Updates and lots of pictures

Grace Elizabeth at 9 months old - what a beautiful girl!
(c) Terry Sturman Photography



Our house on Wednesday, with the main floor almost complete. Looks like our house has a cap on it!



Our basement - You can see the floor joists in the 9-ft ceiling, and the supporting poles.



The view from the front of the house just one day later, Thursday. Those framers are fast! They have a good portion of the exterior walls up already!



The view from the back of the house on Thursday. It's really going quickly!


Today our excavator should have backfilled the garage, and the framers will finish all of the exterior and interior walls. Then Monday they will set the roof trusses. Tuesday is sheeting, and then the rest of the week will be finishing touches, including setting the windows and doors. WOW! It feels like it's going so fast!

I've been on the phone a lot today, scheduling our upcoming subs: roofers, HVAC, plumbing...I'm trying to stay on top of things so that they'll go as quickly and smoothly as possible. I'm ready to live in this house! Let's get it done!

Change of topic: I felt the baby move this week! I'm only 15 weeks along, but I've read that it's normal to feel the baby earlier in your second (or third or fourth...) pregnancy. It's amazing! I'm getting excited to have this little one in our lives. God sure has blessed us.

Wood and a picnic

Top view of the walkout basement, standing at the back of the garage.


Back view of the basement

Our house has some wood on it now! The framers were supposed to start a few days ago, but they were delayed (due to scheduling conflicts and rain). But, they started today! We went out to the land, and they already had this much done! It's the walkout portion of the basement. It's really starting to look like a house! YAY!




After we went to the land, Luke took Grace and me out on a beautiful date. We packed a picnic (sandwiches of Vienna Bread, cheese, lettuce, and deli meat; cheese and crackers; apples; Caffeine Free Diet Coke; and the yummiest cinnamon-sugar cake donuts), and went out to the Fallasburg Park just north of Lowell. We laid out a quilt in the grass next to the river, in view of the historic covered bridge, surrounded by beautiful trees and blue skies. It was wonderful. And it was Grace's first picnic ever! She was SO cute and did so well! We even fed her bread and ham, and she ate with us. It got a little cold out there, but it was still gorgeous. I like my husband.

-{lkr}

Flatwork finally happened!

Slowly, oh so slowly, we are seeing progress on the house. Today our concrete was poured for the basement floor. Now it really looks like a house!

The bad news is that the lumber got dropped off too early (my mistake), and it's blocking pretty much the whole front of the house, so the framers are going to have to start without all the backfill done. I hope it all works out! Seems like there's always a problem to solve with general contracting. Sheesh. Not my dream job, but it'll get us a house anyway.

Grace is such a sweetheart. Tonight Luke was doing a funny dance, and she burst into laughter! It was uncontrollable giggling...SO precious! We videotaped it, so if you ever want to see it, of course we'll show you!

I have a doctor appointment tomorrow for New Baby. It should be really routine. Grace will be with me, but Luke won't, because he has a real job now.

Yes, a real job! He started Monday as a true blue Steelcase employee! We're very proud of him. He's been there for over four years, and finally they've hired him. He'll be doing the same job, just with a salary and benefits instead of hourly pay. It's a HUGE blessing from the Lord. He's been good to us!

-{lkr}

Goose egg

Before


After

We just happened to take pictures of Grace today, before she whapped her head on the coffee table. Isn't she pretty? Yeah, then she hit her head, and ended up with a huge goose egg that was purple and blue. (Matched her outfit really nicely.) If you can't see it very well in the picture, it's a line above her left eye. (We didn't take the "after" picture until about 5 hours later, so it's not nearly as scary as when it first happened.)

On top of all that, the three of us have all come down with some sort of cold/sinus thing. Yuck!

-{lkr}

10 Months Old!

Guess who's 10 months old today!? That's right, it's our very own baby Grace. It's gone by SO very fast!

Also, she took a step by herself yesterday. True, if we weren't there with our hands out to catch her, she would've fallen on her nose. But she still did it! She's amazing! She's going to be a wonderful big sister.

-{lkr}

It's a basement!

The foundation walls are stripped, and now they look like real walls in our real basement! Yay! This one's a picture from the back walkout. The room with the door is a cold cellar-type space under our future porch.


And this one's of our beautiful future garage, where Luke will have a little extra space in the back for a workshop area.

We're SO excited for our future home. It's actually starting to look like a real house! Yesterday the underground plumbing was done. Today our wonderful, flexible excavator is backfilling our trenches. Tomorrow will be stone and tile (a drainage thing), and then on Thursday we'll get our concrete slabs (floors), so it'll really look like a house! YAY!

-{lkr}

Surprise!

Yep, that's right. Grace's shirt is true...She's going to be a big sister! Surprise! Baby Rumley is due March 23, which means we're just 12-1/2 weeks along. The Lord has blessed our family again. Praise Him!

On another note, I'm 23 years old today. When I think that I'll soon be the mother of two, I feel SO OLD! But Luke assures me that I'm still young. After all, he is 24. Old man!

Welp, more updates on the house to come this week, including underground plumbing, some excavation, stone and tile, and more!

We went to Celebration on the Grand on Friday night, and stayed for the fireworks. We got to see Emily and her roommates, which was nice. But here's my complaint for the day: smokers. I understand that some people are addicted to the nasty habit of inhaling tar and nicotine into their lungs, but they need to understand that it's really rude to smoke in a huge crowd. We sat down on the bridge to watch the show, and these 4 teenagers came and sat right by us and lit up their cigarettes. YUCK. Not to mention that Grace was with us - babies don't need to be inhaling their nasty smoke. And the one guy was blowing his smoke right into her stroller...Luke took Grace for a walk while I sat there and was mad...Anyway, if you smoke, try to be considerate of those of us who like healthy lungs.

Okay, let's end with a happy thought...Our pretty sister Erin is way cool, and she won her first volleyball game of the year this weekend. Go Erin!

-{lkr}

Construction update

Concrete walls were poured today, after an emergency morning meeting at the job site. I (Luke) was called at 6:50 this morning, which if you know me, is my favorite time of day (to be SLEEPING!).

The concrete crew wanted to meet at the land to discuss why the walkout basement was dug incorrectly, which caused the footings to be poured incorrectly as well. It all worked out though: the excavator came out and fixed the trench, and the concrete guys fixed the footings and poured the walls.

Here are the pictures of the progress (don't worry, the forms come off tomorrow):


View of the garage entrance


Side view of the concrete jungle and our neighbors' house


The walkout portion of the basement

Forms come off tomorrow; underground plumbing, waterproofing, and concrete slab coming soon; framing should start in the middle of the month. Woo-hoo!

Work is actually in progress!

We finally broke ground on our house! Here are some photos of the hole, and the footings that were poured yesterday.


It was a beautiful day when we arrived at the land! Most of our weeds are gone...woo-hoo!


The is the front porch (left) and footings to support the center beam (right).


A view from the back of what will become the walkout basement.

We are a little confused right now about how the final product is going to look / work, but we are trusting that the experts know what they are doing. We should have some concrete walls to look at next week, after the holiday. Have a good one,

--
Luke