Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. For one, I finally feel settled in life. Every day, I breathe a little sigh of relief to be past certain stages of life. Some examples:

1. Being single and dating. (Ugh. Enough said.)
2. Going through college with kids. (There's a reason why people usually go to college BEFORE they get married.)
3. Moving from state to state and rental to rental. (Let's just say I hope I NEVER see another moving box.)
4. Being pregnant and then being up all night with newborn babies. (I'm pretty sure we are done with that phase...crossing fingers.) 
5. Wondering where we will "end up". (I hate uncertainty.)

Not that I don't appreciate those times in my life for what they have taught me and where they have taken me. As the saying goes, I wouldn't be where I am today without those experiences. But I have to admit that it feels good to finally be starting a new phase of life, one that feels a little more stable (if such a thing exists). I guess there's always the chance things could change again, but for right now, I feel settled. For someone like me, that's very important. I am not an adventure seeker, or a world traveler. I like being at home, with my family, and having a stable routine. And now that we are here in South Carolina, with a great job, a new home, and three growing kids, life feels pretty darn good.

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving festivities:

 

I can't wait for this movie...

Halloween

I am a Halloween Scrooge (if there is such a thing). Halloween is my LEAST favorite holiday of the year, and that might be an understatement. Why, you might ask?

First reason: the costumes. The kids always demand some near-impossible-to-create costume that would involve spending lots of $$$ on supplies and then hours at my sewing machine. I usually veto this and convince them to choose from something we already have laying around the house. My dislike of costumes might also be because I have always had an aversion to dressing up as something I am not. I never liked it even as a child. So, to do the kids hair and make-up and dress them up in complicated costumes all for one night is beyond my understanding or capability.

Second reason: the pumpkins. I always end up carving them (quite possibly because I am a perfectionist control freak). I do let the kids draw/choose their designs, then I scoop the goop and cut them out. This year, Ethan said he wanted to help. He took a turn scooping the guts out of the pumpkin. After a minute of saying "Ewwww!" as the goop squished through his fingers, he got a sickly look on his face and said, "I need to go wash my hands!" I told him not to bother, because he wasn't done scooping yet. But I could tell he was quite disturbed by the process. I jokingly asked him if he was going to throw up. He said, "I think so!" and ran to the bathroom. Luckily, he didn't puke, but he sure looked like he was going to! Ethan is my little germaphobe. He uses hand sanitizer at least 20 times a day, so I wasn't surprised by his reaction.

Third reason I hate Halloween: the decorations. Luckily, our neighborhood is full of mostly older retired couples, so there is no pressure to make our front yard look like a scene from a horror movie. There are only seven kids in the entire neighborhood, three of which are ours. We do plan on trick-or-treating at our neighbors houses . We're not sure who will be handing out candy, but my kids don't really need any more candy. They already got a ton on Wednesday night at our church's trunk-or-treat party.

That brings me to my final reason: the candy! It's not good for the kids or ME for that stuff to be lying around the house, tempting me. My will power can only last so long...

So, BAH HUMBUG to Halloween!

Ok, venting over. In reality, it hasn't been so bad this year. I tried to set aside my prejudice for the sake of the kids. I reminded myself of my own Halloween memories: the excitement of running door to door in the dark with my older brothers, carrying a pillowcase that would steadily grow heavier throughout the night. We would bring home our loot and dump it out in the middle of the living room and sort everything from chocolatey favorites down to "I can't believe they gave me gum...". And there was always that one house that would give out full size candy bars, and we thought they must be rich. And even though I didn't like wearing the costumes much, there was a certain charm to seeing all the neighborhood kids running around dressed like ghosts and witches, and the normally bland front yards transformed into spooky graveyards. So....maybe Halloween isn't all that bad after all.

BOO!

Happenings

September is a busy month in the Sharp house. Here's some of the recent happenings:

My birthday!
I always love when my birthday, September 5th, falls on Labor Day. I get to have my whole family home with me. I was born on Labor Day in 1977, which gave that day a whole new meaning to my mom! Well, this year, my birthday started off by sleeping in, which is amazing in and of itself. Then we had breakfast, or, lunch (it was 11:30). Ethan made waffles (with a little help from daddy). They were delicious topped with homemade maple syrup and peaches. Yum! Then, because I knew no one else would do it, I cleaned. It really is a compulsion sometimes. Birthday or not, I like to have a clean house. After scrubbing the kitchen and the boys' bathroom (a frightful experience at times), I realized I should just relax and enjoy doing nothing. Dustin graciously took all three kids with him on a shopping trip to Walmart. I knew they could spend hours there, so I had a quiet house all to myself! I just chilled on the couch and watched Hulu.com. That night, Dustin and Ethan made me a two layer brownie cake with dark chocolate peanut M&M's inside. Talk about chocolate overload. It was a great day!


Our 10th Anniversary!
Ten years ago, on September 8th, Dustin and I were married in the Baton Rouge Louisiana LDS Temple! I really can't believe it's been that long. Earlier in the year, I asked Dustin if we could do something really big for our anniversary, like go on a short trip without the kids. Then he said, "We are doing something big...we're building a house." Oh yeah... So this year, in lieu of a big expensive trip, we hung out with the kids on our anniversary. Dustin and I have given up trying to get out by ourselves (at least for the time being). I took the kids to the park after school. Dustin met us there when he got off of work. The park has a great playground and a free mini golf course. So we just enjoyed letting the kids play and swing, then played a little round of golf. Then we went out to dinner at our favorite pizza place. It was really just a relaxed night with the family. It was a great way to celebrate ten years of marriage...with each other and our three kiddos!


Ethan's Birthday!
On September 15th, Ethan turned 8! Grandma and Grandpa Sharp drove to our house from Baton Rouge the day before his birthday. And his birthday also happened to be Grandparent's Day at the boys' school. What good timing! So Margaret and Jerry went to school to eat lunch with Ethan, and then with Owen. That night, Ethan chose to eat dinner at Olive Garden, one of his favorite restaurants. It was delicious! We ordered the celebration cake and everyone sang to him.


Ethan's Baptism!


September 17th was cause for another celebration. Ethan became an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was baptized by his dad on Saturday morning. We had a short program: I played the piano, Jerry gave the talk on baptism, and Margaret gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. Ethan and Owen sang "I Am a Child of God" together in front of everyone! They did so great. Our neighbors, and several members of the ward came to support Ethan. Afterward, we had fruit, veggies, cookies and brownies. It was such a wonderful morning. I am so proud of Ethan for making good decisions in his life. I can already see how strong his testimony is growing. During church the next day, he told his primary teacher that he didn't have any sins yet! :)

Ethan with his brand new scriptures!

Saturday night, we had his real birthday cake with our family and a couple of our neighbors. It was a lot of fun having everyone over, eating cake and ice cream and then watching the kids play with the boys' new toys.

I have to say, the last couple of weeks were busy and stressful at times, but so much fun! I love being with family, especially those we don't get to see very often. I wish more than anything to be able to see the rest of my family sometime soon! Keep in touch everyone! I miss you!

Rainy Day

Some pics of the kids from two weeks ago.

1st Day

Our day began at 6:30 this morning. That's early for us, especially after going to bed late and sleeping in all summer. But there was definitely excitement in the air as I tip-toed into the boys' room to wake them up. Owen was insistent last night that I come and wake him up. So I gently nudged him a few times until he blearily blinked at me. He wasn't sure he wanted to wake up at first until he realized what day it was, then a big smile crept onto his face and he gave me a big hug. It was very sweet. Ethan had a similar reaction. They were both so excited to start school today. This is Owen's very first year in Kindergarten and Ethan is starting 2nd grade.


I feel like I am entering a new phase in my life, with multiple children in school all day. It's very strange, and quiet, with just Alivia and me at home. But Alivia and I have big plans this year. We started off the morning with a long walk around the neighborhood. She was in the stroller, content with her water bottle and supply of fruit snacks and cheerios. I was excited that it was just the two of us, because normally if Owen is with us, I have to wait for him to catch up every few minutes. So I planned to take a nice quick pace so I can get some real exercise. But as soon as we left the driveway, I heard meowing behind me. Our cat, Bubba, was following us. I figured he would give up after a minute, but he kept on coming, meowing the whole way. He was worried we were leaving him behind! So I stopped and waited for him to catch up. I slowed down my pace and he walked along with us for quite a while. He wasn't too thrilled to meet the neighbor's dog, or the goose and duck that live at the pond. I wish I would have had my camera! Well, we got about a 1/4 of a mile from our house and Bubba stopped. He wouldn't move another inch. Cats aren't that great at taking walks, I've discovered. And, he's 12 years old. He hasn't had that much exercise in years! I didn't want to leave him there in the middle of the street so far from the house. So I turned around and he followed us all the way back home. I was still determined to get a good walk in, so we left again and picked up the pace so Bubba wouldn't follow along.

After our walk, I started a Barney & Friends DVD for Alivia so I could write this blog post. I don't know how she got so worn out from sitting in the stroller, but here's what she looked like during her movie:



By the time her movie was done, I almost had this blog post finished. But little miss Alivia came over to the computer and "accidentally" turned it off. Luckily, the draft was saved on Blogger! But instead of turning the computer back on, we left to run lots and lots of errands that I had been putting off due to the fact that I usually have to drag three kids around with me. Ah, the joys of traveling with only one child in tow! It was so nice. I might just have to go shopping more often now...

So here's to a great school year to my boys! And a great year for Alivia and mommy girl time! Woohoo!

Some Finishing Touches

We're down to the final stretch! In about two weeks from today we should be receiving our keys! That's if everything goes exactly as planned...which never usually happens. The goal is to move in the last week of June, but we'll just expect that it will probably be the first week of July.

A lot of progress has been made, mostly cosmetic. The siding is FINALLY finished. There was some sort of delay getting another box of triple 3" vinyl siding to finish the left side of the house. You remember...the side that they kept borrowing from to finish the rest of the house.



And notice the a/c compressors in the above photo. There is some question as to whether these are actually the correct units. You may remember from a previous post the whole air handler mix-up. As far as I know, everything HVAC related was "fixed". There should be two 2.5 ton units inside the house: one in the crawl space, and one in the attic. It would seem to me that the a/c compressors would need to be the same size as well. Which as you can see, they are not. ??? Our superintendent is trying to get a hold of the HVAC crew to find out, once again, what happened.

Other progress includes:

All interior doors painted and hung

Newel posts installed for stair railings

Granite counter tops and bathroom counters installed

Faucets, shower heads and plumbing hooked up

Toilets & bathroom floors installed

Water heater in crawl space

Lighting fixtures hung & electricity turned on!

Dustin terminated all of his network cables and outlets and installed plates

Garage floor poured

Brick column bases for front porch

Back door re-installed...

Speaking of the back door, they originally ordered the wrong door. It swung to the outside of the house instead of in towards the wall. But they hung it anyway so the house would pass the framing inspection. Well, the siding guys finished the trim around the back door before it was replaced. We thought it would be an easy switch, but it turns out the new door and frame was slightly skinnier and taller than the other door. How do these things happen? The finish carpenter had to rip down the hardie board trim above the door (breaking it in the process) and shim the sides to get the new door frame to fit. So now we are missing a trim piece AND there are gaps on both side of the door. The siding guys are supposed to come fix it any day now.

Next on the schedule:

Finishing the front porch, including the craftsman tapered columns that I have been dying to see!
Stair railings and miscellaneous interior trim
Carpet in all the bedrooms and vinyl flooring in kitchen
Mirrors and closet shelves
Pour driveway and sidewalks
Final grade and smoothing out the dirt around the house
Some Appliances in kitchen:

Whirlpool Vented Range Hood

Whirlpool Gas Range & Double Oven

Dustin's parents are planning another trip to come and help us with some of our final projects. This weekend we are going to start building the built-in bookshelves and fireplace mantle in the living room. We will also try to get the art room painted and install the baseboards and window trim. Luckily, we get to use all of the excess molding and 1x4 trim from the rest of the house. That stuff can get pretty expensive, so we are grateful to have the left overs for our art room!

Then the weekend of the 24th will be spent installing our wood floor downstairs. That will be the final project before we can actually move anything in to the house. Of course there are plenty of other projects planned, but none that need to finished immediately. I have a feeling this house is going to be a work in progress for a long time. But I will love every minute of it!

Funny Horse

Every time we drive down to the house, we pass by this pasture. And on several occasions, we have seen this horse chewing on her fence posts. The first time we saw her, we all thought it was the funniest thing. The horse stands with her back legs outstretched and her head forward. And she opens her mouth as wide as she can to get a good mouthful of wood. We're not sure what she is up to. Either she is trying to stage a prison break, or she's part beaver. Whatever the case, the kids and I look forward to seeing her every time we drive past. I finally pulled the car over last week to snap some pictures. When I got out of the car, the horse stopped chewing and just stared at me for the longest time. Then she went back to her business, just chomping away.

Day 67: Color! And other stuff...

Dustin had an unfortunate incident with his car last week. He left work on his lunch break to meet us at the house. There's a really rough railroad crossing between his work and our new house. He came up on the crossing a bit too fast. The car ramped up then came down and bottomed out on the tracks. He knew immediately that he had cracked the oil pan. That's the second time this has happened to our Jetta, the first being 10 years ago when we went to a concert in New Orleans and cracked it on a manhole cover that was sticking up. By the time he pulled into the gravel driveway at the house, his car was leaking oil all over the place. We knew then that he probably wasn't going to make it back to work. And we needed to figure out a way to get his car home. So we went to the local hardware store and picked up a towing strap. Dustin hooked it up between my car and his. I was in the Audi with the kids, and he stayed in the Jetta to steer and brake. I pulled him all the way home, which took about two hours, since I couldn't go much faster than 40 miles/hour. I've never towed a car before. It was pretty interesting, and nerve racking! Luckily, he was able to order a new oil pan and install it yesterday, since he was home from work for Memorial Day.

So anyway, he was catching a ride to work for a few days with a co-worker that lives pretty close to here. The kids and I decided that we would pick him up Friday so that we could go see the progress on the house. We were hoping that the siding was finished. Well, when we pulled up, the siding wasn't done, which was disappointing. But Chris, our superintendent was there. He said that the siding guys were waiting on more materials that wouldn't be in until this Friday. Bummer! In fact, we discovered that one whole side of the house that had been completely finished now looks like this:

This portion of siding was removed and used on some of the higher up places. They ran out of material but didn't want to have to set up their scaffolding when they come back to finish (or so we assume).
But, I quickly forgot about the siding when I walked in to see paint on the walls and ceiling! We finally got to see the green and the blue that I had only seen on paint chips before. This was just the first coat, so we're still waiting to see the final transformation. And, I'm dying to see the red color that I picked out for the music room. They primed it with the dark blue, but will put the coat of red on very last.


After checking out the colors, I remembered to ask Chris about our missing recessed light in the kitchen. Last week after the sheetrock was installed, I noticed that instead of three recessed lights between the island and stove, there were only two. I specifically remember seeing the electricians install three. And, it shows three on the plans. But Dustin and his dad both could not remember, and in all of my hundreds of pictures, I could not find one picture that showed the location of that light. So maybe I was going crazy? Luckily, I am not crazy. Chris also remembered the light being there. The guys that hung the sheetrock were the ones painting that day. So Chris told them that they had accidentally covered up a light. They immediately got a ladder and a hammer and started busting some holes in the newly painted ceiling! Unfortunately, we couldn't remember exactly which ceiling joist the light was mounted to, so it took three holes before he found it. He cut out the hole for the light and then cut the extra holes into a nicely shaped rectangle so he could patch it up. I know they will make it look like those holes were never there. And, we have our third light back!


After that issue was solved I was able to check out the fabulous trim that was now installed around every door and window. The carpenter constructed the interior transoms and cased openings, and installed all of the interior door jambs that came with our new interior doors. With the transoms done, I now have my work cut out for me. I plan on filling our three interior transoms with stained glass. In fact, they will just be empty until I get busy cutting some glass! Just another reason why it is so important to finish the art room so quickly...so I can get started on all of these projects! I think I am also going to make stained glass panels to mount over the front door transom and stairwell window. We'll see how the first three go...



Interior doors. Supposedly, many of these are badly warped and need to get replaced before they can be installed.

Other new additions last week are all the cabinets, and the front porch structure.

Days 61-64: Siding

So far I have been thrilled with all the colors and finishes we have chosen. I was nervous at first, because it was really hard making such large scale decisions from such little itty bitty samples. But seeing the siding go up really helped affirm our choices. On May 20th they started with the straight siding on the back of the house. The color is called Tuscan Clay, which is the darkest color available for this particular product. I really wanted something a bit darker, but I'll take what I can get. And instead of the standard 4-5 inch dutch lap siding, we chose a triple 3 inch clapboard siding. This is truer historically, when they used skinnier strips of ceder clapboard as siding. You see it a lot on older homes from the early 20th century.

When I arrived with my camera on the second day of installation (May 21st), they had pretty much finished the back side of the house and had started on the sides. Dustin and Jerry were busy working with the crew to hang the brackets as well.




Also going on that day was the connecting of the water and sewer lines from the house to the street. They dug two big trenches, laid the pipe, and then back-filled it a couple days later. The owner of the backhoe service's last name was Owens. So I pointed to the guy's truck and said, "Look Owen! It's Owens Backhoe Service!" Owen got really excited and said, "I didn't know I had my own backhoe service!"


I mentioned in the previous post that we met with the siding guys a couple days before they started. The whole purpose was to work out some of the more unusual design challenges our house posed. As part of the design, I wanted extra large roof overhangs of 24 inches. And I did not want a flat soffit mounted under the eaves where the roof slope continues past the edge of the house. I wanted the soffit to follow the angle of the roof pitch. So they discussed with us how this would be done and cleared up some questions regarding the transitions between the perpendicular gables. When I designed this house, I had no idea how complicated this would all get! But I knew how I wanted it to look, so I tried to make sure the guys knew exactly what we wanted.

Example of gable transition.
Example of angled soffit.
The only compromise I had to make was on the back of the house. They could not do an angled soffit there because that bit of roof between the first and second floor is just a faux roof, to make it appear as thought the main gable of the house continues all the way across the back of the house. It is not tied in structurally, so it had 2x4 supports connecting it to the house.

Roof structure at the back of the house.

Flat soffit installed.
Another design detail that was important to me was the extra large 1x4 and 1x6 trim around the windows and doors. The 4 inch trim is for the sides and bottom of the windows, and the 6 inch trim goes across the top of the window with a 2 inch overhang on each side. The affect would be like post and lintel construction. Also, we wanted a 1x12 trim strip between the first and second floors to break up the monotony of the siding. This 12 inch band of trim was to run across the front porch and wrap around each gabled side, including the garage gable. Originally, I had that band lined up with the beam over the front porch. From there it would just rest on the top pieces of the window trim. So when they asked us where we wanted the 12 inch trim, I told them just to line it up with the bottom of the porch beam and continue it at that level all the way around. Little did I know that the size of that beam was substantially bigger than the original plan. The bottom of the beam was about 3.5 inches lower than the top of the window trim. Needless to say, I was shocked to show up a couple of days later and see this:

Cut off window trim.


I know it probably doesn't look that bad to the average onlooker, but I was NOT happy with it. It's not how I designed it and it's not how it was on the drawings. But I was really mad at myself for not checking the level of that porch beam with the rest of the house. I would have been able to tell immediately that it was going to interfere with the top of the window trim. So, after that discovery was made, we told the siding guys to not put up any of the 1x12 on the front of the house until we figured things out. Honestly, I held little hope of them changing it. I knew it would require pulling that big trim board down along with a bunch of siding and moving it all around. And they would have to replace the trim boards that got cut. I called our superintendent and left a message, and held my breath all weekend waiting to talk to him about it. I called him Monday and he reassured me that nothing is set in stone. He said he would talk to the siding guys about it. A few days later I came back to the house and was very delighted to see this:

The fix.

Detail of correct trim.
It looks like it took them all morning to fix it. I felt bad making the guys do all that extra work, but at the same time, I felt justified in expecting it to look like the final drawings that we signed off on. As of today, the siding still isn't finished. They had to order more materials because the estimator hadn't ordered enough for the job. It should come in by the end of this week. But here is the current look of the house, including our beautiful red shake shingles and all of the brackets mounted!