plumbing, siding, and door style so far.  We are working on flooring this week and will hopefully have that picked out soon.

basement walls poured - this is the half egress window in one of the bedrooms

working on the footings in the basement

driveway (not poured)

basement framed walls (everything is boarded up so they can keep the basement warm)

chad checking under the cover

the back of the house with the windows boarded up

January 5th boards are delivered!

They started framing the upstairs

callan standing in front of the 2 stall garage

back of the house. daylight windows in the basement not boarded

one of the framed walls in the basement

standing in the master bedroom looking out to the kitchen

standing in the kitchen-the stairs will go in the black empty space-living room and entry way.

looking into Callan's room upstairs

main door-den window- and part of the garage

half egress window in the basement

another look at the back of the house

a dark picture I took from the egress into the basement

east side of the house.  the window goes into the master bathroom