Well, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of progress going on anyway. But I guess there is a little. I did finish painting our family room but I don't have any pictures of that yet. Franc's Uncle Lonnie is up right now and they are changing out almost all of the doors throughout the house. We will have a few that aren't here yet because they are odd sizes and had to be special ordered. Oh well, getting the family room done is actually quite a bit of progress. I thought that as soon as I got that done then I would be able to put up my christmas tree. But apparently now that that's cleaned out and done it's going to be a perfect spot to put supplies for the ceiling and other things that we need to finish up soon. So still no christmas tree. I usually put my tree up the day after Thanksgiving. That is supposed to be one of my traditions but they have kind of gone out the window this year. Oh well, once we finally get our ceilings downstairs completed then we'll be doing better and maybe then I can have the family room. Well, I wanted to post a picture of Em standing outside from when we first moved into the house.

She's so cute. Well, below I want to show you our pretty ice trees from this morning.

It sure is pretty. Luckily we aren't supposed to have an actual ice storm like last January. There are a lot of people a little ways north of us who are getting the really bad results from the storm like we got before though.

Well, I'll try to post more again sooner than later. See ya, Jenni

I just took another little break. We went to Texas for Thanksgiving to see my family and we had a great time. We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving Day at my Dad and Step Mom's house. My step Mom did a great job of cooking for everyone. My younger brother and his wife and two children were not able to attend because they were sick. We missed them. We ate a whole lot of food. We left there on Thursday night and went to my Mom and Step Dad's house. My older brother's daughter Chey went with us over there. We had a yorkie puppy for my Mom that Franc and I picked up the Friday before for her and she didn't know about it. We were so excited about giving it to her. My step Dad knew but didn't tell her. She was so excited when she received her and she has been spoiling her ever since. Well we had hamburger's and hot dogs and a few extra people over there and I was so happy that my younger brother and his family were able to come that day. Here is a picture of my dog Harley and my Mom's new puppy Sadie at my house during the week before we took her down.

I promise Harley is not trying to bite her face off. They are playing. She is so tiny. He is pretty big for a yorkie though. He's now 13 pounds. I don't think that he's actually pure yorkie, he may be part silky terrier. But we love him anyway. Here's a picture of Emma with the pup.

I sure have a sweet girl. Harley went to stay with Franc's brother and sister in law, Jacob & Amanda (sorry Amanda, I don't know how to link to your blog here) for the weekend while we were away. Well, Emma was so excited to see the puppy when she came home from school last Tuesday but then I told her that Harley had already gone to Aunt Amanda's house for the weekend and she started to cry. She didn't even get to tell him goodbye. It was terribly sad. She's so sweet. Well, we had a great time and we were glad to come home too. But that means nose back to the grindstone on this house. No new developments as of yet but I'll keep you posted on that. Over and out.

We have been working on the family room the last week or so. Well, we have to go to work and this and that and the other and so we are still not finished. I think we need to sand hopefully only one more time and then I can get on with the texture and paint. Good luck to me. Well I would like to show you pictures now of my bedroom. It is a drastic change. It was, as Emma would say, hideous before.

I textured and painted a base coat and then did a sort of a color wash with a glaze over that. It's really pretty. We don't have the trim up yet and the curtain isn't quite placed where it's supposed to be because we want to wait until we have the trim and put it in the right spot before we start punching holes in the wall for that. We took out the closet that's over in the corner. It was just in the way and we have plans for the future to add another bathroom off the wall that's behind the bed in the bottom picture. There is a whole lot of attic space back there so we were hopeing to add that bath and a big closet. We took those sliding doors out and put in the french doors and we replaced the carpet.

Franc took out the bathroom door when he put the tile in since we were planning on replacing it. We will replace all of the doors. We just need to get them ordered.

We sure do love being here. The other day I let Harley out to go to the bathroom first thing in the morning and I looked up off the patio and right there at the pond behind the house was a deer. It took off running up through the woods when it saw me so all I saw was the tail end of it but it was big. So cool.

I just wanted to tell something I think is pretty funny. I guess I thought of it because of the snake picture below in the post before this one. Well, I am afraid of snakes. Very much so. BUT, I have gotten much better since we have been here. If I know where they are and I know that they are not poisonous (and where they are is not in my house) then I am good. I've even gotten up pretty close to some to take a better look at them. Of course those would be the very small ones. Nothing like that big one that was in Em's loft. So anyway, the other day Franc had to put some sort of rubber seal or something on the garage floor up at the doors so that it would seal closed when the doors were shut. Before he did that there were pretty small gaps in them and the water could come in when it would rain. Well, he put some of them on. I heard him say come here. So I went out there and there I saw this little bitty garter snake on the garage floor by the door. It was probably about 7 or 8 inches long maybe and it was a little bit cool in there so he wasn't really moving much. Well, I had told Franc a while back that I think in order to help me overcome my fear so much that I should pick one up sometime. CRAZY yes. So I said let me get him out. I would put my hand down there quite a few times just to quickly pull it back out of fear. The thing wasn't even moving. Franc had told me to pick it up by the end of it's tail and he couldn't get his mouth to me, it's mouth was so big it could have done some major damage to a flea (maybe). Well, I had tried that and I was still afraid of it's head so I decided just to go for it and grab right behind his head. So, I did. Then I stood there holding this tiny snake hollering and bellering. He came in there and said, "Well take it outside". So I carried it out to the back door and as soon as I got the door open I flung that poor creature as far as I could. SAD, SAD, SAD, I know. Well here's the saddest part. Emma came home from school yesterday and said that her computer teacher has a pet rat snake. Okay, I don't know why, but to each his own. Well, she brought it to school. And my daughter offers to go hold it. She said she was holding it and it slithered in her shirt by her neck and all the way down her sleeve (long sleeves) and out the other end and it was so totally cool. WHAT? Yes, my 7 year old daughter. She's out of her mind. And she laughs at me because when I finally picked up that baby garter snake I hooted and hollered until I flung it across the acreage. Just thought it was a cute story and I would share. Talk at ya later.

Well, it's been a few more days and now I'm afraid that I may panic soon about this whole Thanksgiving, Christmas, get the house ready thing. I guess we do actually have things lined out a little better but we still have such a long way to go in such a short period of time. We are currently in the process of fixing up the family room. Franc had to put up some sheetrock and so we have been doing the whole tape mud wait sand mud wait sand mud wait sand. We're on wait right now. So hopefully that will be finished tomorrow. And then the next step is whatever texture I decide to apply which I'm having a very difficult time deciding. But there's no doubt that texture must be part of the equation. At least I am pretty good at that so I know it can look good when I'm done even if it is a whole lot of work. We are hoping to be finished with that room by the end of the weekend. I don't know for sure if that will happen or not but here's hoping.

I don't believe that I have showed any pictures of Emma's room yet so I think I'll try to post some here now.

Try to ignore the mess. Well it's not exactly the same angel but it's of the same wall. We recarpeted the whole room and the walls have been textured and repainted. I sponged them. It is so pretty. And BIG. She just loves it. Here's another.

That's her loft. She loves to read and so we put some carpet up there and she has a little floor chair and some book shelves with all of her books. We find her up there often just reading away. She just loves it. I haven't seen any more snakes up there either. Remember this one.

She still doesn't know it was ever there. But I sure do remember it. SCARY! Okay I'm done for now so I'll talk at ya again later.

Did you all know that Christmas is in only 46 days. I think that's right anyway. That's crazy. We are going to Texas for Thanksgiving and I always like to have all of my Christmas gifts for my Texas family when I go so that I don't need to worry about shipping them and did they get there and did anything get broken and all of that stuff. Well, Thanksgiving is only 13 days from now. OH NO! I'm not ready. But I'm trying though. I went shopping for about 2 hours this afternoon and it was a major success. Well, not actually major but I did get gifts for two people. One of which is in Texas. I think I'll go again on Monday morning after Em goes to school.

Well, I'm going to try to come up with a few pictures here to post. Let me look for a second and see what I come up with, I'll be right back.

Okay, I'm back, see that didn't take too long. I have pictures of the office before and now. It's a lot messier now but that's because we use it well.

I told Francis to pick whichever color he wished to use in this room all by himself because it is for the most part his office. He says that I have pretty much taken all the other rooms in the house. I don't believe that's true totally, I just am not interested in having pictures of KISS and Porsche's and Mustangs or just plain old Ford's for that matter hanging on the walls in other rooms. I guess I'm just selfish. But anyway, in an attempt to not be so selfish I graciously allowed him this room. He chose this dark blue and asked for me to texture with vertical lines. It turned out very nice. The color looks good especially with the white on the bottom portion of the walls. In this bottom one I don't know if you can see it but if you look closely on my computer monitor is showing the picture above this one. I was trying to get close to the same angel so I had pulled that pic up to see which angel I had. I didn't realize it would show in the picture. It's probably not really all that funny but it amuses me. Maybe I'll clean up the office and take another picture and post it cleaned up. But, probably not. Okay, well I guess I'll be done for now. I'm gone. Jenni

Today is our anniversary. We have now been married for 10 years. When we first got married 10 years seemed so far off. But 10 years isn't really that long is it? It just goes by so fast. I hope for time to slow down. If we think about it in 10 years from now Emma will be 17 years old, I will be 40 years old and Francis will be 20 21(he will never be older than 20). Boy oh boy. That seems crazy. But before the thought of us having a 7 year old and me being 30 years old and Francis being 20 11 seemed far out. Well, that's how it goes isn't it? I am so proud to be Francis' wife. He's an awesome husband and Dad.

This is one of our wedding pictures.

Aren't we cute?  Here is what Francis got me for our anniversary today.

He picked these flowers out and then had them delivered to my work. There was also a box of chocolates with them. When I got into the van to leave work I noticed one of those paper floor mats in the floor. That meant that he had come and taken my van to get the oil changed for me and he had a service engine light checked out. AND he filled it up with gas. If he had only filled it up with gas and done none of the other things, including the flowers I just would have loved it. You know that saves me about $50.00. But he did all of those other things too.  Oh, and he bought me a HOUSE!!!! I think he likes me!!! I like him too. Well, I need to get off of here now and go do something productive. Jenni

I have more pictures that I want to post today on the house. All of my inside pictures are the house in progress. We are not finished with any room but we are very close in many rooms. So now I want to post the upstairs bathroom. Here you go before and now.

I textured the walls and of course painted them. I had to patch a few spots in the ceiling and repaint it. Francis tiled the bathroom floor which was carpet before and some rotted wood with linoleum right outside the bath. It was terrible. Here's another.

Here's the vanity.

Emma picked out the faucet. It's pretty cool. She washes her hands more. Well see ya later. Jenni

Okay, I have more pictures to post today. I'm still deciding what though. We are still trying to figure out exactly what to do with the ceilings in the downstairs. We think we know what but we don't know how yet. We have yet to tile the backsplash in the kitchen. We have picked out the tile which was a gigantic headache but now it's done. We just have to buy it and do it. I'm going to post now pictures of the stairwell before and after.

We will replace the handrails at some point. The walls have been textured and of course there is new carpet. We also repainted the ceiling. You can't really see that though. Just those things sure made a big difference. I'm afraid if I put more now then I will run out of stuff to post too soon. So I'll wait and try to post more pics tomorrow.  Jenni

Hi, I just got finished putting a stew in the crock pot. It's going to be good. Well, anyway, so onto more about the house I suppose. Franc and I were looking at some of the old pictures last night and we found a before and after that I didn't realize that we had so I'm going to post it now. This is the front view of the house before and after.

Looks a lot better. We are very happy with the way the outside has turned out. We were looking back at the before shots and saying what on earth were we thinking? But we had vision and it's coming through. Well, hopefully I'll have more tomorrow but for now, I'm gone. Jenni

I know it's been awhile. I get busy you know and I can't help it. I did take some more pictures finally though and I even downloaded them off of the camera, which is usually what takes me the longest. So I want to post a few. We still have quite a bit to do on the house but we're getting a lot closer. The outside is pretty much complete. We have a lot on the inside still left to do but we'll get there. Here are the pics of the side of the house before and after.

It's is so much better. The windows up at the very top belong to Emmalee's room. I don't know if you can see it but in the lower right corner there is a cat. That is Tootie. He became a new addition to our family in June along with his sister Whiner. Well, hopefully, and I mean hopefully, I can post again sooner than next year. I'll try. See ya, Jen

I've been so busy. Working, working on the old house, working on the new house, working on bible class stuff, all of Em's about to get out of school activities. And the real problem is with all of this stuff to do all I can really think about is gardening. I see all of my flowers popping up here at the old homestead and I just can't wait to get to it out at the new one. But I can't yet and I really don't know that I'll be able to do much this year anyway with the outdoor stuff because there is so much indoor stuff to take care of. The fellas are just about done with the outside of the house. It is looking so good. Of course the camera is never where we need it. But next time I head out there, I know I've said this before, I'm going to try to get a picture or two. It really does look pretty. The inside is a totally different story. Not liveable yet but soon. We plan to move out there at the end of the month. Em will start summer school there June 4 so we gotta hurry. I think once we get through the rest of the tear out then we will really get to move on the put back part. We're getting there. We know that it will not be finished when we move in. It will be nowhere close but it will be liveable and then we can actually work on it more often because we'll be there already. But the basic rooms that we have to have will be ready.

Francis called me a little earlier and he has been out there at the house today. He said he wanted to tell me a story. That usually means that it's going to be interesting. So here's what he told me. "I was walking around out at the house in the yard and I stepped on something. I look down and there is a snake which has wrapped itself around my leg and I screamed like a girl and got it off of me and it slithered away." I can't stop laughing at that image. I mean because it didn't happen to me of course. It wouldn't be funny then. But it happened to Francis and so it is hilarious.

Em gets to go on Monday to her new school and meet who her teacher will be next year. She'll go in the morning and then go back to her other school for the rest of the day. She's pretty excited. Me too. Well, I'm gonna go now. I don't have anything else interesting to say. Okay, have a good day, all. 

I'm back, finally. Well, Francis took some pictures today. The first one is a picture of the side of the house that I didn't have a before pic for.

That's vertical siding. We didn't want the regular stuff. Looks good doesn't it? The guys are doing a great job. Below I will put a before and after.

We got a french door put in and of the course the balcony railing. We plan to paint that white to go along with all the rest of the trim but that isn't a priority right now so it may be awhile. We also want to paint the garage doors white to match and to add some light fixtures. It's a big big difference isn't it? We're so excited.

I still don't have any pics but even if I did you really can't see still what is different. I mean if you're there you can see it but in a picture I don't think you could. They've put the soffit and facia up on one side of the house and have prepared that side for the siding which they should be putting up tomorrow. We've been having to make some quick draw decisions and man is that no fun. We like to think about what we buy for a while before we jump but we can't exactly do that here. So many things need to be purchased and installed before the siding is put on so that's made it to where we have to decide quickly.  We got a new window for the garage and they have already put it in. It sure looks good. Francis went out there on Saturday evening while Em and I went to babysit some kiddos. He mowed around the house and got some big tree limbs picked up out of the yard and stuff like that. It made a huge difference. He said mowing on the hill, which is pretty much the whole front yard, is no fun. It's pretty steep. Hopefully I can eliminate most of the mowing up there with landscaping. It's so pretty out there. I'll get more pics as soon as I can. I'm going to try to go pick up a doggie door tomorrow for Harley. We went to a few different stores and I called a few places too looking for a certain kind and I finally found someone in Springfield who had one but when I called them they informed me that they would be closing in 5 minutes. So after I get Em on the bus I hope to go get it. It's one of those where Harley would have a certain collar and the doggie door would only open if he approached it straight on. So other animals should not be able to get in. I've never actually used one or known of anyone who has so I hope it works. I just really don't want raccoons in my house. Or many of natures other friendly creatures. Only Harley. So we'll see how that goes.

Yep already. Sometimes what we call "progress" actually seems like it's moving backwards but it really is forward. I'll show some pics here in a minute to show you what I mean. So Francis was out there yesterday with his Uncle Lonnie, a fella who works with Lonnie and is also a family friend named Gary and this dude with just about the biggest arms I ever did see (who I believe is Lonnie's son-in-law) named Donny. They were destructing, as Gary called it, when I got there and were actually finished all the outside destruct I think by the time they were done yesterday. I do have some sad news though. I think there will be a new support group for all the animals that have lost their homes. It will be headed up, I believe by a pair of squirrels that tried to attack Lonnie as he intruded upon their home. The gigantic groundhog will be the doorman, he hasn't been seen in a few days. Some of the members I'm sure will include more squirrels, a variety of birds and of course the bitter snake, who by the way will vow not to eat any of the mice that may feel the need to join the group (but he doesn't promise not to eat their cousins). I'll try to keep everyone updated on anymore of our  wilderness friends who may need to find a new home. Pictures below.

Okay, so it doesn't look very different from this photo. There was vinyl siding on the porch area that was removed and the whole underside of the eave was taken off. It sure was botched up the way it was put up there. So it was quite a mess but Franc cleans up well. Here's another below.

It's sort of the same here. You have to look up under the eaves again. That's where most of it on the rest has been removed. I'm sure excited. Okay, thanks for reading, if you're reading. If you're like Franc, thanks for looking at the pictures. See ya

Well, I've posted all the pics that I have so far for the house. Hopefully I can go out there soon and be able to take pictures of progress. Francis went out there this morning and met his uncle who will be doing a lot of the work on it with Francis. I guess he was able to order some supplies today and should be getting to work on something tomorrow. I'm so excited. Oh and we also got the new refrigerator. We have finally moved up and got a fridge with ice and water in the door. Woohoo. Emma drinks a lot of water, a whole lot of water and she likes crushed ice just like her Nana. She picked that up in Texas. So now she can get her own without us having to come get her some ice. And there's a filter in the fridge so we don't have to have one of those pitchers with water in it. I know, I know. Everybody else already has those but it's new to us. Well, It's late and I need to go do some laundry so I'll post again tomorrow.

Sorry, I haven't posted in a few days. Man it's been busy and it hasn't had anything to do with the house yet. Work, so much work. Em had a birthday today and we went skating. Mitzi & Brandan and their kids came up to the skating rink also and then afterwards they came out and looked at our new house. Those kids are loving it already. I thought the girls were dramatic but the way Benjamin "falls" down the stairs, he's sure to be a stuntman someday. Silly kid! Em & Mel are now twins and so Meg and I decided that we are twins too. She is 6 but that doesn't matter cause I still look sooooo young. Okay, I'm going to post pics of the spare room now.

It's painted like a farm. Isn't it cute? It hasn't had a light bulb in it so we really hadn't been able to see the walls very well any time that we've looked at it but I took these pictures(in the dark) and they turned out so well that we finally know what the room looks like.

There's the barn. A farm must have a barn. We won't touch these walls. The floor that they have in here in wood laminate that they've also put paint splatters all over(on purpose) but I'm pretty sure that it looks hideous. We will carpet it. One more

I like it. It needs a light fixture. I guess they really liked the one that was in there because they took it.

Oh, and remember the groundhog that I told you was living under the back deck. Well, it's still there. I think we're about to make it pretty mad. Brandan stood back there waiting for it to come out this evening so he could put the piece of wood back over the opening where it's going in but the darn girls were running around screeching like baby pigs and it wouldn't come out. I wouldn't doubt if Brandan doesn't stop by the house on his way to work some morning and try to block it out. You can do it Brandan. Well, I'm going to stop now. See ya tomorrow!

and it only took about 30 minutes. It was mostly painless. There didn't seem to be as much paperwork as the first time when we bought this one. But maybe we were just terrified then and now we're just like, where do we sign? So it's officially ours. We had the day planned where we were going to sign for it and then go out there and look around and picture this here and there and just waste a lot of time letting it completely sink in. We were scheduled to go do one last walkthrough before signing just because any other real estate agents still had access to the house while it was still under contract. So anyway, they wanted us to just make sure that someone hadn't come in a messed anything up. We went out there at about 9:15 and our real estate agent got out of her car and got the key out of the lock box and......they had rekeyed the locks. The key in the lockbox, well that was the wrong one. So no walk through. We got to the signing and everything went smoothly and there we got the key that actually works to the door. Instead of going back out to the house to look around Francis received news that an employee who has been sick is still sick and wouldn't be able to come to work today. So we immediently went to begin doing his work. We started that I guess around 12:00p.m. Francis got home to get Em off the school bus at 3:00 and I was still there. Well, he will be working for quite a while. So no house visits or day dreaming. Oh, well. At least we are blessed enough to have a job and to be able to give others jobs. Well, I'll get to the pics now. I didn't get any good pics of the upstairs bathroom so I'll just have to move on. Here's the master bedroom.

The sliding glass door is the one above the garage that you can see on the front of the house pictures. It has a little balcony thing to walk out on that needs a railing. The paper will go quickly. And pink, well I like pink, but not on my wall. We're getting new carpet put in all upstairs.

Here's the opposite direction. It's a pretty nice sized room like Em's. We would like to add a master bathroom at some point. Hopefully now, but not sure yet. Well, that's it for today. Em's waiting "patiently" for me to come watch Narnia with her and I haven't really got to see her much lately so I'm gonna stop rambling and leave you to it. Oky doky, hope you all have a good evening. Short people rock!!!!

I actually took three pictures of the snake but I thought I lost the other two. Francis found them for me and they are better than the other one. So prepare to be freaked out.

That is just plain wrong. That's all I got to say.