Another Check!

It's been almost 2years since we've moved into our house (how is that possible??) and today we crossed something sort of major off of our to-do list....a driveway!

See....when we moved in, we wanted to get a concrete driveway. So we waited to look into it until last summer. Then when we started pricing it out, it was just crazy expensive compared to doing blacktop. And of course we also had to tackle the landscaping project. Our priority last year was the landscaping, so we did that and let the driveway slide.

So, this year's project was the driveway and they finally came today and put it in! YAY!!

Now we just have to wait 10 days to drive on it...ugh!

Patio

Mark another thing "complete" on our list of things to do with the new house....a patio!

We decided to go with a stamped concrete patio.  They started late last week and finished it this morning....and it can be walked on today which is awesome-it'll be ready to use for Avery's party this weekend which is so, so nice!

Monday they started pouring the concrete:

Avery was fascinated!

This was the step on Monday after it was poured and stamped:

And part of the patio on Monday:

This is the final product: Stamped, grout done, sealed, etc:

A close up of the pattern:

Let's just say we are in LOVE!

Landscaping-Day 2 (Complete!)

The landscapers came back on Friday and for maybe an hour Saturday morning.

And, now it's done!

Love it!

Landscaping-Day 1

One thing you have to do when you build a house is some sort of landscaping.

The builder (in our case) included the front and back lawn, but that's it. The rest was up to us.

We decided to hire someone to do it since we just don't have the time (nor desire) to do it ourselves. Plus, our backyard faces a busy street so we wanted it to be made more private. And, we just wanted someone with a "vision" to come up with something that would look good as opposed to us just throwing in plants in random places.

So yesterday the work started....

front yard by driveway

around utility boxes

front beds

front lawn-corner

side of the garage

our busy street side-backyard

The work continues today....

Room Updates

My Mom came out last night and is staying until tomorrow.

As part of her Easter gift to the girls, she got them some nice decals to decorate their rooms!  She put them up today so that when Avery got home from daycare, she'd have a surprise waiting for her! 

Here is Avery's room:

And Cassandra's room:

I love the way they turned out! They just spruce up the rooms a little bit! I'm hoping to find something similar to use to put their names up on the walls too.

Goodbye 2011

So I mentioned in the beginning of the year that I thought this was going to be a big year of changes.

Well, our first change was not a good one. Having to uproot a child from daycare is not fun.  However, we found a new place for Avery to go and now I can say that we are VERY happy with where she is. The teachers there are great and they do so much with the kids. It's like she's in a preschool when she goes there and we just love it! The only bad thing? They don't take infants. So we have no idea what to do when baby #2 joins us in a few weeks.

Our second big change of the year was deciding to build a home. From the initial piece of land, to groundbreaking day, to the finish line! And of course moving day!

Change #3...our big news of the year....becoming parents again! Of course this will really effect us in 2012, but it's still a change for us nontheless.

Avery had a few big changes as well. She started potty training, and moved to a big girl bed! Not to mention the poor thing went through the daycare change and moving into a new house as well!  She's gone through a lot of changes this year and will soon be a big sister-another change for her to deal with. I have to say this girl is a trooper and has taken everything in stride-and way better than we anticipated!

One other change is in the works that I haven't mentioned on here yet. My In-Law's are in the process of buying a new house as well! They've been in their current home since before Gabe was born so this will be a huge change for them. It's a bigger home (don't you know you upgrade when you're empty-nesters?!) and closer to us, which is nice. They still haven't gotten a closing date on it yet, but they're hoping sometime in January. So they will have a lot of work ahead of them. It was sad at the holidays this year knowing it will most likely be the last at their current home.

I think that pretty much sums up the big changes for the year.

Other things to mark 2011?

I started some new skills when signing up for my first cake decorating class. It was a ton of fun and I'm glad I did it!  Now I can make my kids' birthday cakes and feel like I have some sort of clue what I'm doing!

Gabe and I celebrated 3 years of marriage already!

And some firsts for Avery....bowling, her first haircut, her first egg hunt, her first daycare performance, first time going on the potty, turning 2 years old, and having her eye tube removed,

2011 was a great year for us and we're looking forward to what 2012 will bring!

Happy New Year!

Backsplash

One of our missing pieces that needed to get done was our kitchen backsplash. We had all of the materials bought, it just needed to be put in place.

The one guy we use to do a lot of improvement type of things was actually available this week and came and got it done in no time! And we love the way it turned out!

Here's one area next to our fridge: And over the cooktop:

We are very happy with it and I think it really tied the whole kitchen together! Love it!

Moving Day!

So yesterday was the big day....moving day!

Our POD was supposed to be picked up at 8:30am and we were woken up at 7:45am by them! Nice and early!

Gabe's Dad showed up around 9am to take Avery for the day-we didn't want her to be in the way of the movers and this way Gabe and I could get some stuff done while she was gone.

Before she left, we took a family photo outside of the old house:

The movers showed up around 9:15am and got right to work. We had one truck and three guys and man, did they hussle! We were only going to have them take the "big" items (99% furniture), but we ended up having them take some boxes too because they moved so darn fast! They had all of our furniture packed up in just over an hour-it was amazing!

Here's the truck in our driveway:

I forget what time they completely finished packing up, but I'd say it was in under 2 hours easily. Then we headed to the new house:

And they were just as quick to unload! Basically the entire job was done by 1pm-so about 4 hours or so, which was way faster than we expected.

Once they left, Gabe and I took my car and headed back to the old house-we stopped at Wendy's for lunch then went back and packed up my car. We came back to the new house and got a few things arranged. Then we took both cars back to the old house and did another big load. Gabe took the cat and I was on Avery duty.

I went to my in-laws to get her around 4:30 or so. She seemed excited to go see Daddy and Jerri the cat at the new house.

We got home (Gabe had been home at least an hour with the cat) and I asked how the cat was doing. Gabe said "she's laying in the box of china." Somehow she wiggled herself into the box (which was closed) and there she stayed for about two hours! Avery was loving it because Jerri was too afraid to move so Avery got to pet her all she wanted! Here she is giving her kisses:

Silly cat!

Gabe finally took the cat out of the box to see what she would do. Anytime we'd leave the room, the cat would meow like crazy! We had the door from the house to the garage open and Jerri went and hid under Gabe's car for a long time. I went out there and she came up to me and I petted her a very long time. That seemed to calm her down and she slowly followed me back into the house. She did keep meowing a lot and I was paranoid that she was going to keep us up all night.

Avery on the other hand did great-she went up and saw her bedroom all set up and just grinned from ear to ear saying "I love my new room!" She went to bed super easily-it was a piece of cake! Here I thought Avery would have a tough time and Jerri was the "problem child".

I'm happy to report that the cat calmed down enough to sleep with us at night and really was quiet for the most part-thank God!

Overall it was a good day-busy, but good!

Now the fun of unpacking begins!

Two Nights

That's all that we have left in our house.

Two more nights.

It is the weirdest feeling-exciting, surreal, nerve wracking, and sad all at the same time.

I've been in this house for six years now. Gabe has been here ten.

We met when he lived here.

It was where we first lived together.

We got engaged in this house-in the living room on the couch by the fireplace.

We got our first pet while living here.

We got married while we lived here.

We started our family here.

It's weird to leave it all behind and start over somewhere new when you have all of these memories.
And of course I keep thinking of all of the last things we'll do here-Avery's last bath tomorrow night. Today was my last day to wake up and get ready for work here. Tomorrow will be our last dinner here, Saturday our last breakfast. Our last mornings of getting showered and dressed for the day. And of course tomorrow will be our last night sleeping in our bed in our room.

I know I will shed some tears-heck, I'm tearing up just writing this! Yes, I'm excited to move on, but I'm sad to see our home go. I love our neighborhood and our neighbors and I will say it has been an incredible 6 years here for me.

It will be an adjustment at our new place just because we're not in the actual city anymore. No more Wegman's, gas, or pizza right around the corner. No more easy access to the expressway. No more 5 minute drive to work for both of us (that I'm going to really miss!).

But with that, we will acquire more space, a bigger yard, an up-to-date house, a better school district, and our favorite-a garage!

And of course we'll create many more memories in our new house-our kids will be raised there! Heck, I don't even know if Avery will remember our current home. We'll have pictures to show her, but I doubt she'll actually remember living here....which makes me sad.



The next few days will be stressful, but I'm going to cherish our last moments here together as a family. And hopefully I'll take some photos of us enjoying our last day and night here tomorrow.

Done!

Our house is officially done!

Today we went for our final walk through to look things over and I must say I'm in love with it! I didn't really get to inspect everything because we were there on our lunch breaks, so I had to look at things quickly. I haven't been to the house in a few weeks so there was quite a bit I hadn't seen yet (carpets, hardwood floors, granite, sinks, faucets, lights).

This is the sink in the half-bath downstairs (wall color Behr "Pale Daffodil"):
Laundry room sink (wall color Sherwin Williams "Interactive Cream"):

Kitchen-stove area and pot filler (wall color Sherwin Williams "Macadamia"):

Kitchen island:

Family room (wall color Sherwin Williams "Macadamia"):

Full shot of the kitchen:

Dining room (wall color Sherwin Williams "Compatible Cream"):

Office (wall color Sherwin Williams "Smokey Blue"):

Stairs (wall color Sherwin Williams "Interactive Cream"):

Master Bedroom (wall color Olympic "Cosmic Rays"):

Master Bath sink area:

Master closet:

Master shower:

Baby's room (wall color Behr "Pale Daffodil"):

Guest room (wall color Sherwin Williams "Compatible Cream"):

Avery's room (wall color Behr "Jamaican Sea"):

Full bath (wall color Behr "Pale Daffodil"):

I think it's safe to say that we are very pleased with how everything turned out! Now we're just waiting on our closing which hopefully will be in the next few days!! YAY!