New House: Framing

Our house is coming along!  We've been picking things right and left - everything is completely custom, so we have to pick colors and materials for things you'd never imagine, even things no one really sees!  That's been keeping us busy.  Last weekend we picked granite, lighting (chandeliers all over!), and the mantel, and we're starting to get a handle on paint.  The framing is almost finished, and so is the heating.  This week I think they're doing the roof!

This house has a lot of new things compared to our previous house:  There's more square footage, a third car garage, granite throughout the whole house, a barrel ceiling into the master, double sinks, coffered ceilings in the living room and master, and Griffin's room will have a 10 foot ceiling.  We're doing tile tub and shower surrounds and a tile back splash in the kitchen, and I finally get my big walk-in closet :)  Also, the outside of the home will be mostly hardy board and stone.  We're doing a dog room (I know, we're crazy, but we have a big dog and she needs her own space instead of having to put her kennel in the dining room), and the house has 3 bedrooms upstairs, and potential for 4 more and a HUGE family room and a bathroom downstairs.  We're planning to finish the space downstairs ourselves again, and will be finishing some pretty soon after we move in.

Just in case you think we won the lottery, let me set the record straight - thanks to much better interest rates, a great sale on our old home, more money down, and having a builder dad who gets stellar deals, our mortgage will be less than we paid in our old house.  However, it will come out to be around the same, since we have an HoA, which I hate...you win some, you lose some.

Here's a sneak peek:

Here's a front view - you can see all the gables and get a feel for the shape.

Here is a more side-view, where you can see the rock wall in the front.

Daddy and Griff in the garage entry.

There are arches all over the house - I love them!

Mommy and Griff checking things out :)

We are so excited to see things coming along, and we can't wait to see the finished product!

15 Month Man..

Wow, the 15th month went by SO FAST.  It's been so much fun having Griffin at this age - I've loved all the ages, but this month has been an explosion of words, personality, and new tricks.  This month, Griffin has been:

• Sleeping 12 hours at night without really ever waking up at all, and taking a 3 hour nap in the afternoon.
• Eating a lot some days, and not so much other days.  Breakfast is usually still baby oatmeal, though sometimes I have to sing songs and distract him to get him to eat it.  I usually give him some cereal or fruit after that.  Lunch foods he loves are: cheese of any kind, green beans, sweet potato squares, grilled cheese sandwiches, PB&J, soup, yogurt, quesadillas, and any kind of fruit.  Cantaloupe, pineapple, and strawberries are still the favorites though.  Dinner foods he likes are:  Corn, peas, green beans, pasta salad, some types of chicken, rolls, taco meat, beans, and again - fruit.  Foods he does not like are rice and most fresh veggies, though we keep trying.  He will usually try anything  once, and spit it out if he doesn't like it.  He's gotten much better at drinking out of his sippy, though he still prefers his bottle.  All in all, he's a pretty good eater.
• Talking:  He can mimic pretty much anything we say, and words he knows without us saying them first are:  Mama, Dada, more, truck, car, clock, ding dong, knock knock, up, please, no, and mmmMMMMmmm (which he uses when he's loving what he's eating).  He can also count to three, if we are counting with him.
• Following directions!  The other day I told him to go get his giraffe, and we went all the way into his room to get it and brought it back to me.  I've been testing what other directions he can follow, and so far I've discovered that he can put laundry in the dryer, put the lids away in the drawer, and bring me pretty much anything I ask for!  It's been fun :)
• Walking and running:  This boy loves to "sneak up" on us, and then be chased all around.  
• Tricks:  He loves to turn the lights on and off, ring the doorbell, give high fives, and dance whenever we play music.  He also has this musical toy he'll turn on  and let play while he's playing, and we call it him turning on his tunes :)

 There have been so many more fun things this month, and we're so excited that our boy has grown so much!  We can't wait to see what he does next.

New House: The rock wall

We are building a new house!  It's coming together really fast, so I figured I had better start documenting something while I still can.  The house will be done around the end of August.  Here are some pics of our lot with the rock wall, and of course our boy, who is "helping" as much as we'll let him.

Here's our lot!  The awesome looking rock wall at the bottom is ours - the other tiers are our uphill neighbor's.  This was when they started digging the foundation.

Our little guy, following in Grandpa and Daddy's footsteps :)

On the big rig.

The house actually has walls now - they're working on the roof today, so future pics should be more fun :)