CABINETS!

Thursday was, perhaps, the most exciting day of the home building process so far. The cabinets were installed. Maybe ground breaking day was more exciting, but the cabinets made the home feel like we could really live there. We could move in all our things now!! and the contractors can simply continue finishing the rest of the house around us and all our worldly possessions. But then Tim reminds Sarah that there is no running water yet. And maybe the new neighbors won't appreciate us showering at their house.

*Apologize for the grainy pictures. Our phone cameras don't like all the dust in the air and the strange daylight shadows.

Above, the girls in the downstairs bathroom. This bathroom has as much cabinetry as we have in our current home's bathrooms. Clearly, we're thrilled to have more space in the very near future!!! 

Laundry room with counters!

Laundry room with crazies.

The Vivster.

We all had to touch every single cabinet. And open them over and over again.

We are so happy with how they turned out. Our cabinet maker, Louis, was the friendliest, most helpful man. He gave good advice and clearly loved his product, business, and family. Mommy wanted to hug him when she saw the cabinets (and she rarely wants to hug anyone ever) but he's Amish and we're not sure if that's allowed.

We wanted as much storage as possible in the new house and requested that where ever possible he should go for the ceiling. He was happy to do that as long as he could still make it beautiful - not enough can be said for how proud Louis is of his work! So he gave the cabinets in the bathrooms "furniture feet" to dress them up and at the ceiling there is crown molding.

It's perfect. AND as a bonus, the outdoor crew got the Speer Farm sign up on the ceiling of the porch. It used to be on a barn owned by Tim's family since the mid 1800's and we wanted to incorporate it in our house somehow. We just absolutely love it hanging up there.

A couple of rocking chairs and we're all set!

Turning blue!

The house today:

 The pillars are on! It just needs to be painted...

...blue!!! to match the siding going on the sides and back. 

The trimmers are hard at work on the stairs and built ins this week. The progress on the playroom bookshelf/window seat/cabinet made us so happy!! The girls cannot wait to take over this space!

Cabinets start installation on Thursday. Count on seeing all that, too.

7 Quick Takes: Take 10

Haven't done this for a while, but we spend all our time at the new house and picking out stuff for the new house and screwing up the paint colors for the new house...we just really need to get a bit of something on the blog.

1. The house as of yesterday evening. 1,000% positive this has changed already. These people NEVER stop working! Loving that.

2. Not a lot of snow right now, but we had been playing in it! Kids are happier outdoors. And we like happy kids so much more than grumpy kids.

3. Did some shopping for school uniforms for Miriam. She is so ready! Mommy isn't.

4. Felicity has enough hair for piggytails! So cute. But so goofy.

5. Vivian got a REAL haircut. Mommy just CANNOT cut her hair in a straight-ish line. That couldn't be due to Vivian's inability to hold her head still for more than 4 seconds... Before, during, after (wouldn't open her eyes but did sweetly request suckers to share with her sisters).

6. Tim and Sarah got away for a couple nights with friends from our small Christian community to a really lovely, renovated early 1900's hotel. Highly recommend. Glam. Relaxing. Perfect.

7. The house interior is coming along and the girls are starting to accept that we're going to be living there in the near future.

Mommy picked our a blue color thinking it would make her happy each time she saw it. Wrong. It was bright. Really bright. Neon blue. Anxious blue. So she ran back to the painters shop, got some samples, and we changed our mind. We're going with the middle shade below for pretty much the entire downstairs. It's called Breath a Fresh Air and it really is.

The laundry room is in Coral Gables. Loving it. And loving the trim that's being install around the doors and windows!

Speaking of doors. Tim has a door on his home office. Soon there will be much less noise when he's trying to work at home!

If you want more Quick Takes, check them out here. Happy Weekend!

"Winter's a good time to stay in a cuddle"

Aunt Nichole and Aunt Bridget have been wanting to have a Frozen party for our girls for a LONG time and it finally happened! BIG OLD THANKS to those two! (If you'd like to have a VERY low key Frozen party, check out the Pinterest board.)

Artsy Aunt Bridget made an adorable Olaf to keep us company. Felicity, who's not very familiar with the movie yet, was in love.

We made little marshmallow snowmen in teams - three adult females and three little girls worked out perfectly!

We did some Frozen coloring pages and dot-to-dots, assembled our Frozen puzzle, read our Frozen books, played our Frozen game...thanks to Christmas, we have TOO much Frozen in our home! And then made snowflakes with pattern blocks. Mommy will admit that she skewed all the activities toward educational/building our preschool skill set. But the girls thought it was all the best!

Bridget the Arteest strikes again!

After dinner and a bath, we played pin the nose on Olaf. Daddy was home from work and really got into this game by tying on the blindfold so that no one could cheat!

He also arranged the living room with lots of pillows, blankets, and sleeping bags so we could all cuddle up together for popcorn and the movie. It may have been one of the best days of these three little girls' lives. And their parents and aunts found so much joy in sharing it with them. Sometimes it seems that we need to buy kids more toys or take them more places or meet other peoples' expectations to prove we're giving them the happiest childhood. But they prove time and time again that all they really want is our time, attention, affection, and guidance to make them feel loved.

Christmas, etc. {The Miniseries, Part 3}

Let's just let this be the last installment of the holiday season recap. Yes, let's.

So we come to New Year's Eve after soooo much Christmas! We cannot let it pass without a party. More family time! Sarah's sisters Annette, Nichole, and Bridget arrive with their husband, boyfriend, and fiance (respectively). 

We played the bring-a-game-and-a-drink-to-go-with-your-game game, again. (Ol' Blue Eyes was there, again, too!) We had lots of fun and played several new-to-us games! Sarah's favorite here; this should surprise no one since she has been saying for some time that being Amish is kind of one of her dreams. Tim's here; Joe (Nichole's bf) is always on the cutting edge of the game scene (we are not.) and he did not fail to bring a crowd pleaser.

--Thank you, Ryan, for your school spirit.--

We had several rousing rounds of Twister. Girls only.

Boys only.

 Couples.

Kisses at midnight and prayers for a blessed 2015!