Waiting...

This morning I had to be at the house for two deliveries and to also meet with a contractor. So, we were there for several hours on this beautiful September day and played outside while we waited. Here are some photos of the boys enjoying their new outdoor toys.

Both boys love the new sandbox even though I have to watch how much sand Nate attempts to consume! Ben loves playing with the big trucks and digging holes and Nate loves to just sit there and observe his surroundings. Nate has become very competent at sitting up and will now sit there by himself for 20-30 minutes before falling over (or getting tired!). He sat there and played during an entire kiddie show yesterday (30 minutes).

Nate also can't get enough of these swings!

My ride isn't over yet, is it?

Tractors

This morning Andrew's new tractor arrived from Sears and both he and Ben are very excited about it (of course now Andrew has to mow the lawn, though... :)). Andrew works about 4 minutes from our new place so he stopped in at lunchtime to see his new toy.

Of course Ben loved the new tractor and he also has a mini Craftsman tractor ride-on that he had to get out so that he would be just like Daddy! The boys and their machines:

Ben on the big tractor....

...and Ben checking the gas tank of his little tractor as Andrew checked the big one for fuel.

After the Demo...

Tonight is the final night of the demolition and tomorrow our dumpster arrives so Andrew will be moving all of the debris out of the house to clean the spaces out for construction. I was at the house today for some appointments and decided to take a few photos "post-demo" of the three major rooms to be worked on: the master suite, the sunroom and the utility room. This is not the most exciting post since there are no people-pictures but I figured it would be a good memory for us once the project is complete.

Yikes! What a mess! Good thing Andrew knows what he is doing or else I would really be worried...

And then there were two less trees....(yes, they were dead, not just cut down for fun!). I'm not sure if I have had a photo of this in the past but part of the yard immediately surrounding the house is fenced in. Great for Barney (if he ever learns to stop barking and figures out that he is not a chain so he doesn't need to sit next to the door!).

Demolition Weekend

What a busy and exciting first weekend we had at the new house! In honor of Andrew's 31st birthday yesterday, we had Demolition Day, and those of you who watch any of the home improvement shows on TV known that this is basically a kickoff to construction where any existing walls and other structures that will be coming down are removed to prepare the worksite for building. What a birthday treat for Andrew to be able to use all of his tools to get started on his house.

My parents visited for the weekend to help with the "demo" and also to help watch the kids for us. We had a big birthday cake for Andrew at the house and invited all of our closest friends to stop by to see the new place and visit. Some of them were even able to help out with the work so we really appreciate that!

Here's the birthday boy himself at work:

Here, Ben is helping Andrew by handing him handtools before the major work started (and before the kids were removed from the workzone!). This is SO exciting for a two year old boy! He loves tools, hanging out with the guys and also having friends over so Ben had the best time yesterday "helping" with the home improvements and having all of his friends come for a visit.

I walked in on Ben showing his two friends Tyler and Ian Nice some of his daddy's tools. How cute!

Let the demo begin!

Meanwhile, the kids were occupied outside in the yard on the new swingset, sandbox and the boys especially LOVED this neat wooden pirate ship that we have now inherited in our yard. It's basically like a treehouse on the ground with wooden ladders to climb, rings to swing on, and wheels to steer. Honestly, this thing is like heaven to little boys so it is such another nice perk about this house!

Ben was nervous to go up at first, but when he saw all the "big" boys up there, he wanted to join them. When he came over to wave to me, I asked if he wanted to come down and he said "No! Ben...play...big boys!"

The three Nice boys - Ian, Dylan and Tyler- some of our good friends' children and our new "neighbors" (within about 7 minutes).

Nate checking out the construction zone...

As his shirt says, Nate was Daddy's Helper for the day by taking a 3 hour nap in a room of the house that was not being worked on, even despite lots of visitors and some minor construction noise. This guy sleeps like a champ!

Nana was such a big help by helping watch the boys for the day while the rest of us worked.

My job for the weekend was helping to remove wallpaper with my dad and several friends. Here, my dad and friend Jason Spencer and his son Jordan help with the walls. Jordan was old enough to really help out for a little while. Luckily, some rooms were easily strippable but others were very difficult. The heat steamer worked wonders!

Another exciting job last night for Andrew and good friend Steve Kriebel was to use Andrew's new chainsaw to cut down two dead trees on the premises. The guys wanted to try the chainsaw out so badly that they just stopped in the midst of indoor work and headed outside before the sun went fully down. The trees are gone now!

Finally, today my dad, Andrew and I went back to the house alone to get more work done. Here are the two men in the midst of construction in the master suite area.

First Week at the House

Our first week owning the house was basically spent doing a rough cleaning inside, meeting with contractors for upcoming work and my daytime task was to clean up the yard area closest to the house for the kids to play on while we are there. Our added bonus with this house is a really nice swingset in the backyard and a big built-in sandbox. Do these make up for the 14 month wait for this house?....well, I wouldn't go that far, but it is a nice perk.

Everything was filthy, however, so I did a lot of disinfecting, scrubbing, and replacing of parts. There's still some work to do next spring but since we only have a few more weeks of playing outside this season, everything is at least in clean, usable condition. Voila!

Here's Nate on one of the replacement swings I added to the swingset. He loves the swings!! Thank God one of my kids does since Ben doesn't like them too much and would rather climb , slide and build. Ben playing on the little build-in picnic table underneath the swingset. He loves little tables for lining his trucks up so this is a big source of entertainment for him. Hours of uninterrupted time for me...

Ben's enjoying the big sandbox here. I was able to salvage a handful of big trucks and other various sandtoys that were left in the sandbox and are in decent condition. So after a full round of scrubbing and disinfecting, they have now become part of our sandtoy collection. Many of these were ours from home already, though. Now we have someplace to put them!

Finally, here's Ben mowing his 6 acres of property. He also has a plastic ride-on Craftsman tractor that is just like the one his daddy will be buying to really mow the lawn. I'll have to get a photo of that next time...

Stay tuned for more photos this weekend as Andrew starts the demolition phase of construction in several rooms.

WE CLOSED

We are excited to announce that after over 14 months of trials and tribulations, a whole cast of shady characters we had to deal with and waiting, waiting, and more waiting...we are finally owners of this house and piece of land in Telford, PA. This is a long story but in a nutshell this property had a questionnable past that needed to be sorted out before we could purchase the place - 2 foreclosures and a bankruptcy being the biggest obstacles we had to get past. As of approximately 1PM on September 15th, though, we own it! Now we are focusing on getting the house and land fixed up and also selling our current house.

Andrew plans to start construction of some improvements in the house we plan to make this Saturday and I will be tracking our progress going forward on this blog. We have our work cut out for us these next few months and we plan to move in in Novemeber. We will keep you posted and we hope you all will come and visit us very soon!