house building - week 16

so we are 16 weeks into building our houses, some homes are almost to the half-way point. Some people are excited about that, because they think the second half goes by faster than the first. I disagree it's called the HALFWAY point, because it is half done - it's not the two-thirds point, with only one third left - it's HALF - which means that we won't be done until 32 weeks -- that is getting dangerously close to the end of April - and we have to be done by April, so that we can get the stimulus money for first time home buyers. We have to be MOVED IN by April 30. Which means we have to have our open house and everything so we can get the certificate of occupancy.

anyway - house #1 has windows, doors, mostly shingled, and the rocking is started - but they have no electricity so that is what is next for them.
house # 2 has windows except for 2 that were resized, doors that need a little more leveling, mostly shingled, the rock started, and they have elecrticity - so insulation and sheetrock are next for them.
house # 3 (OUR HOUSE) has NO windows (mysteriously lost somewhere), we do have doors, and some shingles, and electricity, so as soon as we find those darn windows and get them in, then our house is next for insulation and sheetrock, and maybe rocking.
house #4 has windows, doors, electricity, some shingles. Not sure what is next for them.
house #5 has a roof, the blocking is FINALLY done, and doors are next for them.
house #6 has no roof yet, so that is what is next for them - and it will take 2 days, then we will have to shovel out all the snow from inside (UGH)

FINALLY... our house

I am so ashamed to say that I have been too lazy to go thru all the pictures I had of our home building project in order to get them on the blog. But I repented and made up this very simple slide show - the pictures are sorta small so I have also put a link under it, for the same pictures on photobucket and you can look thru them slowly if ya want - but they are all out of order (banging head on desk at this wonderful technology that I cannot get to do what I want - it's midnight and I am giving up)...

http://s160.photobucket.com/albums/t163/MindySue_28/Building%20our%20house/

Halloween

Since Mom's birthday is so close to halloween, she has started making her birthday parties more of a carnival for the grandkids. Costumes are encouraged :) This year Tyson and I were just too worn out to dress up (eventhough we LOVE dressing up). We felt bad, but just never had the time or energy to put into it. But we got a lot of great characters this year. Thomas was a fireman and Grayson was his dalmation pup :) the cousins were a fireman, a knight, and a pink kitty. Chris was a pirate, Nate was Iron Man, AJ was a Ninja turtle, and Jess was a vampire.

my new friday night ritual

By friday nights I am pretty tired out.

We are required to work on building the houses Tues, Wed, and Thurs nights from 4 to 9:30 - I don't stay that late though, I leave at 8, because the boys need to go to bed. I had tried to stay later, but by the time I had picked the boys up, they were both in meltdown mode, and it was really tough on all of us.

I wish I could go out and work earlier, but since we had to put Thomas in the afternoon class at school, he doesn't get home on the bus until 3:30 - which is right when I need to be leaving just to get there by 4. I hope that he doesn't feel unwanted, poor kid. The second he gets home, I wisk him off to stay with someone else. I barely get to even talk to him.
I am so grateful that my kids like to go to Tracie's. Her little boy Nicky, who is also 4, and Thomas play pretty well together. Grayson used to cry when I dropped him off, but I think since he has become mobile, he is getting along much better. Yesterday, Tracie says to me, "I admire you". And I gave her a funny face and asked WHY? - and she said "Because Thomas has SOOOO much energy, I don't know how you keep up with him." I laughed and said "Because I have no choice." She assured me that she loves having the boys come and I am just glad that I have such a wonderful person that I can count on. It is good to not have to worry, so that I can get the hours we need working on the houses. * The more we work - the sooner we move in. *

SO on Friday nights, I have very little motivation to fix dinner, so I started taking Thomas to Burger King, his favorite place to get hamburgers (since our MacDonalds doesn't have a play place - and thank goodness, becasue I HATE MCD's anyway). The first time we did it, I even ordered him those Apple Fries - and if he ate all his hamburger I would let him have some chocolate milkshake. And with Thomas's personality, it was Friday the next week, and he again demanded hamburgers for dinner, and I gave in. Now it is just something we do. I love that whopper jrs are only a buck. I stopped getting the apple fries, even though they were cool - it just isn't reasonabl to pay $1.50 for a few slices, when an entire apple only costs a few cents. And while the chocolate shake at Burger King, just seems to taste exactly like a vanilla shake, I get it anyway, to motivate him to eat.

GRAYSON

In these pictures he is about 9 months old - he loves standing up, cruising along the furniture, and he smiles much more!

Thomas's birthday

On Thomas's actual birthday, we took him to his favorite restraunt - WINGERS! He likes the cups he gets (I like the sticky fingers). So we took a few gifts for him to open. He got the Mickey shirt to wear for his party on Sat. When I asked him Months ago what kind of party he wanted this year, he proclaimed "A Mickey Mouse Party" - I have no idea where he got the idea, but I did my best to throw him his dream Mickey party :) He also got a book and a dumptruck. And at the party, we gave him a whole collection of cars from the movie CARS







I wish I could have captured his face when he opened up this box. He was so surprized to see this amazing collection -- we got him :- Lightning, Sally, Mater, Sarge, Sheriff, Doc, Mac, King, Chic, and Wingo.

I am a bad blogger

I was going to type that I vow to keep my blog completely updated - but it seems that whenever I do that, something goes terribly wrong - so all I will say is I am going to try.....
how sad is it that I don't even have pics from Thomas's 4th birhtday party? nothing from Halloween? or a single picture of the progress on our houses?
yep - SAD


if I could just get Grayson to go to sleep at night, I might have a little time to get some of this stuff up on here. But he thinks that he needs to be in MY bed, sleeping next to me, or he will only sleep on his own in his own bed for about 15 to 30 minutes at a time. Then he wakes up and screams for me - and he is a LOUD screamer.