It has been brought to my attention...

... that I am slacking in the blog post department. My apologies. =D

The house is coming along! I am excited for all the changes that are taking place - daily it seems! Here are a few looks at the progress...

We have cabinets!!

We have Corian countertops!

We have progress on the siding!!

We have wood stairs!!

Hooray for progress!! About a month until we get to move in!!

Wood Floors...

This boy has been working so hard to help put our house together, including installing and finishing the hardwood floors. Don't they look great??

This little girl...

... starts preschool in the morning. I'm not sure I believe just how big she's gotten.

Siding Progress

We had a warm spell last week, so work began on the lap siding, which is "traditional red." Above the red, you can can see the board and batten, which is the other style that will cover parts of the house.

More House Updates

We have flooring going in!!! It's very exciting. Gavin is working on tile while Leif and Keith (our builder) are installing the hardwood floors. Keith is installing the "important" rooms (kitchen, dining, and living rooms) while Leif is working on the "less important" rooms (craft room, MK office, and den). It's fun to see the house taking shape and starting to look like a home!!

The family entrance from the garage

Boxes of tile for the master bathroom.

The master bathroom in progress.

The maple wood flooring waiting to be installed.

My craft room is getting a hardwood floor!!

So there... that's the current progress on the house. It's looking good!!

Merry Christmas from Eliana!

Happy Holidays!!

We are not sending out Christmas cards this year... Instead, "We've Moved" cards will be going out around the end of February when we move into our new house! So don't feel left out if you haven't received a card from us this year. You're in good company! If we had sent out cards, though, here's the picture we took for them. Enjoy! =D

The siding is going up!

Color in the house!!

Those of you who have been to our house in Belgrade probably know that there was no color in it. None. Veeeerrrry beige. Leif didn't want me to paint in that house, because it was never "our" home, it was always just a temporary (for 8 years!) until we were able to move to Bozeman. This new house is, apparently, different, though, because Leif has encouraged me to use some color! It's been a new process for me and one I have thoroughly enjoyed, especially because I didn't have to do the painting!! Here are some views as the color goes on...

The base wall color is "Only Natural" - a kind of light beige. The ceiling color is "Marshmallow" - which is not white, but kind of looks like it in contrast to the beige. =D

The first accent wall you come to is painted with "Hot Stone" - my favorite color! I love how rich and warm it is without being too dark! This color is going to go in our den, too.

The darkest color is "Grey Earth" or something like that. It's in the dining room, just on the pop out. I think it will nicely frame the view of the Bridgers, and it adds some character in the room. This color will also go in Leif's office on one wall.

Ellie's room has the most subtle accent, a light pink called "Shangri La" that we picked to tie into the curtains and bedspread Robert is making for Eliana's room. This color is also going in the guest room and in my Mary Kay office.

The boldest accent is in our bedroom. I went with a color called "Bolero" - and I love it! It's very close to the color that the outside of the house will be, and it goes very nicely with our bedding and our dark bedroom furniture.

So there you have the progress... COLOR!! It's starting to look like a real house!

10 Years!!

It's hard to believe, but we've been married for 10 years now. A decade! It also means that we've had this blog for 5 years now, as our very first blog post was about our 5th anniversary! A lot has gone on in the past 5 years... We had Eliana, I started (and then stopped a few years later) teaching scrapbooking classes, I started my own business with Mary Kay, Leif started doing freelance photography, Leif finished his master's degree, we designed and started building our own home, we changed churches, we moved to Bozeman, I started playing keyboard and singing for the worship team at our church, I started teaching Sunday school, Leif started skate skiing, We gained some new close friends as others moved away, and we have fallen more in love! All in all, it has been a good 10 years, and I am excited to see what the next 10... 20... 30... bring!

Movin' on back....

Well, our move-in date has been moved back again. So, now it looks like we'll be able to move into the house around the end of February. The house is coming along, though, and that's neat to see. Here are some pictures of the progress - we have sheet rock!

What we're up to this weekend...

Yes, moving.

Our house isn't done yet, but we're moving into an apartment for a couple months so the other people can live in this house.

Just thought it might be time for a blog update!!

C-O-K-E

When we picked Eliana up from gymmnastics today she said she was thirsty. I didn't have a drink for her, so Mom asked is Ellie could have some C-O-K-E. Ellie said, "Yeah, Mommy, can I have some C-O-K-E?" We asked if she even knew what that spelled. "I think it spells pop." She's pretty sharp, that little girl!

No Spring Chicken...

My mom is here to visit. This morning Eliana went down and woke my mom up. As my mom was getting out of bed, Eliana said, "Mommom, are you an old lady? You're walking like this... (hobbles all hunched over). You need a cane."

Then later this afternoon Eliana was talking about being 16 years old. My mom said, "You know what, Eliana? I am sixteen PLUS forty." Ellie's reply? "Wow. You're older than a dead dog."

Anyone else want to come for a visit and get your self esteem shot down??

Well, at least we know she's polite...

Ellie has been in bed and asleep for about 2 hours, now. And yet, I hear her talking and singing wildly in her room, so I go to check on her. She is sound asleep. She must be dreaming something crazy, because you can just see her mind turning, even in her sleep.

Amidst it all, she suddenly burps, says, "Excuse me." and falls into silence once again, before saying in a hurried frenzy, "Is it sparkly enough??"

Sound asleep.

Well, at least we know that she's polite - nothing says manners well learned like going through them in your sleep. =D

The Hay Maze

Most years we go to Rocky Creek Farm for the pumpkin patch. This year we ended up doing something different with friends from college who were in town visiting! This year we went to the Hay Maze, something we'd never done before.

Ellie and Makala became fast friends, and held hands all through the hay maze as they searched for the next checkpoint!

We were given these cards and had to find 4 stations through the maze - if you filled out your card, you got free candy. =D

Of course, when you go to redeem your free candy card, you have to go to the concession stand and the kids see that there is also cotton candy. =D Yes, we got some cotton candy....

They also had a little train for the kids (and parents) to ride, so the girls and I went on that. It was very cute and the girls loved it!

(and yes, Ellie and Makala did just happen to be wearing pink bottoms and purple gap sweatshirts the same day! I think it added to the friendship.)

Riding the train with little-miss-cotton-candy-face...

The "conductor"

There were a couple other things to do at the hay maze, including a tent with a corn-box (like a sandbox filled with feed corn) that the girls LOVED!

There was also a pumpkin patch, where we got our pumpkin for carving. Of course, I have a silly girl, so all I got were silly pictures...

I think we will definitely go back to the hay maze next year! I'm hoping we'll make it to Rocky Creek, too, since I really am sad we didn't get to go this year. Fall activities are so fun!!

Halloween... (the extended version)

We are not big into Halloween. We do not decorate. We (aside from Eliana) do not dress up. We do not do scary. I don't even make costumes. I am usually happy to leave that up to someone else, like Robert. =D (He can spoil his niece with fabulous costumes if he wants!) Ellie, however, has been very excited about Halloween this year. She got a $5 set of kitty ears, tail, and collar at Target a few weeks ago, and has been wearing them everywhere. She decided she wanted that to be her Halloween costume. Okay. Easy enough. =D

I suppose you could say that our Halloween festivities began at the pumpkin patch, with this crazy girl:

I'll have to do another post about the pumpkin patch, but we'll save that for later. =D

We got a pumpkin... I normally just process any pumpkin patch pumpkins for pie and whatnot, but this year Ellie wanted to carve a jack-o-lantern. Okay... I've never carved one, so we just kind of figured it out as we went, with the help of one of those cheep-o pumpkin carving tool kits. The tools actually made it pretty easy!

It was supposed to be Ellie's job to scrape out the guts. This is about as far as she got before she decided that was gross and didn't want to do it.

So, it was my job. Fuuuun.

I made a mess of the pumpkin in the gutting process, so it became Ellie's job to clean the outside of the pumpkin so we could carve it. That job she did. =D

She wanted a kitty jack-o-lantern, so we went online for templates to print and trace. Then the printer was out of ink and I was too lazy to deal with it, so we just freehanded a kitty design. I really wasn't sure how it would work, but I think it turned out fine. =D We used a dry-erase crayon for the design, which was neat because it just wiped right off when we were done carving. I'd do that again. Here is the kitty after we carved...

And, of course, no kitty is complete without whiskers...

Or ears, a tail, and a hair bow, apparently... =D

All that was left was to put a tealight in and light her up!

We enjoyed the kitty-o-lantern for a couple days before Halloween - then it was time to dress up and go trick-or-treating! Because I don't do costumes, we pulled what we could find that was cheetah print (or close to it), added the ears, tail, and bow, and then I painted Ellie's face a mottled brown with kitty features to complete the look. Voila!

A cheetah! Make that a FEROCIOUS cheetah!

Leif took Eliana trick-or-treating around the neighborhood while I stayed home and did door duty. Among the things Leif had to say when he came home were the following...

She talked to everybody at every house we stopped at.

She asked politely to pet any dogs inside.

She got invited inside two houses to look at fish tanks.

Most people thought she was a leopard.

She didn't meow nearly was much as I was afraid she would.

She did get cold and wanted to stop after about 1.5 hours and .75 miles of Trick or Treating, but I made her walk the rest of the way home.

Once home, we dumped out the candy and sorted all the milk-containing pieces from the purely sugar ones. =D Then Ellie proceeded to answer the door and pass out candy to all the trick-or-treaters that came by. She talked to them all. She commented on their costumes. She was the hostess with the mostess, and she took f.o.r.e.v.e.r to pass out the candy. =D I'm glad we had some very patient trick-or-treaters at our house!

So, there you have it. The extended version of Halloween at our house this year. It's not my favorite holiday, but I'm glad Eliana had a good time.