A special 4 year olds birthday

There is nothing new to report on the house progress (besides electrical, plumbing and heating) so I thought I'd share a few pictures from Olivia's 4th birthday party this weekend.  Besides starting dance class and preschool this week...we also threw in a birthday.  And my little girl loves all the details that go along with milestones.  So I've been BUSY. 

When we asked her what kind of party she wanted this year...she immediately said ballerina. My little girl loves everything princess, dance related, twirly and PINK.

We surprised her in the morning with a room filled with balloons.  She didn't immediately notice but when she did it was priceless.  Liv liked gently throwing them up in the air and watching them float down.  Sophie liked drop kicking them.

 

 

Liv helped with the decorating of the signs, balloons, table cloths and the cupcakes.  Thank you Pinterst for all the ballet ideas.  What have I done all the years without you??? 

 

Here is the site for the ballerina cupcake toppers http://partiesandholidays.blogspot.com/2009/06/ballet-cupcakes-and-wands.html

and then I added a little tulle around the bottom of the cake stand.  A few weeks ago I started making the party favor bags and Liv loved helping write every ones names and stuffing them.  She probably liked it so much because she knew she was getting one of the bags with the goodies in it:)

 

 
Sophie had to be a ballerina too.  She loves to copy everything Liv does...even dressing like her now.  It's super cute to see them doing things like this...super scary too.

 

I finally finished Olivia's birthday present (with a little help of the finishing coat from my mom!).  I ended up running out and getting a dark walnut stain at the last minute to make the wood even darker.  It came out super cute.  What's even more cute is that Olivia has used it every time she's wanted to color or read since getting it.  I think that's a sign that she's going to be a total dork like her mom and dad regarding school work....

 

 

 

Dave and I kind of trapped ourselves by getting her a bouncy house for her second birthday.  Now she thinks it's party of any birthday party.  Awesome. 

 

We had an amazing day with our girls and our family.  I live for my kids birthdays.  Everyday is special but I love making birthdays the BEST.

Holy moly...

Things are crazy!  I've had to pick out lots of things for the house these past weeks.  I've kind of knew what I wanted for a while, but it was hard deciding on the final item.  I roamed Lowes and Home Depot more times than I would have liked comparing fixtures and then going home and reading reviews and price checking.  Ohh...and some of those times I had the two girls which was awesomely productive.  We left a trail of goldfish crumbs everywhere we went and I had to leave once the bag started running low. 

The plumber needed to know the brand of shower fixtures we were going with for the internal plumbing.  So it was game on making final decisions with our allowance.  Here are some items that we chose (all from either Home Depot or Lowes):

 

Here is the kitchen faucet and sink

Here is the 1/2 bath faucet and sink 

 

 Here are the girls faucets and shower/tub fixtures

 

 

 

 

Here are the undermount sinks for each bathroom (both full baths will have double sink vanities)

 And here are the faucets and shower fixtures I picked for the master bath

 

 

After picking out all of these items and sending the list to  my contractor...it made me nervous for the rest of the items I had yet to finalize (type A...remember?).  So my awesome mom offered to have the girls overnight for me so I could have an errand day.  I basically put about 500 miles on my car and crossed so many things off my list.  It felt good.  I didn't have to worry about snacks, carting the diaper bag around with me, taking the stroller in and out, what place would have bathrooms, nap schedules, breakfast, lunch, dinner...  It was amazing to be that productive in one day.  The things I used to take for granted...

 

Anyways...I tackled back to school shopping, birthday party supplies, ordering kitchen cabinets, picking out countertops, selecting bathroom tile, hardwood floors, and the rug.  This was all before 3pm.  Then...after I went to my moms, had dinner, and went out for some ice-cream...I decided to put a few coats of stain on Olivia's desk that is for her birthday!  AND THEN...I got so excited for the crafts that I decided to make for Olivia's party...I made an example to show my mom.  MOST PRODUCTIVE DAY EVER.  Thanks mom:)

 

Here are some of the things I picked out...

 

 

If we end up going with prefinished wood, this is what I picked.  3 inch planks in the darkest color in our allowance.  Dave and I would both like it to be darker...so we'll see what it would cost to have natural oak stained darker. 

 



 

Here is the carpet we're going with.  I'm so at all excited about this but it is what it is.  The carpet I want is way out of our price range so I only had a few to choose from.  One was oddly shinny and felt weird and the other was this.  We are going with the the color that is in between both the green and blue paint color samples.  Pretty neutral...pretty boring.  We can just upgrade it in a few years...right Dave????

 

Here is the tile and hopefully the countertops for the girls bathroom.  The tile is a plain beige and I'm hoping to have extra of the ceasarstone (sample is on the bottom of the picture) from the kitchen to use for the countertops in their bathroom.  That will all depend on when they measure the kitchen and how big the slabs of ceasarstone come. 

Here is what I'm going with for the master bathroom.  I'm so excited/a little nervous to be doing something so different than my normal style.  My gym has this tile in the bathroom and I have been obsessed.  The floor will be these grey 11x24 inch tiles that will be put down in a brick pattern.  They have the most amazing texture...kind of like corduroy and some of the lines are a little shinny. 

The double shower in our bathroom will be all white subway tiles and have a glass mosaic boarder at eye level.  Since the grey tile on the floor will be masculine I wanted to bring something girly. 

Here is a picture with all the tiles against the carrera marble countertops that I picked.  I'm so excited!!!

 

 

 

 

Progress progress progress....

Things are continuing to move super fast.  They are finished with the siding, the basement floor has been poured, the plumbing has been started and they are wiring wiring wiring.  Here are some updated pictures...

They still need to put up the shutters and possibly some dental molding by the roof line.   But other then finishing touches...the outside is weather tight.

 

 

What does weather tight mean to us now?  I means wiring.  Lots and lots of wiring. 

 

Here are the basement stairs.  By far, this is the favorite place for both girls right now because there is minimum risk to them down there and I let them run.  Sophie literally runs around screaming with her hands waving above her head.  She's crazy.

 

 

And we have a tub....such big things.

 

More to come...I've been knee deep in tiles, countertops, rugs and hardwood floors. 

Happenings...

Things are moving FAST.  And things are CRAZY.

We have been having to make some final decisions on lighting, plumbing fixtures, mirrors, cabinets and whether I even have enough time to shower some days.  Here are some pictures of the house in the past two weeks....

We have windows and a roof!

 

 The land still needs to be filled but they had to wait for the plumber to finish installing the pipes.

 

This will be the girls playroom.  I am obsessed with the bay windows.  I wonder how often I'll be cleaning hand prints and nose prints off them?

 

 

This is looking into the kitchen from the family room.  Our kitchen table will be in front of the slider by the half wall.

 

This is looking from the kitchen into the family room.  I can't wait for my built-ins.  I have dreams about them.  The will be on both sides of the fireplace and come out 12 inches or so.  Then we'll actually have them build the fireplace out 6 inches (it's supposed to be flush in the plans) and then mount the TV above the fireplace. 

 

 

I didn't put pictures of any of the bedrooms but I did want to post this picture which is the extra space through our master closet.  Liv is in the closet part and Dave and Sophie are in the extra space part.  We had them put a full size window and we'll eventually finish it and give it to Dave for an office.

 

 

 

 

And here is a shot of the basement.  The floor isn't poured yet because the plumbing will be in it.  Lot of light down there even though it's a basement.

 

 

 





We are in electric and plumbing land right now.  The siding is supposed to be put up any day.  It's crazy how fast things are going!  Stay tuned...

House update...

I know I said before...but these framers don't mess around!  Here is what the house looked like last week when I took the girls on Wednesday.  I felt like a complete creep standing there taking pictures.  So I don't have too many.  The girls and I could have stayed there all day watching everything.

The 2nd floor was put on. There is even a stair case in the entryway already.

 They were in the process of filling the left yard and in the garage as well.

 The girls loved watching the truck dump the dirt and then the tractor pushing it all around. 

And here is Liv taking a picture. I think she's an aspiring photographer....

And then here is what I looked like on Sunday!  We have a complete 2nd floor and a partial garage.

I wish I could have recorded Olivia's first time going in.  She said "Mommy...Daddy!!!!  Thank you for putting a princess staircase in our new house!!!"  Ha! 

She went up and down those stairs the entire time we were there.  She had a blast...I had a heart attack.  Those stairs are scary with no railings! 

This is looking from the family room into the kitchen.  Some walls still need to go up (the far side is missing the 1/2 bath wall).

Olivia picked out her room...



And then wanted to check out the distance to our room...

I can't even believe how much progress has been made!  Our builder stopped by when we were there and told us that they plan on finishing the garage in the next week, putting in the basement and garage floors, and possibly putting in the windows and starting the siding. 

Stay tuned...