Well, we found Nathan's favorite part of the house. Greg spun the ceiling fan around and Nathan went into a coma. It was so funny.

It is really looking amazing. I'm so glad we changed the house plan early on so that we will see all four sides of it. It's just so cool. We also have been collecting old railroad nails and antique wrenches for our mason to use for hooks on the fireplace. We stop at antique shops and junk yards that we pass by, and we've collected 9 items so far. He has placed 3 in already. They will be used to hang fireplace tools and also for hanging wet snowy clothes that need drying after we finish building a snowman. The dry wall has been hung and the walls are primed. We have selected our paint colors and we are getting closer and closer every day!

Well.  As in we have a 680 foot well that doesn't produce any water.  I think that at this point you can only call it a hole.  It hasn't earned the title of well yet.  That is not great news.  It's not like you need water or anything right?  Uggghh.   Not cool.  In other news, the drywall is really coming along and it looks like I might be able to start some tiling this weekend.  Hopefully I don't need to use a wet saw because I have no frickin water!  In the mean time... drill baby drill!

Here is our plan for tile around the fireplace.  We are going to have one row of 12" ceramic tile (except on the kitchen side where the tile will extend over to meet the edge of the cabinets).  Outside of that we are going to have a 6" border of these really cool pebble tiles that we found online.  I think we are going to use a light grey colored grout for the tiles in this area.  Outside of that will be our hardwood flooring.  The picture is not so great, but it looks really cool and I'm psyched to see how the pebble tiles turn out. 

The town decided that we needed to name our driveway since we share part of it with our neighbors and because it is so long.  Definitely a bummer for our neighbors because they already have an address and now need to change.  We really liked the name Overlook Drive too, but our address is now going to be Waters Edge Lane.  Now that we have an address we can get cable/phone service setup and give Sears a place where they can deliver our appliances.  The only problem is that nobody has ever heard of Waters Edge Lane because it was just made up.  So Karen made a few signs today so that anybody making deliveries to our house will be able to find the place. 

A lot of you know how Nathan was pretty sick recently.  Well he is definitely feeling better and starting to get back on schedule and eat normally again.  For a while though there was no sleeping in our house and all of us were turning into zombies.  Even when he is refusing to sleep though and feeling crappy he's still a pretty cute little zombie. 

We've had a lot of rain this summer.  The pool finally dried up in our new backyard (we don't have a pool, just a hole for a septic system that has turned into a pool).  The well company came out this week to dig our well.  I'm really hoping they don't have a hard time finding water.  There is a river a couple of hundred feet away so hopefully that will help our chances.  We'll see I guess.  Anyway the truck was still there today so I took a quick picture.  I wish I could see this thing in action... or better yet I'd like to see it get back up the driveway now that it has been raining all weekend again and our future yard is back to being a mud pit!

Things have been moving right along on the house.  The plumber and the electrician have been going to town for the past couple of weeks.  They've wrapped up the work they need to do behind the walls and the insulation is now in place.  Drywall is next!  You can really feel the rooms taking shape now that you can't see through all the walls.  And of course the mason is adding more rocks everyday.  Here is a picture of the fireplace from today.  Also our tile order came in and we delivered it up to the house.  Once the drywall is done, I can get to work on the floor tile.  Karen and I bought the remainder of the lighting we need in the house today at Home Depot.  While we were there we picked out the rest of the tile that we are going to put around the fireplace.  We need to have a minimum of 18" around the fireplace with noncombustible material.  We are very excited about our plan for these tiles!!  When I get a chance, I'll setup a sample of what we are going to do and post a picture. 

So, a lot of you know how I have recently been spending a lot of time collecting rocks for our fireplace.  Here are a few pics.  The mason likes to have a big selection to work with so I've spent many hours gathering rocks from the old stone walls that were on our property.  Most days I work with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.  The wheelbarrow is really slow and difficult through the mud with all the rain we've been getting.  But...every once in a while I'll get to drive the coolest thing in the world.  It's pretty much the closest I will ever come to driving a tank and by far the heaviest piece of machinery I've ever operated.  I love doing things I'm completely not qualified to be doing.  The best advice I got was: make sure you put your seatbelt on or at least secure the safety chain because she'll throw you right out and under that tread if you're not careful.  Yeah it's pretty sweet.  Anyway, you can see a good shot below of the 6 rocks that have already found their way to the fireplace which is on the living room side.  On the kitchen side there is a little pizza oven.  The fireplace is a masonry heater.  I've also heard it called a Finnish stove (as in from Finland, not sprint through the finish line).  It has quite a few chambers that the smoke needs to travel through before going up and out the chimney.  All the bricks and rocks extract lots of the heat out of the smoke making it very efficient... or so I'm told.  We'll see I guess. 

Here is what the front looked like today. I'm so excited. The garage doors are in and the porch is almost done. Aahhhh! I can't wait to move in!!!!!

Many of you may know how sad Greg was when he sold his Jeep a few years ago. So... when we were in NJ on the SeaSide Heights Boardwalk and we saw a Jeep kiddie ride, he just couldn't resist. I'm not sure how Nathan felt about it but we all know how much Greg enjoyed himself!

They have begun siding the back of the house. The basement doors are in and also the slider that will lead from the dining room to the deck one day. It's an 8 foot sliding door. We got the idea from Ann and Brian and it looks great! Next week they should be working on the front siding and maybe also building the porch.

Nathan spent the night at Camp for the first time this weekend. We've been there with him before but this was our first overnight.  He had a lot of trouble getting settled at bedtime but during the day was so much fun. He loved watching the boats go by and staring into the water. He also LOVES the red picnic table. I'm hoping travel with him gets easier soon. I really don't want us to be homebound all the time. If we change his schedule the tiniest bit he's a mess for 3 days straight. I guess that's normal.

NO I'M NOT PREGNANT : ) Could you imagine? Anyway... Our niece Ashley is having a baby boy in December. We're already pumping Nathan up for meeting his best friend. It will be so fun watching them grow up together. We'll have to get a toy baby doll in the fall to teach Nathan how to be easy with the baby. Believe me, they won't want him treating their little guy like he treats Dino-mite! It's a wonder Dino-mite even sticks around.

After Nathan mastered Rice Cereal we moved on to Oatmeal which he never really got into like the rice.  We then started vegetables.  All I can say about Green Beans is that I've never seen a kid hold their tongue out for a full minute while gagging in an effort to let the food drip out.  So we got through 3 days of that and moved on to Peas.  Boy does he LOVE them.  He was skeptical with the first bight, but then he just started to wolf it down.  I also went back to Rice since the Oatmeal wasn't doing as well.  Next we have Sweet Potatoes then Carrots.  Once we get through that, I'll move on to fruit.  I may mix bananas with oatmeal to see if I can get him to eat the oatmeal.  I wish the bibs wrapped around his waist.  I gave up on them because he spends the whole time shoving the bib in his mouth.  Not sure what to do with that so he doesn't stain all his clothes.  hmmmmm......

For Greg's birthday we had a picnic dinner in our new house and watched the sun set out of our bedroom window. Nathan was with Jenna so we were able to relax and hang out as long as we wanted. It was really cool to walk around the upstairs and see the bedrooms framed in. With us having a walkout basement now, it's crazy to see how tall the back of the house is now.

The second level is now framed. It is so much fun to walk around the basement and first level looking out the windows and imagining the rooms and where the stairs will be. Greg considered climbing up the side of the house to the 2nd level so he could look out our bedroom window but we all decided that wasn't a good idea. Nathan ate oatmeal in the kitchen while looking out the window. Pretty cool...

There has been a ton of progress after only 2 days of framing.  Here are a couple of shots.  The first pic is from the back yard and the second is looking out our kitchen window!  Nathan had his first meal sitting in the stroller in the kitchen enjoying the view and Karen and I met one of our future neighbors who came by to say hello. 

Which member of our family now refuses to lay on his back?  I'll give you one guess...



It's really funny.  No matter where you lay him, he will flip right over. I guess I can't blame him.  I can't sleep on my back either.  For 5 months he's been trying to tell us he doesn't like to lay on his back and now he can finally do something about it.  Fight the power Nathan...fight the power.