Santa arrived Christmas Eve

Santa arrived on Christmas Eve Day to deliver our front door steps!!! We are so excited to have them, the kids hopped on the porch to get a quick picture before he had to leave for a long nights work.......

Wacky box of wires

Can you imagine being the plumbers that had to run all the water tubes throughout the whole house and then connect them all to this home base unit? I just hope it all works!

Sheetrock...did you ever think it would come

Believe it or not, we are finally getting our sheetrock installed. We are truly getting to the end of this project. When the guys showed up to deliver it, we woke up to a really loud truck backing into our driveway. The crazy part is that we had to jump out of bed so fast because they were about to pull over our newly planted yard after our huge rain storm. People are nuts! You must keep a close eye on everything and everyone at all times!!!

So far, the sheetrock is moving fast, almost too fast. Zan had to take a day off because HE had not ran all the wires through the wall that we wanted.

Before too long, you will see my parents here painting!!!!

Blaine Helping Dad

Zan was running wires for all the thermostats and Blaine was his helper. Blaine had to pull all the wires up to each floor so the plumbers can hook it up to the Radiant Heat.

We've gone Green

Our Solar panels were installed this week! We are so excited to have cheaper bills ten years from now when the panels are paid off!! Great being married to an accountant, he thinks of these things. I just look at it in a more positive way....saving energy.

The crazy thing is that the panels have been the most exciting part of the house project for the kids. We all know Quinton is all about saving the Dolphins and recycling but never knew Blaine was too. Blaine was so intrigued from day one asking when they would be installed, he couldn't wait to come home so he could see them.

Insulation

Thank God, my biggest fear has been that our pipes would freeze before we got our house insulated. We had the foam spray put on all the exterior walls and soundproof insulation on the interior walls.

I am not saying that our friends are loud!!!

The insulation was installed while we went south for Thanksgiving. We stayed at the Hampton Inn on the way to Kentucky and felt like we were in a palace! I forgot what a big shower felt like, a mirror in the bathroom, and HEAT!!!!!

Giants and Bunco room

The walkway to the Man Cave!!! Future Giant games and poker nights! Who is he kidding? This is the future Female Escape for Bunco! Neither of us may not even have friends by the time we are ready to use this room at the rate we are going and if we do, we owe a ton of paybacks!! We will be hosting every event!!!

The hallway made Quinton's room smaller but I actually like it better because it looks more even. The room was long and odd before.

Radiant Heating

The men have started installing the floor heating system. They say it should be done in two weeks! They better because we are gonna freeze. We have borrowed electric heaters for our one room but the bathroom is still soooo cold! I think it is about 25 degrees everyday! We plug in heaters, crank up the shower so it steaming hot then take our showers!! It's a joke...

Plenty of help for Zan

The kids love helping, we are ripping the sheetrock off the rest of the existing house so we can remove the old insulation. We are having foam insulation installed this week. Below, you can see the Mac children over also pitching in and loving knocking down the walls!

Grass is Planted

The old owners would be so upset with us. We cut down all the trees on the side yard then Blaine wanted the last little Apple tree cut down! He said he needed room to play kickball!! I later remembered that I bought a bunch of huge ornaments to hang in the tree at Christmas!! UGH

We planted grass...hopefully not to late in the season. keep your fingers crossed for us, we need a little luck.

We even get help from the neighbors

Chance is our "little helper", he loves putting on gloves and helping daddy! Blaine, we have to bribe a bit! The neighbor was helping us out this day, the tree trunks that were all buried in the trench pipe had to be cleaned up so we could plant grass! The boys worked so hard....

Santa puts in front porch post

Where, where is Santa???? He flew in from the North Pole to deliver my front porch as an early Christmas gift! I LOVE it, now I can sip hot chocolate and watch the kids play! Santa also leveled off the yard so we could have grass planted!

the old trench pipe

We had more trees removed and this is what we discovered! More trouble!! Our drainage pipe had a root growing in it! We placed two new ones and with NO trees in the yard, it better not happen again!

Cleaning up the tree mulch

Wow, there was so many tree stump grindings!! We hired two helpers, plus Zan and it still took a full day. We loaded it all in bags and are just hoping the garbage people take it away!

Santa also started on my front porch! At the end of the day, he also leveled the yard a bit for us, almost ready for GRASS!!!!

Tennessee with family

My friend Mandy and Scott's kids! Zan and I met at their wedding!



My gorgeous nieces.

Brave me, letting Blaine ride me and Chance..

the Twins and more cousins

Blaine and Aiden with baby chicks

More Vacation photos

We are so proud of Zan! Many months of training for the Ironman. We chased him around for 16 hrs!

Blaine and AC

Blaine and Frankie

Labor Day Parade with cousins

August vacation

Where are the Franc's?

No Blog postings! We took a sebbatical! Actually, we had plans and did not want to miss out on some summer fun with the kids and our families! First, we were off to the Jersey Shore with Zan's family. Second, me and the kids took an eighteen hour road trip to TN and hung with my parents and cousins. then we drove up to KY where Zan flew to meet us and he completed the Ironman! We, with his parents drove back to Jersey and two days later, Zan and I flew to Florida to see our friends, they had a baby boy, Jake!!! Say prayers for him, he is a thriving 1lb 9 ozs. We came back to start running at full speed! We are ready to start school and get back to the crazy life of school, homework, sports, juggling babysitters, getting a million estimates on random stuff, and trying to get this house insulated before OLD MAN WINTER arrives!!! Here are a few pics of our relaxation that we REALLY needed.

Trees chopped down

I decided that I could not handle having a front porch if I had to look through all the trees to see my kids!

I insisted on chopping them all down! Zan thought I was nuts but I like open and yes I am from the back yards of TN. I am sure my parents won't be happy since my dad and Zan risked their lives to cut limbs a few weeks ago! Plus, my mom and I spent three days cutting all the limbs! Such a waste of quality time!

Once the limbs came down, I realized that I liked it so much better and would LOVE for it to all be open. Sorry mom and dad!!!

Old House

I got a lot of emails asking to see original house. I was also looking at the inside "before" pictures. It's nuts how you can rip apart a house. I just want it finished!!!

Front of house

Here's the "almost" finished house. Zan still has to paint the windows and get a new door.

Atleast we can drive up and pretend we have a house!

Garage Doors

Hi Everyone! I am getting fussed at from people for not updating the blog!!!

We have been sooooo busy with the kids, play dates, camps, trips, and above all TRAINING FOR THE IRONMAN!!!

Actually, as I am updating....Zan hitched a ride with a good friend of his up to his home in Yankee Lake. He is going to swim (next to CC in his boat)then hop out of the water (pretending, he's at the ironman) and ride his bike 85 miles home!! ONLY MY HUBBY!!!

BUT... Zan did take a day off last week to paint our garage doors!! They were tan. They loook so good! We have almost finished the exterior of the house. Zan and his father have started the plumbing inside so its coming together. Everyone taking this weekend off but plan to have some extra help next weekend to get moving!!

We are still living above the garage. We lost our air conditioner unit so they could put up the siding. My dad helped us install a portable one that keeps us pretty cool. Hate to see our electric bill but thank god for it because it's been HOT!

I will update a picture of the outside tomorrow.

Uhaul trip

Dad had to rush off to a Football Coaches meeting so guess who had to load all the kids in the Uhaul to return it??? Chance loved sitting in the front seat, up so high!!!! Good thing I didn't get pulled over.

We often get fussed at that we are too busy with the kids while trying to renovate but that's life! We do what we can do then run out too hang with friends. I think that is what keeps us sane doing this project, having friends and staying busy with other things besides just the house.

The downfall? We may be living above the garage for a long time!

Are you Dressed?

We woke up to heavy banging! I am in shower and Zan yells, don't walk out! Our window was gone in seconds so I had Blaine climb out to offer coffee!!!!

Parents are the BEST

Thanks to Grandaddy, we have a really cool swing set! he even put shingles so we can sleep in it! We need the extra space these days! he just forgot to put a lock on it.

The kids LOVE it. Chance enjoys all his special things and the boys love the Monkey Bars.

Blaine's new Basketball Hoop

My dad put up Blaine's new Basketball hoop that he got from all his friends! He LOVES it! He says "thank you" to all of you and his grandaddy!