Elf of the Shelf

Looks like Murphy (our Elf on the Shelf) had a magical night last night!

Piano Recital 2011

The girls had a piano recital over a month ago but I didn't want to forget to document it.  I feel like we have all put in some blood, sweat and tears when it comes to piano.  I keep telling Hailey that she'll thank me someday for "forcing" her to do this.  She will, right?

Hailey

Paige

Hailey's two cute friends take from the same teacher.

The two cute friends of Paige's, happen to be sisters of the two cute girls above and they also take from the same teacher.  It was a little difficult to get a serious picture out of them so I just went with the silly ones.

Thanksgiving 2011

We spent Thanksgiving in Salt Lake again this year.  It happened to be my birthday on Thanksgiving and I didn't feel like cooking and cleaning for 8 hours for the 10 minutes of enjoying the meal so we went out.  I must say, it was nice not to have to worry about anything especially since I wasn't feeling very well.

On Wednesday Grandmommy and I took the kids to the new Utah Museum of Natural History which was amazing.  I forgot the camera so all the photos are from my phone.

The see through floor was cool!

We took a few walks.  The weather was beautiful.

We did a few crafts.  One of which was a Thanksgiving Tree.

We tried to get some family pictures before we went out to dinner.  Not many of them turned out very well.  None of us were really in the mood.

Grandpa making his big entrance.

Just a few photos of dinner at The Grand America - again, phone photos so not the best quality.

We also took some pictures in the beautiful Norwegian sweaters my mom knit for the kids last year. 

Here the kids are with Grandmommy and the sweater she knit herself as well.

House Progress

The Roof is going on!

House Progress

The view yesterday.....the second floor is going up! 

We went over a couple hours later and they had done so much more!

The view towards the southeast and Taylor Mountain (coincidentally).

The view from the front area (where our bathroom and closet will be) towards the back of the house where Crew's room and the guest room will be.

From the landing area looking towards the bonus room over the garage.

I just happened to be up in our bedroom on Monday when I looked over and saw the workers trying to get the first wall up.   It was so windy that day, I don't know how they did it but they did! I was really excited.  It's hard to see in my little iPhone video but if you watch closely you can see it go up.

House Progress

This home building process is stressful.  I'm not very good at compartmentalizing things and I'm having a hard time not worrying about the hundreds of decisions we are going to have to make in the next 6 months.  I'm not complaining, I feel so lucky that we are able to build a home right now.  So, I keep telling myself it's a good stress, if there is such a thing.

We were so excited to see the framing process start!

This will be the east side of the house where the office will be.

Again, the east side.  Those big openings are for the windows and one door along the east wall.

The recessed area will be the sunken living room.

Stairs to the basement.

Basement

This was the view today!  It's gone really fast.  They're trying to get the second floor on before the bad weather sets in.

This is the view from where the stairs are, looking into the living room area.

This is in the kitchen looking out the front of the house - I have four 3' x 5' windows in a row because I love to be able to see out in front of my house.  That's probably my biggest complaint about my house now is that I feel so closed in because the only window facing the front is the small one in our office.

This is looking west, toward the dining room and stairs.

And of course, a site visit wouldn't be complete without a climb up the dirt hill.

This picture is totally unrelated, I just thought it was funny.  He just had a cupcake that he has been waiting to eat.  It was called "party in my mouth" and he's been singing a little song about it since we went to the cupcake store.  I made him wait to eat it until after lunch.

It really does look like he had quite a party in his mouth!