This is the house that love built

Installing siding

Painting...yes the ceiling is a funny color. No, it's not an accident. And yes I do like it...wasn't sure for a little while, but thankfully I do, lol.

Building the kitchen cabinets

Building the HANDLES of the kitchen cabinets. Seriously how cool is that! I have some very talented people in my life!Everywhere I look I see all the love that has gone into making this house. There are our new neighbors who have lent us tools and been so generous and kind. Co-workers who have come out to lend a hand. Our new church family who suprised us with their generosity and drove over an hour eeeeearly in the morning to paint and work on the siding in the heat and the bugs, even though neither The Man nor I could be there. The friends and loved ones who worked on the house in the snow! And The Man's family-I must mention them specifically, many of them have come out, but his direct family has given us SO MUCH.

And then there is The Man. Ahh The Man. He's worked in the heat. He's worked is the cold, and in his very favorite, in the cold WET weather. He gotten up at 4 in the morning again and again to work on the house. And he's done it almost all himself. The permits, the foundation, the framing, the siding, the plumbing, the painting, the trim work, the porches....with a exhausting drive for perfection. He is poured so much sweat and love into this house it's hard for me to believe.
And above all this there is God's love for us. Time after time when we could not see how things would work out God would amaze us by pulling it all together. It has been such an amazing journey of faith. God's latest work has been so wonderful. We are weeks away from being done with the house, and a neighbor has asked us to house sit for him! So we get to be practically next door instead of over an hour away, and see each other for lunch, and not have to get up soo terribly early, but on top of that I can get all that sheet rock dust cleaned up of, and the house settled and a little organized before we move in. That is SUCH a gift, because I'm still coming to grips with fact that I have MUCH less energy and abilities since the birth and while nursing twins, and I don't do well in chaos. So I'll make this part bold just in case you haven't been reading my ramblings...We move in a few days and the house should be done and ready to move into in just a few more weeks if all goes well. I AM SO EXCITED! But our phone and internet will be severely limited for the next month or two, so you're just going to have to wait a while to see finished pic and you probably won't be hearing much from me for a while, but then that's what I said before the twins were born, so who knows! God may supprise us again! Until next time keep us in your prayers as in addition to the move with little babies I will be adjusting to doing all the house work, cooking and cleaning myself. And on that note I must run as some little one is wailing for her bedtime snack *smile* Blessings!c

I know you'd rather hear about the babies...

but tough nooggies (lol, don't you just love my spelling) because we have news that is wonderfully exciting! The house is dried in!!!!! All the windows are in and we paid a small roofing crew to put on the metal roof. We've passed another inspection and we're ready to start electrical and plumbing now! Ahh! We're getting so close! BEHOLD...This is the second story of the house. Lord willing one day it's going to be two more bedrooms and a little half bath, but until the money comes in for that we are going to be finishing and living in just the down stairs. The Man and I just love the way this space feels. It might be our favorite part of the house now. Aren't the gables just lovely? Can you believe how hard The Man has been working? I'm just so proud of him I could bust!The girls and I went out to the land for a couple of hours with The Man one sunny afternoon. I LOVE coming over the hill and suddenly our house appears. At one time there was an old house on our land, so I was excited to see if there might be any bulbs coming up anywhere, and I wasn't disappointed.Oh, we are getting closer and closer all the time and both of us are just itching to get out there in this house. Patience...the theme of my life right now *smile*.

Work day!

This past weekend was pretty busy for The Man and I. I'll tell you about The Man's weekend first. We had a work day for the house! The Man spent several days planning the different projects which could be done that day, so as to get the maximum use out of the guys who were kind enough to show up early in the morning on a bitter cold Saturday. I am SO excited about the progress being made! I wasn't able to get out there this weekend (but I'm hoping I will get to tomorrow). These pics where taken by a couple of different guys out at the site and my Dad, who brought lunch out and offered to lead a few verses of "We'll work till Jesus Comes" lol.Lots of progress was made. They put up some front steps and a stoop. Note: we plan on doing a wrap around porch when funding allows; The Man says the tiny little stoop looks silly, but at least it will get us into the house :)All the doors and windows on the first floor are installed! Ah I can't wait to see it for myself!And about a 1/3 of the roof rafters have been put up, so getting the place dried in will be the next very exciting goal! Then comes plumbing, and electrical, and insulation, and....so on and on. Praise God for such kind friends who so generously gave to us. May God bless them all!

Merriest Christmas

Are you having a wonderful holiday? I pray you are! I can't help feeling so very blessed as I slow down for the holidays. God has been so generous with us (despite the fact we are technically homeless and without any regular income), and worked through so many different people to bless us in this strange season of our lives. I couldn't even begin to thank them all. I know there are some hard days ahead of us; I know it. But you know what? "Hard times" don't mean you aren't ridiculously blessed. I'm still so blown away at how God is providing for us. We had another appointment today for the babies, and everything is still wonderful with them. I'm almost as big as a nine month pregnant person, lol. Can you believe it? I still do feel pretty good though, praise God! Lots of growing and sleeping and eating going on. And Christmas is really the perfect time for these activities.

Meanwhile The Man and a couple of members of his family have been really working away on the house. This was the progress by the 20th:And we have this great foot bridge (our Christmas present from The Man's parents) installed over the stream to the barn- where all the house supplies are.

I was able to go out to the land myself and see our new walls in person for the first time today.
And The Man and I had our first meal in the house together!Below is the view from our dinning room/kitchen windows. We've got a lot of windows-lol. But we got almost all our windows from a building salvage place, and tried to work with what they had is stock.And this was the progress by the time I left this afternoon. When The Man (and "crew") left at the end of the day today all the walls, interior and exterior where up! How great is that? I'm so excited about it all I can hardly stand it. It was so amazing to actually stand in the house plan I have been looking at and working over on paper for the last few months. I know it's going to be small, very small, but standing in it and walking through the rooms I couldn't help but feel confident that we'll be able to make it very comfortable. A happy little nest.May God rain down blessings on you all too!
Merry Christmas
c

Building update

We passed our foundation inspection on the last day of November :) Happy happy day I must tell you. The Man (who had the blessing of his dad's help Tuesday through Friday of last week) spent Tuesday prepping and cleaning the barn to store our lumber delivery. Yep, so this is our house, some assembly required. They managed to get the sill plate, floor girder and all the floor joists installed before I could get out there to take any picture, so this is a shot of the underside from the crawlspace door.

And this?....drum roll please! This how far they got by the end of the day Friday! The Man built me a floor! And I walked on it too! Isn't it just the most lovely thing you have ever seen? And completed in such a short amount of time, for just two guys, don't you think?

You know what comes next don't you? WALLS! Unfortunately we're on hold for a week, while The Man is (again) out of town. It's starting to get exciting though! Blessings!c
P.S. That white-ish stuff you see on the ground is snow. How great is that? It snowed on our land. Makes me dream of the day we'll be sitting in this little house watching the snow come down snuggled up on a couch, with a fire...and probably a little someone crying in the background or needing a diaper changed or something- lol.

Building update

I've been a little slow posting these pics. They are from last week. We had some family members who were able to come out and help for the day, which is such a blessing, since most days The Man is out there on his own.Thankfully God has provided almost two uninterrupted weeks home for The Man to work on the house (with decent enough weather to work in), and he has some help again today. He's hoping to finish laying block today. So the next big step is a foundation inspection...maybe sometime next week??? We'll see. And THEN framing! It's so exciting! I wish I could help with it more...but then The Man can't help me grow babies, so I guess it's fair :) c

Lots of building projects

I have been spending most of my days and m&d's (mom and dad's). But yesterday I needed I break, and The Man asked me to come out to the land with for the day with him, which turned out to be just the change of scenery that I needed. I had the most wonderful day.

It was all misty and lovely in the morning when we got there, and I just sat on a pile of contrete blocks, knitting (I also dropped one of my needles down one of the holes in the large stack of cement blocks and The Man had to stop and fish it out for me), reading, and watch The Man work. The birds out there are amazing, singing and warbling all over the place. It makes me so happy to think we're going to be living on this lovely place.The Man has made wonderful progress. In this pic you can see that the footings are all dug, mainly through the aid of a neighbors tractor. Later in the day I was even able to help tie up the re-bar for the footings, which made me happy, because I wanted to be able to say that I helped build the house too-lol.Here's a pic of how the re-bar is tied up to little stakes, in case you aren't familiar with the process. This way when the concrete is poured the re-bar is perfectly in the middle of the footing. The county inspector came out and said it was best work he had seen in a while (yahh! for The Man!) and we were all clear to pour the footings. One inspection down, three more to go! Our county inspects new construction in four phases: footing, foundation, framing and FINISHED. The concrete is schedule to be delivered today. We are also supposed to get some rain today, but it hasn't come yet, and hopefully it will hold off till they get everything set. God was so good in giving us just enough sunny days to get this work done before the rain comes back.
Our neighbours have been an incrediable blessing to us during the building process, helping The Man with all kinds of little things. You should have seen them as they helped him put up the bracing for our temporary electric pole, lol. It was like The Three Stooges! God bless our crazy neighbors! It's so nice to be getting to know them well, and say things like, "Oh yes, those are Old Joe's cows. You wouldn't believe how much he paid for them!"and you really wouldn't.

Meanwhile "back at the ranch", as my dad likes to say, I keep chipping away at my own building project...or should I say projects...
Blessings! c

A little over 19 weeks

Knitting matching sweaters for the twins

Things have been busy around here. The Man came home from his last school with a cold, that of course he passed on to me, because as my mom said we were "all kissy face", lol. Being sick and unable to take anything for it pretty well stinks. It seems that I am warding off a case of bronchitis though, praise God! My cough is still pretty bad, but appears to be getting a little better each day. I had a prenatal exam Friday of last week and the midwife says that everything looks great. A week before the visit I didn't feel like I grew much but I'm growing like gang-busters now, and I have to say I rather like. I like knowing those babies are doing okay and so am I.

I can't put my finger on why but these b&w pics completely remind me of some old pics take when the family came to meet me after I was born and came home from the hospital. I'll have to so see if I can find some of them and upload them to the blog.

We have officially started the building process! We've been finalizing the plans (which I am drafting up), getting material price quotes, staking out the house site, requesting building permits and ALL that stuff. It's fun and exciting! We are praying that our savings takes us a long way, as we are committed to building without any loans, so that we can be freer (is it freer or more free?) to do and give more with our lives and assets. Lots of people have offered to help build and for that we are very grateful (as long as they come through anyhow, lol). I look forward to seeing what God has planned for us in this building process. It's pretty overwhelming right now. I'll start posting pics of the whoooole process as soon as we have something to show. Till then you can check out this link to take a peek at the plans our house is based off of. There are several small changes we are making to this plan. It's VERY small, but we look forward to the material diet (ie less stuff) it will force us to go on, and we're excited about the whole idea of living well smaller. For months I've been scouring the internet for storage and decorating ideas in small spaces. There's lots of dreaming going on right now in our corner of the world. Praise God for dreams and people to dream with!