House Pictures...This House is Now Our Home

I think the pictures speak for themselves. We are loving our new home. We have worked & saved for so long to have this and its surreal that it has come true.

Finally Carpet Complete and the Rest of Our New Years Eve

New Years Eve Day they were finally able to get the carpet in stock and bring it to install it. Now the house feel complete. Although its somewhat strange to have so much space and we haven't settled in to it but Im sure with time we will

I do wish we had more storage(like cold storage) in this house but this closet really helps

We aren't big New Years Eve people. I usually choose to work New Years Day so I don't have to work Thanksgiving or Christmas. SO we usually play it low key and go to bed early. This year we did just that again. We decided to order take out from Huntsville BBQ which I think may become a tradition.....its amazing! Em even enjoyed getting to sit at the counter with the rest of the family. Hallie was more interested in understanding what New Years is then she ever has been it made it more fun for sure

She really liked the dill pickle we shared with her

Of coarse we had to have apple cider(even though Matt and I both think its nasty) the kids loved it. We also had to cheers

Matt taught the girls how to make the glasses "sing" and change the pitch by adding or taking away liquid. They thought it was so cool

Ringing in the new year in our new house....we have planned for this for so long I don't think we are sure how to react. To make things better I ended up getting called off of work. So  we watched the ball drop at 10 and then headed to bed

Lots of Sleeping, Being Snowed In, Staying at Nic's, and The Final Inspection

The next couple days were a complete blur. We worked on completing things for inspection. Matt built stairs and got some cleaning done. The kids pretty much crashed the time we were at the house. We would drag a mattress in for them to sleep on during the day and then take it out since we aren't allowed to sleep at the house until we have a occupancy permit. We would stay an Nic and Kyle's house at night and first thing in the morning we would get up and head to the house to get stuff situated...mostly clean

Nic and Kyle were so great to let us invade their space. We were able to do laundry, have home cooked meals, and a place to relax for the times we were home. Nic was also my shadow giving of her time by coming to the house with me every morning and staying until well into the night.

The girls both slept in the playroom. Nic pulled out the foam pads and sleeping bags the girls thought it was pretty cool to be "camping." Sunday night was our first night staying. Matt and I were in the room next door to the girls with Em. I woke up Monday morning to Hallie telling me she couldn't find Gracie. I flew out of bed and went to frantically look for her. Matt had just left for work so I called to tell him I couldn't find her. Just then Nic came down from upstairs to tell me Gracie was asleep in her bed! I was so relieved! I guess she had wandered up in the night and asked Nic where I was and then asked if she could sleep with Nic and she let her. I was just glad she was ok...silly girl

Monday the inspection went well but there were a few electrical things that had to be changed befreo the inspector wanted us to stay the night. Monday we got snow but Tuesday morning our drive to the house was pretty scary. Nic and I both drove in 4-wheel drive the entire way and never went over 30 mph. When we got to the house it was a winter wonderland....snow everywhere!

Nic and I did our best to clear the driveway before the inspector came for his reinspect. We were at least able to clear a place for us to park! I have not seen that much snow in a very long time and I loved it! Even better news was that we had received our temp occupancy permit! We could officially move in!

I called Matt and he came home so we could get officially moved in. Until then Nic and I wasted no time moving stuff in and getting settled. Once again it all felt surreal. Were we really moving into our dream home that we had plan for for years 3 days before Christmas?!? Yes, yes we were!

Granite In, Snow On the Ground, A Few Opps, Late Nights, Exhaustion Sets In, Carpet, and MOVING DAY

Finally the day came they started to put in the cabinets and the carpet is scheduled and it seems like the days are going all to quickly for everything to get done. Matt had to push the inspection from Wed to Friday and then ultimately we weren't ready on Friday either so we had to hold our one for Monday and pray that everything got wrapped up. We really have had some great subs that have stepped up to the plate to help us out and get things done.

Getting the granite here was quite the task. Our granite guy was amazing and had everything ready to go in just a couple short days when everyone else told us 1-2 weeks. It was lucky for us since we didn't have 2 weeks or even a week for that matter. It took 8 guys to get the island bar in since it was so blasted heavy.

Bubble Bathroom

It made it in one piece thankfully

We did have one small hiccup that is actually pretty funny. While blue taping for the painters we found that one of the ducts were ran opposite of what they were supposed to be. Luckily it was just in time for them to come fix it without to much destruction. They were able to cut a hole in the floor and switch them over and get them fixed.

One of the nights the girls and I stayed late to paint the washer/dryer stand so it would be ready for them to deliver appliances the following day. The kids were such troopers with our late nights and did pretty well keeping themselves entertained

Gracie was so tired she made a bed and went to sleep on the half bath floor

To add more craziness to the mix we also got dumped on in terms of snow. Im lucky to have Nic she has been by my side from the day we broke ground and has been there to help me with just about everything. So on this particular day it was snow removal. Lucky for us she had brought her snowblower.

We also had another opps. Sometimes I don't think subs think thru what they are doing. I mean who leaves garage surround like this?! lol Thankfully they came back and fixed it the next day

Brit came up a day to help me clean but we didn't get much cleaning done to them putting carpet in but the kids did have a great time playing on the washer and dryer stand. When we got to the house I went to look around and see how the progress was going to find they had put carpet pad in the entire house! The only problem with this was that we had decided to only carpet half the basement do to budget constraints and that they didn't have enough carpet in stock to get it done in time for our inspection. I went to talk to the carpet guy who called his boss and got his ear chewed for putting carpet where it didn't go but at that point the damage was done so we went with it since we were ultimately hoping to put it in in the near future anyways. Hopefully we will end up with a deal because of the mix up. Oh and our carpet and pad....are heavenly. We upgraded both to premium stuff and the floor is soft enough to sleep on! This has created a few issues staring with the doors. Matt has to cut the bottoms off so they can open and close easily. Secondly we need a new vacuum with more height options. With my dyson its like vacuuming thru wet cement! 

I can't explain the feeling that I had when I saw carpet in our house. It was Friday Dec 18th. It was completely surreal. I just kept thinking have we really made it to this point....there were times I wasn't sure we would make it?

And then we have applances nd then it starts to feel like maybe can really live here. I have been in love with this fridge since I started watching food network years ago and I was so excited when Matt shared my same excitement for it. I have always felt like our fridge is packed and there is no room and with this new fridge I don't think I will have that problem. The lights over the island were also one of the things I saw and immediately fell in love with. I was just hoping and praying they would fit into our lighting budget and by some miracle they did! I think they are one of the things in the kitchen that draw you in and I still love them!

Even though we had to bump our inspection we decided to still move on Saturday and got clearance from the inspector to put everything in the garage. We felt like if we didn't move on the planned date with Christmas coming we wouldn't have the help we needed to move. So Friday night we headed to Uhaul and picked up the truck.

Saturday morning we got everything packed only to realize we didn't have enough space for everything in the truck! We had just enough help to get it all loaded but none of them were planning on coming to Huntsville with us but family(Kyle, Chris, and Kerry). Matt went to Sure Steel and got their snowmobile trailer so he could go and load the storage unit while Matt's dad drove the moving truck. Luckily once Matt got there Tyler called and came to help unload so it worked out really well. Now that we were moved and had no where to live the kids pretty much fell asleep anywhere and everywhere while Matt and I worked on getting stuff at the house done. Matt installed all the appliances while I worked on other stuff. Hallie was so tired she somehow found her way into Emery's pack n play.

Em's room all carpeted

Master

Gracie's Room

Family Room I also should note that the rock got done on Tues/Wed. The brother/sister rock team came about 10am and stayed until about 6 am the following morning to complete it and clean up so they would not hold up carpet. Yet again another rock star sub that pulled thru on our tight time line. I love it and think its beautiful