Ready for Paint!

It has been a little bit since I have been out to the farm to check on things. I have been busy at home packing boxes. Things are coming along great though. On Wednesday, the last coat of mud was put over the joints and nail holes in the drywall. Yesterday they sprayed a light orange peel texture on. Assuming that it will be dry, the plan is to spray the primer on this afternoon. I can't wait to see it!

Midnight Construction Snacks

Okay, so it's not midnight, but it's close enough. (11:10).

Ethan got done at the farm around 7 pm today. They got the 2nd coat of mud on. When he got home, he unloaded 1400 lbs of pig feed off of the trailer and into the shed here at the parsonage. We were able to load up our shopping list and the kids in the truck just in time for bedtime, and away we headed to Menards.

After completely filling the trailer and our Expedition with closet doors, room doors, mud, and a variety of other things, we were able to head back home. With a quick stop at Hy-Vee for Ethan's supper (Totino's pizza) and my 8th month of pregnancy craving (mac and cheese), we were able to get home at 10:45 pm.

We now have the kids in bed, and I am enjoying my Mac 'n Cheese.

Count down - 10 days until we have to be out of the parsonage and at the farm.

Building/Moving Update

Today's building/moving accomplishments:

*50+ aquarium fish shared and out of the house = 1 sad little boy

*Lunch prepared and delivered to helpers at the farm

*More boxes packed for the move

*Ethan arrived home after 8 pm, but entire house has tape and 1st coat of mud on drywall

No More Stuff!!

Today was a productive day. We had more help through the early afternoon, and with all of the drywall going up yesterday, we were able to start mudding and taping the walls today. We also got some more dinky work done like cleaning the floors and filling in cracks with expanding foam. (Sorry, I forgot the camera at home with all of the hustle.)

We got home around 3:00, just in time to fit some naps in. (Any later and it would have messed up bed time.) I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening packing. Which leads me to this post.

Our new house MAYBE will have an equal amount of storage in it as where we are at now. We have a basement here where we don't in our new house, but we will have above closet storage with our 10 ft ceilings. Also, the outdoor access storage area and attic can hold some overflow, but I don't want to put just anything in those areas. Where we are at is full now - and I frequently declutter and move unneeded things out. So the concern now is that with our kids being young and with a family that is still growing, there is a lot more stuff that will most likely come into the house.

When I thought about the size of families years ago and the size of houses they used to live in, it occurred to me that it isn't the size of the family that outgrows the house, it is the amount of stuff the family has. And I don't want to outgrow our house because of stuff.

So with birthdays and Christmas soon approaching (and many more years of them to come), I need your help! I am looking for gift ideas for the kids (4, 2, and on the way) that are not stuff. Here are some things that I have come up with:

*Postage stamps for the kids to send letters to grandparents (they love it when they get to help me send letters)
*Labor and/or materials for a sand box, rock box, or swing set (okay, that's outdoor stuff - but we have 40 acres that we are starting fresh with)
*Gift certificates or passes to something fun like the zoo, science center, botanical center, etc and a meal out for our family and the gift giver
*Gift certificates for a personal pan pizza or desert at Dairy Queen (the kids LOVE getting these!)
*Money, bonds, or CDs for college funding
*A pair of swim trunks or swim suit and money towards swimming lessons
*A music book and money for music lessons (this might not be for a couple years I guess)

And that's about as far as I've gotten.

With our gift giving culture and seeing other fun gifts that others get, it is hard to think of non-stuff gifts that would be fun to receive as well as open. I'm hoping that if the kids learn what getting some of these non stuff gifts means, waiting for the actual gift won't be that big of a deal. The key is to find things they will enjoy doing more than things they will enjoy having.

I hope no one hears me wrong, since we are thankful for the generosity of so many people - it's just we don't want to outgrow our house due to stuff. (A little stuff is okay, but a little stuff from a lot of people sure adds up quickly!) So if anyone has fun ideas of non-stuff gifts to put on lists, I would love to hear them!

Exhausted!

I think it is safe to say our family is exhausted! The days start early and end late.

Today after we left the farm (most likely the drywall will be all up tomorrow), we headed to Des Moines to pick up our cabinets. Thankfully, my cousin Tim was able to drop by and help load them up, because the kids and I wouldn't have been much help. We then headed to Menards to pick up mud and other materials needed to continue working. We were home by 10:30.

Pretty much right now, Ethan's days consist of juggling his office and youth work and then building, along with making sure the animals on the farm are happy. He is home long enough to catch a short night of sleep.

My days consist of keeping the house in somewhat of an order (clean dishes to eat off of and clean clothes to wear), making and running food out to the workers at the farm, spending about an hour out there to answer questions, running errands to keep people working, and then trying to pack the house with any spare time I can find.

The kids' day consists of being lugged from place to place with Mom, possibly getting a nap, and most likely getting to bed well past their bed time. Although I feel like they are not getting the attention right now we would like to give them, we are able to have nice visits on our car rides.

Even though we are all exhausted, we are blessed with all of the wonderful help we have been getting. The countdown now is 2 weeks until we need to be out of our house and living at the farm. Thanks to all of the people who have helped us out, we will be able to rest a lot more comfortably once we get there!!

Big Changes in the House

The last 2 days the guys have continued to come out and help. We now have the bedrooms almost completely drywalled - minus a few pieces in the upper closet. The bathroom and laundry room are started, along with the main living area ceiling and walls. It's really looking different and a lot more like a house!

Tuesday's Progress:

Today's Progress:

The Crew is Here!

Okay, so I accidentally deleted my pictures that I was going to upload from the past few days. That's about how good my mind is working now with everything going on.

Here are some pictures from today though. As you can see, we are tremendously blessed with friends from our church who want to help us out. And like I mentioned before, we have still to ask one person if they could come and give us a hand. Everyone that has helped out has asked us if they could help.

Today there were around 7 men that came out to hang drywall. The bedroom ceilings are done, some bedroom walls, and a little bit of the living room ceiling. Ethan joined them, and has switched his office hours to the evenings so he can be out there while they are. I also came out with lunch for the guys and to answer some questions about placement of things and what stages various wiring was in.

It is really neat to see drywall up, and it really makes it start to look like a house!