My Sweet Boy is 7!

Well, as I stated, this first part of February has been a whirlwind.  Now, it is time to celebrate, not just for Braeden's birthday, but for Dad being here to celebrate with us.  We were so blessed to have Mom, Dad, and Braeden's other grandparents in from Connecticut to celebrate with us.  After dinner, we surprised Braeden with a trip to the pet store to pick out a guinea pig.  He has been asking for one for quite some time.  

Braeden chose to use a certificate he earned for a dress down day and he wanted spiky hair.  While his hair is a bit long for spiky hair, we did the best we could.  We also had a party with his school class.  Thanks to Jennie Woods, his cupcakes were adorable and tasted great!  If anyone needs cupcakes or sweet treats, I would encourage you to contact Jennie!

Oh, I can't tell you how happy we are to have Dad at home with us!  Braeden needs his best buddy.  We had to stop by to show Papaw and Mammy our new friend before we even went home!

Braeden and Mellow.......formerly Maizy Pearl.   She is actually a he : )

Here are the yummy cupcakes that Jennie made.  They are so cute and tasted so good!

Superbowl Sunday

While most spent their Sunday eating goodies and watching the game, our day was spent at the hospital with my dad after he gave us a pretty intense scare.  Thankfully, the good Lord and the on call cardiologists at Fairfield Medical Center took good care of him.  Three days and one stent later, Dad was released and is already tired of "the girls"(AKA Mom and my sisters Pam and Beth) taking care of him.  While we were not back at the house much during this time, Brian managed to snap a picture of the siding.

Brian's Parents are Here!

Leslie and Fred came to visit through Christmas.  Here they are walking through the house for the first time.    They had only seen the house through the blog and other pictures prior to this walk through.  It was a lot of fun taking them through the house and showing them where everything will be.  In addition, they have had many good ideas.

Braeden has been so excited that Grandma and Poppy are here from CT.

We were able to walk out back since the ground actually froze for a little while after all of the rain and mud.  

And then there was rain......

And more rain.........AND more rain!  Ugh!  Rain, rain, go AWAY!  Come again when our house is built!

Since it has been raining, I will take some time to talk about some of the other  processes we have experienced thus far.  Choosing the stone has been the most difficult item for Brian and I to agree on.  Most other items, we have been able to agree on or at least compromise on rather easily.  I can tell you that the stone has not been easy on either of us.  He has a clear preference and so do I and they are not even close!  I prefer more of the stacked stone look and Brian prefers a more rustic look with larger stones.  After much debate, we feel we have finally found a stone that is a good compromise.  However, now that we decided on the stone, the color is the next battle.  Not with each other, but finding something that we both agree is dark enough.  We both prefer darker stone and that has been rather difficult to find!  I will keep you updated once we have made our final selection.

Another interesting process has been selecting the windows.   Again, this was easy for us to agree on.  We knew we wanted and it really did not take long to go through the process with the Pella representative.  We really want our house to feel open, airy and light filled.  Therefore, we really wanted large windows where possible.  I think we accomplished that ; )  We have selected a double hung window with a full arch head transom or square transom on most windows.  We also have grids on the top portion of all of the windows.  I can't wait to see the windows set in the house!  They are so pretty!

We are trying to be extremely conscious of options for savings.  We have spent a ton of time going between Lowes, Menards, and our builder.  Our builder has been great about giving us many options for allowances which allows us to find the best deals possible.  Everyone knows that there are things that pop up and/or changes are made during the building process.  Therefore, we are trying to save where we can and use those savings to address any changes that occur.   By working with the Pella representative and Lowes, we were able to get the windows we really wanted at the same price we had originally budgeted and still remain within our allowance.  

In addition, the shingles were on sale at Menards.  Lowes price matched the shingles we wanted and then we were able to get an additional 10% off.  

It really has been great working as a team with my husband.  I know we have just really gotten started, but we have really managed this process very well.  People say this is one of the greatest stressors you can put on a marriage, but I think we are handling the process very well.  I am very proud of "us"!  Love you, honey!