Happy New Year!

An update is way past due but I'm in the midst of the busiest time of my life...and loving it.  Most days we hit the ground running and fall in bed at night exhausted but out of all the houses we've either built or remodeled this one has been my favorite so we're really having a lot of fun.  This one really feels like home.  It's a little quirky and unusual but I think that's one of the things I love about it most and out of all the houses we've lived in I'm sure this will be the one the kids will have the fondest memories of when they're grown.  

It seems like every time I turn around it's someone's birthday or another holiday is upon us.  We'll be celebrating Isaiah's 10th birthday and my 40th this weekend and in my blogging absence we celebrated Madison's sweet 16th as well as a slew of holidays.

 Madison made a fun cake with sea foam candy that we saw on a cooking show a few years ago.

This is the look of shock and horror that Isaiah would have the nerve to blow out a few of the candles for her!  Ha, ha!  Oh to have a brother.  I wouldn't know what that's like as I only have sisters but I think my girls would say he's mostly fun...except when he blows out your birthday candles for you.  He's blown out my birthday candles every year since he was born and I happen to think its pretty sweet that I'll forever be 29.

Over Thanksgiving we had a puny little pup.  Chili developed bladder stones and had to wear a catheter, diaper and a the cone of shame as well as take lots of meds for two weeks.  We decided to have him neutered too, just to add insult to injury.

We took him to the vet four or five times in just about as many days and his little eyes were so bloodshot from exhaustion.  Once all that was over with he slept most of the time for a few weeks and he just now seems to be back to normal...but so much sweeter.  That must be why they call neutering getting "fixed".

A couple of days before Christmas Jeff and the kids went out into the woods to hunt down the perfect tree which I guess actually required a gun for some reason. 

The kids spent the better part of a day crafting and decorating the tree which only spent four or five days in the house before it had to come down to make way for the new stairs.

You have no idea how excited we all were about this particular part of the project!  It's sooo nice to be able to take the stairs instead of the ladder.  Stairs are always complicated for us to design and build but they came out perfectly.  Jeff's so smart!

As much as we are absolutely loving being able to walk easily up and down the stairs, as opposed to climbing the ladder, I don't think anyone is nearly as excited about it as Chili!  He watched Jeff glue and nail down every single tread.  It was the funniest thing to see him run up and inspect each one like he knew he would finally be able to get upstairs all by himself once this was done.

Now he runs up and down the stairs  all.day.long. checking on everyone.  This has been a dream come true for the little guy.

We've been nailing up planks and filling in holes which is a pretty fast process and so gratifying to see.

My goal is to have window trim, paint and lights in the living room before my sister's bridal shower next month and it's starting to look like we're going to make it if we keep hustling.

There goes Chili to check on things upstairs.

And speaking of upstairs, It's mostly wired and insulated but we're putting anymore work up there on hold till after the shower unless we finish the living room early.

As for the exterior, we got a lot done before it turned cold but still have some siding to do and the deck and wrap around roof still aren't done.  We've got a lot of work ahead of us still but we've come so far since we started the add on.

Happy 2015 everyone!