Wednesday, October 29, 2008

"Benched our homesite"

It's official - they have FINALLY started doing something on our lot! I say 'something' because I'm not exactly sure what "benching our homesite" means, but I don't care! We drove out to Murphy yesterday after work to see the forms they've put up - see pics below. They said that this stage already has to pass an inspection (I guess to make sure everything is set up at the right spot in the lot), and then they will start trenching for the rough plumbing (do you like all those technical terms? I'm a real pro already). It's hard to tell from the pictures, but you can sort of see the forms they put up which will be the perimeter of the house, and they've also dug around and laid out where the driveway will be and marked where our fence will go! So exciting!

I took this picture standing on what will be our front porch - and Matt is standing in what will be our foyer!

Sorry this one is a little dark - I took this from across the street, and plan to take a picture from this same spot (there is a fire hydrant there to mark my place!) every time we go out there so we can see the progress over time!
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Friday, October 24, 2008

Absent

Just a quick post to apologize for being absent - because I know so many of you depend on my blogging for your livelihood. Anyways - I've been having some gallbladder issues and have been back and forth to the doctor the past week. (I seriously never thought I'd have to type or say something like that until I was at least 80...). They basically told me that it needs to be removed, but it's not an emergency and can wait until it's convenient for me. Thanks Doc. I'm sure I'll find a convenient time for you to cut me up and pull out an organ real soon...

On a more exciting note - the builder called me today and said they will be surveying our lot on Monday and breaking ground on Tuesday! I hope you're all as excited to see as I am to take/post lots of pictures! =) Happy Friday! Have a good weekend!
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Saturday, October 18, 2008

Inspired

After reading my friend Allison's blog a few days ago, I was inspired by her cupcake baking and decided to make some of my own! With fall weather upon us, I was in the mood for pumpkin anything, so I found a martha stewart recipe for pumpkin spice cupcakes from scratch, and then used Allison's recipe for cream cheese frosting. Because I'm so modest, I won't exactly say they were the best cupcakes I've ever made... but they were pretty much the best cupcakes I've ever made.


I'm glad I got these pictures taken before Matt came home... because there's not a lot of them left! Happy fall y'all :)
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Still TWO more weeks?

Just a quick post to let all 2 of you who read this know that we had our first "Team Meeting" today with the builder. We walked through all of the blueprints in depth, added a few electrical outlets/switches etc, and walked our lot to make sure that all of our i's are dotted and t's are crossed. They told us that within the next two weeks or so we should finally start seeing some progress on the lot! For whatever reason I had it in my head that after we signed the papers today they would literally run out to our lot and start digging (or whatever action is taken first), but apparently it doesn't work that way. Oh well... guess we'll just be waiting a couple weeks... stay tuned!
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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Finally Finalized

Well we actually finalized everything last week, but I am just now getting around to posting this. I'm pretty opinionated, but it was so much harder than I thought it would be to finalize all of our selections! Since I already posted below about the flooring, cabinets, back splash, and granite, I'll try and share a few of the other details.

First off - this is a house that has the brick we chose, so you can see better than that piece of cardboard they expect you to choose from. ... seriously, if you have ever tried to pick out brick based off how eight pieces look together on a wall...inside...let's just say I made quite a few phone calls to the brick companies themselves to get addresses of where they had built. This house is actually in our neighborhood a block or two away from ours.
This next picture is another house in the neighborhood that has our stone, as well as our front door...
This next picture is a collage of the bathroom faucets/hardware we chose. The master will be brushed nickel and the guest bath will be in chrome.

The next picture is of our fireplace. We originally wanted to do a full stone fireplace - but after realizing how expensive everything was, we decided to go with the next best (read:cheaper) option - a cast stone fireplace. p.s. this isn't our exact fireplace - just the closest picture I could find.

Ok I guess that's enough pictures for now. We scheduled our first team meeting - which is where we meet with the builder and our sales rep to finalize everything else (electrical outlets, flat work, etc) before they break ground. Hopefully the next house pictures I post will actually show some progress!
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Wednesday, October 8, 2008

buttah-fwys! and a wedding

Most might call them Monarch Butterflies, but to my 4 year olds, they are buttah-fwys, and they have taken over our playground. The past week or so we've noticed a huge increase in the amount of butterflies outside (supposedly they are supposed to be migrating to Mexico for mating season, but they seem to be getting pretty comfortable at the Park Cities Baptist Church playground. It's the funniest thing to watch the kids when they find one; it's like watching a game of pickle in the middle - only there is no ball, and really no one on either side of the kids - just a group of 8 or 9 4 year olds running back and forth, back and forth across the playground chasing the butterfly who just happens to fly above their heads, just out of reach. After today, however, they may decide to pack up and move out. Two of our kids (who happen to be twins) caught butterflies today while we were outside - and seeing their little faces light up when they came running up to show me the poor, frightened, slightly squished buttah-fwys they had caught made my day. Here's a couple pictures of the two who caught them.

Don't worry - we let them go so they could continue on to mating season...


On another note - I wanted to share a few pictures from the wedding we went to in Austin last weekend. This was quite possibly the most extravagant, beautiful wedding I have ever been to! Congratulations to TJ and Becky!
The ceremony was held outside on the shores of Town Lake (or ladybird lake as it is now supposedly called...I'm not into that name so I'm not going to call it that) right at sunset at the Four Seasons. (longest run-on sentence ever).

Martini ice bar/sculpture - shaken... not stirred.Enjoying the private fireworks show just for the newlyweds

Hanging out with friends outside of the photo booth
Our table
The largest cake I have ever seen!All these pictures were taken with my shiny new camera! What do you think??
Thanks dad! :)

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Thursday, October 2, 2008

Design Group Appointments #1 and #2

We had our first and second appointments at the design center on Monday and yesterday evenings. It was actually a lot tougher to select everything than I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong - if you know me, you know I can be fairly opinionated and I typically know what I like. I've also always known that I have an uncanny ability to walk into a store and like a magnet, I am drawn to the most expensive ____ (fill in the blank) in the whole store. This was especially true in the "house store" also known as the design center. I have to constantly remind myself that this is our first home - not a mansion we are building to retire in someday.

Anyways - here is a picture of what we've chosen so far. We still have one more appointment left next Tuesday where we will finalize everything. Ignore the manila folder in the top left corner. The top picture of stone and brick are *almost* finalized, we're pretty sure that's what they will be. The tile on the left will be in the bathrooms and utility room. The hardwoods next to the tile will be in the entry, hallways, dining room, kitchen and breakfast area. The carpet on the right will be in the family room and the carpet on the left is what will go in all the bedrooms and the study. The far left tile is a tumbled marble that will be our back splash, and the cabinets and granite are in the middle.

We still need to finalize the stain for the shutters, front porch posts and front door, so I'll post those things after our last meeting next Tuesday.

On another note - we are headed to Austin this weekend for a wedding! The wedding is at the Four Seasons and rumor has it there will be a fireworks show (they are only the second couple to ever set off fireworks from here!). The bride is a wedding planner - so I can't wait to see how beautiful everything looks! Not sure if they read this - but congrats TJ and Becky!

We'll also get to see Matt's mom Maggy (or maggy-mom as she signs her emails to me) this weekend which we are super excited about! The timing worked out perfectly for us to get her opinion on our house design stuff before we have to finalize it all on Tuesday! I do have some more polyvore sets done too - but I'll save those for a later date :)

I'll leave you with a few quotes from my classroom this week.....

(when asked what it means to be brave...)
"Oh! Oh! I know! It's when yool wawking thwew a scaaawy fowest and you hear cweepy noises, but you keep wawking and you awen't scayrd!"

"Hey Jack - is this your drawing?"
"Um, lemme see..... oh no way! I draw waaaay better than that"
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