Hello Postman

A few weeks ago we were given approval and told that we can put up our mailbox at the property.  There was some going back and forth with Broomfield and convincing them that even though there isn't a house on the lot yet, yes, we DO want our mail delivered there.  Finally, all is well and we are getting our mail at the new place.  I know that this seems silly and why would I post about it, but for us, it is a step towards having our own place and getting back to our normal lives!

Byron putting in the stake for the mailbox

Yea!  Mailbox is up!

Shows how high the mailbox is off the ground.  It's sooo tall!

The Stuart House

Since May, B and I have been working really hard to find a house plan that met all of our needs and then fit that into a realistic budget to build.  I mean, if you are going to build, why not build your dream house that you are going to live in forever, right?!  Finding a builder that can do that was a completely different ball game.

Byron and I scoured the internet house plan websites.  We knew what style house we wanted, and we knew the must haves: Study, formal dining (even though we only use it once a year!), three bedrooms, 2.5-3 bathrooms, open concept floor plan, huge kitchen, eating space in the kitchen, laundry room, playroom for the kids, and at least a decent size 2 car garage, minimum.  How all of that laid out on paper was up for grabs.  No joke, we probably looked through a couple hundred floor plans until we found one that seemed to flow really well and met all of our must haves.

With a few minor changes, this is our house plan.  We are THRILLED with it.  One of the main things that we love about this floor plan is that our bedroom will be on the main floor (for when we are old and can't walk up the stairs!) and the kids will be upstairs by themselves.  We have decided to finish out the media room upstairs to be their playroom.  This was a major must have for me.  I wanted a finished space in the house where we could put all of the kids toys.  At the Clarkson house their toys were in almost every single room!  It was driving me crazy tripping over all of the toys and mess.   Some of our other favorites; the Lanai, the fact that our bedroom has french doors that open up to the backyard patio, the flow of the house, the openness of the floor plan, and the character of the house in general.

Here are the elevations of the house from the internet.  For the most part, this is what our house is going to look like, with the stone and shingle siding.

Front of the house

Back of the house (no, not putting in a pool!)

South side of the house

Once we found our house plan, the builder and it all fit in budget, we went to the Realtor and bought the Stuart Lot.  It is a great lot, very narrow and long, but great.  It is 1.24 acres in the city, close to great shopping, the grocery store, schools, and the highway.  We didn't want to get too far off the main roads where it would take us forever to get anywhere, and this lot is in the perfect place..  It sits down in a little valley away from the main road, and it is on a cul-de-sac with only 5 other houses down by us.   There is a bike path that goes behind our property that leads us to nearby parks and to the elementary school that Haylee and Carter will go to, it is also a mile away from the rec center, which will be awesome for swimming lessons!  It doesn't have a mountain view, but we didn't have that at our old house, so I am not totally heart broken about that.  What it does have is a phenomenal view of the fireworks on the 4th of July.  We can't wait to host our 1st 4th of July party!

Here is what our lot looks like!    The two holes in the ground are where we took our soil samples from to determine just how crappy our soil is!  Yep, pretty crappy soil, but our basement will be solid!  According to my husband, the way that our basement is going to be built is similar to high rise buildings downtown!

Here is our family on the lot.  We wanted to make sure that we got a picture of all of us on the lot before any of the construction begins!  Our goal is throughout the building process, we stand in the same spot every week and take a picture of the progress!  What a great opportunity for us to do this so we can look back and see our house being built and our grandchildren can do the same!

B is amazing at his work, and he has done a fantastic job in plotting out on paper where our house will sit on the lot, what our landscaping will look like, and where his shop will go.  I can't wait for it all to become our reality!

It is amazing how long this process has taken and how much further we still have to go.  We started looking at house plans in May, here it is October and we still haven't broken ground yet.  Our hope is that we are in the house by the first week of April, but who knows what the winter will bring.  Our builder claims that once he breaks ground it will only take 5 months to complete the house, but again, who knows what the winter will bring!

Keep checking back for updates on the house build!  Should be a fun process to watch.

Off to Kindergarten

The whole Kindergarten registration process was not the most fun experience for us.  After numerous calls between me and the school district, we finally got Haylee into Sliver Creek Elementary.  It is just north of our house, and it's a great school.  It was built in 2006 and all of the classrooms are technologically updated.  The school ranks really well on the School Grades Report, so we are happy that there was room for her in the extended day kindergarten program.

Here are her first day of school pictures!  She is such a smart wonderful little girl!

 B and I were able to drop H off for her first day.  The school had all of the kids in all grades meet at the front of the school, where they played music, and then class by class marched into the school.  It was really awesome to see.  Haylee wasn't the most happy when she had to stand in line, as you can tell from her pictures.  

There goes my little girl into her first year of school.  Such a big girl she is!

Aspen 2012

B's work has taken us to Aspen for Labor Day weekend for numerous years.  I love going to Aspen.  It is such a nice break away from life down here.  The food is great, the shopping is fun, the hiking is amazing, and of course the people watching is spectacular.

It was nice that his work was able to take us back this year, after a couple of years off.  This year was especially nice, since we moved out of our house two days before the Labor Day weekend.  Both B and I needed the time away to just spend with the kids and wind down from our hectic summer.

Here are some pics from our weekend away.

We went on a Jeep tour on the back side of Aspen.  It was pretty chilly and rained on us as we were making our way back to town.  We had a blast, and Carter and Van entertained each other with jeep talk!

Carter with his mask and balloon swords. 

After our jeep tour ended, we went to a park near our condo.  Because the weather that day was so nasty, we went back the next day to eat lunch, play at the park and in the river.  The water was chilly, but the kids still had fun!

Happy Birthday Carter

I love birthdays!  I love having a theme and trying to create an awesome party that the kids will look back on and love.  My husband is a good sport when it comes to dealing with me because I tell him, "this is the cake I want" and he makes it happen!

Other than the first birthday, we ask the kids what they want to do for their birthday.  Because my son is OBSESSED with cars, of course this year he wanted a hot wheels themed party.  Not one to let my children down, I set to work planning his party.

Pinterest is a HUGE area of inspiration for me, and I actually found a cake on there that I wanted to do for Carter's party....it was perfect!

We had a ton of people over for his party, and it was very bittersweet since this party was going to be the last party we had in the Clarkson house.

Once again, my husband came through and made and AWESOME cake!

Here are some shots from the day!

We're Moving....

So, a few months ago I posted this.  In that post, I said we weren't moving, we were staying and we were going to decorate our house.  That we had abandoned the idea of moving, we were going to finish the basement, and had bought insulation to put up in the basement.  We had bought more plants for the backyard, we were back into our routine. Life was getting back to normal.

Fast forward to July, and we have re-listed the house for sale.  So, what has changed in that time?  Nothing really in that my husband continued to look for acreage, but a lot in that he found a builder that would build us an amazing house on acreage that fits within our budget.

We found 1.24 acres just three miles from where we currently live.  It is flat and long and skinny and has a lot of potential!  We found a house plan that we LOVE!   It has all of the requirements that we wanted in a house, and a lot of character.

We decided that we were going to try and find the builder, and make sure that everything fit in our budget before we even thought of listing our house for sale.  The last go-round of selling our house was very emotional and stressful.  It is so difficult to keep the house clean with kids, so we wanted to make sure that all was well and figured out before we went down that path again.  Not to mention the toll it took on Byron and I looking, falling in love with houses (or more often than not being disappointed by the inventory) and then having those houses go under contract before we could sell ours.

It all worked out and we listed the house the Friday we left for Illinois.   While we were in Illinois and got the call from our Realtor that we had an offer on the house.  We were thrilled and after 6 weeks of back and forth, we were officially out of the Clarkson house.

It was a bittersweet move for me.  I am so excited to start this journey with Byron.  This is what he does for a living, he dealing with the building department, he keeps people on track with the deadlines, with the budget, this is what he is good at.  He has always said that he wanted to live on acreage, and I love being out with space around my house.  I love that we will have room (plenty of it!) for the kids to run and explore and not have it be near or on a busy street.  I love that we will have room for a vegetable garden for me, since I started getting my green thumb.  I love that we will be able to the the first owners of this house, we will know everything about this house, we will have touched and watched and decided on every aspect of this house.

I am sad that B and I are leaving the first house that we bought as a married couple.  I am sad that I am leaving the house that we brought our children home to.  This is the only house that they have known, and although I know they are young and probably won't remember it, they do remember their neighborhood friends.  It was a beautiful house, it met everyone of our needs, except the bigger yard and garage space.  We had put so much work, blood, sweat and tears in that house.  It's so hard to walk away and close the door.

The kids have done well in adjusting to moving.  In the beginning, Carter would say that Grandma was mean for taking his toys away from his house and keeping them at hers.  He would want to know when we could go home - not to Grandma and Umpa's home, but our home.  It has been a month and they now call the Clarkson house their "old home" and now call my parents house home.  This first month has flown by and my parents are so generous in letting us stay here while the new house is built.  Still, it is hard to drive by Clarkson Ct and not look down and think it so weird that the house we called a home for 7 years has some other family living there.

B was right though, a house is a house.  Haylee, Carter, Byron and I together are what makes it a home....for now, my parents house is our home, and I can't wait to make our new house our home.

Vacay Week

It has become our new tradition that we head back to Illinois for a week during the summer.  Because my grandma turns 80 this year, the whole family ventured back for the week to help her celebrate!

Here are some of our favorite shots from the week!