It's beginning to look like a house

This week they worked on putting the framing of our house up. One day we had 1 wall, the next we had 2, then 3 and then we had all of our walls! It is starting to really come together and look like a house. When we went on Friday to visit, they had a "sold" sign on our lot and started putting the flooring down on the second floor. I am sure they will not work on it today, but can not wait to see the second floor finished. On Friday, Skylar took her bike and rode it around our future garage and had an absolute blast. Then she rode her bike all the way to the park. I am just so in love with our location and already enjoy the park so much! It already feels so much like "Home".  :)

Plumbing & Concrete

They did all of the plumbing this week. Skylar and I rode out there late one night and checked it out. She has more fun going down there to see the progress. It is so exciting that she is just as excited as we are. Here are some pics of the plumbing....

They did the concrete on Wednesday. We were hoping we timed it good so we could brand our new house. We barely made it...Skylar, JT and I arrived just as they were finishing up so we were able to vandalize our new house! Yay! I am no going to lie, we were a little nervous. It did not help any that the two people working on the concrete did not speak any English. I said we want to write, can we write? I had to ensure them that it was indeed "our" house. They understood me enough, so one of the guys grabbed the water jug and was going to make a wet spot for us. We found a spot that was not dry yet so we wrote in between the garages. My hand was shaky so it's not perfect, but it is to us! We tried to get Sky to trace her hand print but she did not want to. I just let her have the nail and go to town. To other people, Sky's drawing will look like the concrete people did not do their job but we sure love it! We will forever have those spots.

Framework

They have our framework done! We drove down there last week to see the progress and our new neighbors came over to say hello. They are so sweet, they have 2 kids that are a little older than Skylar but not by much. We probably talked for about an hour. They are excited to finally have neighbors. We even went inside their house for a while to see some of the stuff they had picked out as far as floors, counter tops, light fixtures, etc. They offered us something to drink and even asked if we needed bread to go feed the ducks at the park. So sweet! Already feels like home. It is so nice to meet nice people and Jonathan and I have not stopped talking about them. I just left the property today and told them where we wanted our outside faucets to be. They are doing the plumbing today and pouring the concrete tomorrow. Next comes the fun part...The framing of the house! YAY! These two pics are from last week.

This is our bedroom! This is where all the magic will happen. ;)

The 9th...

Just realized something crazy....In June, July and August I posted a new blog on the 9th day in all three of those months. Crazy! Just noticed that. Apparently that is my writing day.  :)

House plans

So we were supposed to have already started building our house now, but we had major issues with our other lot. It was two lots that we were combining into one and the city was being very picky telling us that we could only put our house a certain way because of the other lot. We pretty much could not put anything on the smaller lot, BIG mess, so we told our builder, FORGET IT! Jt and I were very upset and mad so we drove down to that neighborhood and after much talk and thinking...we ended up finding a lot we liked just as much. We called our builder and he said that was not his lot and the owner of it was holding out and wanted to much money but he would call him anyways. We have had so many issues with houses this past year, I just knew that it wouldn't work out. But...the owner actually sold our builder the lot at a good price so we still get to live in the neighborhood we love and our perfect house! This all happened about 2 weeks ago, so the builder told us it would take about 2 weeks to get all of the paper work transferred over and then we would start. We drove down there the other day just because and they had cleared off our lot! HUGE step for us! Especially since we have been waiting on this since April/May! We met with our builder this week and discussed how we wanted the house to face and little details and Jt told him that we will be burning a lot of gas coming down here to see the progress. He said well come on! Very nice guy! He is a pilot and does this on the side. Can we say bank rolling.... :) Anyways, Jt took a drive down there today and we officially have an address and they have put our lumber on the lot! Again, HUGE step! We are starting to get a little excited about the process. With the wedding and the house it is a lot to take on and we sometimes get stressed. It is mainly from the house crap not going right so now that the house is rolling, hopefully it will ease us a little better and will be fun! Here is our first picture of our future home together!

This is the one Jt took today! Progress people...Whooo hoo!!

Fourth of July

Jonathan and I work most holidays being in the medical field, so we did not know what to do with ourselves being off this week for the Fourth of July. We went to a firework show in Bartlett on Tuesday night, which was so much fun. Skylar absolutely loved the fireworks, she kept saying...."I just can't believe this, it is just so beautiful." They had a moon bounce, face painting, trampoline, all kinds of activities. The Fourth is one of my favorite holidays....just makes me even more proud to be an American and I love the fact that it brings everyone together to celebrate our freedom. Wednesday, we went to my parents house in the country and spent all day doing more of my favorite things. We all went swimming, played water volleyball, road four-wheelers, shot some skeet, ate Moms famous honey burgers, danced along to the jukebox and shot fireworks. Jonathan bought Sky all kinds of fun fireworks. She helped him pick some out in the store as well. She loves to shoot them. My Dad, JT and Sky are always the ones to shoot them off while me, Mom and my sis just sit back and watch the show. I definitely enjoyed our holiday with our family! And being down at my parents place in the country is paradise anyways and always makes me forget about the daily stresses of life and just puts me totally in relax mode.

Thursday, Mom took JT, Sky, my sis and me to the water park in Philadelphia, MS. We all loaded up in the van and watched movies the whole way. We kind of had Christmas in July because we watched the movie "Santa Paws" two times. One of Sky's favorite movies. We all had a good time at the water park, besides their strict rules. We only had to yell at the lifeguards twice. Skylar, Mom, Crystal and me were all floating the lazy river and Sky rode on my tube with a life jacket on and we got in trouble because apparently kids are not allowed to ride with their parents in the same tube. So it is a way better idea to have my 3 year old child "swim" the lazy river with her life jacket on. NOT! And the lazy river is supposed to be that...LAZY. All these crazy kids were swimming and racing and not in tubes. I was very annoyed. Had to yell at a few punk kids and tell them to WATCH OUT! Then there was the wave pool. We all have our own floats and Sky has her life jacket on, we are just a floating to the waves and usually in a wave pool the waves make you float all over the place because the water is moving ya know... well Skylar crossed the blue line by accident and the lovely life guard blows his stupid little whistle at her and tell me, "She CAN NOT be behind the blue line!" I had somethings to say obviously, like I am pretty sure she did not mean to float over there and what the hell is the point of having a life jacket on? Last time I checked it kept you from drowning! Then of course my sister and Mom chimed in and we started being smart asses to everyone. Don't mess with the Morelands! (My maiden name) Sky was a little disappointed that she was not able to ride any rides because she was not tall enough but all in all we had a good time there. Sky called the beach area, her pretend beach trip to FL. She slept the entire three hour drive back home. Great time with my great family!

Life

Life has been very busy lately... Let's see here Skylar is out of school for the summer which means lots of free time and sleeping in with no schedules. Whoo hoo for that. She has finished up her ballet for the Spring and is almost done with t-ball. I love getting her involved with sports and activities. She gets to meet new friends and try new things and figure out what she likes and I really enjoy watching her grow in the process and see her progress. She is a competitive little thing. I have meet some GREAT people along the way as well. People always say you can make so many friends when you have kids. That is so true and I have been fortunate enough to meet some of my closet friends along the way through Skylar's sports. In her ballet class, all of the parents used to do their own thing and just watch their kids but towards the end we all started chatting the whole hour away and that was our weekly adult time. The last night of ballet about 4 of us moms and 2 dads literally put our chairs in a circle and just talked. Love it. It is nice to also meet people that live close to you where it is easy and close to get to and from. Two of Skylar's closet friends live less than 5 minutes away and I love that. Since I have lived in MS I have not really had people or friends of mine that live close and it is pretty nice.

                            
                                   Skylar getting her medal at ballet.

                            
                                Her friend Avery she met through t-ball

                               
                                Her BFF Sophie who she met at school.

                  
                            Her friend Chase she met through gymnastics.



Our wedding is creeping on up. Less than 5 months away! Almost all of the planning is done, the big stuff anyways. We have our photographer, caterer, venue, DJ and the rest is just the small stuff. Which I will get done closer to time. Like the decorations and cleaning of the barn(which is Jt's job). ke he. He asked what he could do to help so I gave him the big project of making sure the barn is up to par and in good shape. I found my dress, with the help of my buddy Ann at work. We spent like 3 hours searching for dresses last weekend and she spotted this one. It is perfect. SIMPLE! Can not wait to meet my husband at the end of the aisle on October 13! Skylar keeps telling people that, Mommy, JT and her are all getting married, which I think is so sweet and she is kind of right. I mean he gets the both of us.

We have also decided to buy a new house. We are actually building one, which will be fun and stressful all at the same time. We have bought the lot in the perfect subdivision, just have to wait on a few bumps in the road with the lot before the builder can actually start. He told us he is hoping to start the middle or end of July. Which is okay news, we were hoping for sooner, but this house will be worth the wait. The lot that we thought was one lot, builder and real estate agent included, ended up being two lots, so our builder is having to get it cleared with the city of Hernando that we can have it as one lot. Which is a blessing! He said if we had not come along and pointed it out to him that it was two lots, that he would have sold it for two lots instead of one, so thank the big man above for that wonderful news. So it's just a waiting game for now. I really dislike moving and leaving our friends that live right down the street, but we are only moving like 10 minutes away from our house now. So it's not too far away. But that little peace of news is small in the big scheme of things. I have two families that I have been following on different blogs and both of them are about to loose their children to cancer. Stupid CANCER! One child is 6(Lucy Krull) I believe and the other one is 15(Trey Erwin). Both of them are such strong fighters and are going through hell. I just pray that God gives them and their families the strength they need to get through this awful time. It makes me sick to my stomach each time they have a new update especially when it is not good news. Just stop and think the next time you are having a "bad" day and think if it is really that bad. Give your families hugs and kisses and cherish every minute you have with your children and parents, because life happens too fast sometimes.