Genetic Influences?

Given that we are so busy with house renovating, school schedules, quilting, home decorating (new houses are a lot of hard work!) work schedules, avoiding the germs that are everywhere in a preschooler and toddler's world, nanny schedules, work travel planning and connecting with each other say, oh, once a week, its likely no surprise that I'm on to yet another apologetic post about the boys. When they get old and read this thing it will be part storyline of their life, and part mommy-guilt-memoir.

Ah. Oh, well.


Back in December when we were in Michigan my dad again took the boys down to the barn to visit the tractors. It was like a dream come true for my boys. They love tractors and construction equipment like its in their blood. Like their own mother drives a forklift and spends her summers on the back of a harvester.

Which, in all reality, the farming part at least is in the same hemisphere. I grew up in a family of farmers, so I can see some weird DNA transfer of tractor liking.

But the thing is that my boys don't just like tractors.
They love them.
Really, really really love them.
Adoration, enamoured, obsessed even comes to mind.

Its that part that I wonder about? How on earth did that just happen? We sure didn't train them to be that way. Tractors had equal weight with trains, dolls, crayons, whatever they wanted to explore for that matter. Still, the self selected these things.
'


From a broader perspective it got me thinking about the how the nature nurture thing works out. Lots of current research puts more and more emphasis on the momma. Whats the best predictor if your child is going to be overweight? Momma's weight as a child? Best predictor of socio-economic status? Momma's highest level of education? Only indicator if you are going to be a baldy? Well, that gene comes right from the momma too. It feels sort of like these boys arrived in this world with a pre-set agenda based on all of my own experiences.

Its rather strange, actually.

And, so we try to culture their own way. We give them opportunities to explore new things and try really hard not to pigeon hole. And yet. Here we are with tractors, diggers and bulldozers all around us.

Did they really get all of this from me?
I can't say for sure, but it sure is surreal to think they might of.

Shut the front door!

Seriously.
We have one now and its cold!

Here's this week's installment of house updates.

Things I learned this week: (1) I'm way worse at taking pictures of the house than Drew is
(2) Its REALLY cold in the house even with the walls up. Props to our construction team that keeps at it.

So here we go.
New unpainted front door. We like it. Maybe it will be red when we paint it? Who knows.

 But at least we have one now. And, its SOOO much better than the old one.

 This is the build out for the fireplace. You can sort of tell that it sticks out from the wall to create two built in cubies on either side.

 Here we are up stairs. The new thing in this photo is the "fake railing" to the stairs.

 Going down the stairs from the top floor. A nice big bank of beautiful windows. I love the windows.

 And here we are magically outside again. This is in the garage. You can see Drew going through the door to the mudroom and another new piece installed are the sliding glass doors in the back (which are in Drew's workshop).

 Stairs again. New stairs at the front of the house from the top floor heading down, while holding Collin's hand, standing on the landing. Drew is standing in Collin's old room. Pretty much exactly where the laundry chute will be (inside of a closet). Behind Drew is the new bathroom.

 Here you can see they took out the exterior wall of the old house. This is from standing in the new living room. The big space here will be a bit smaller, becaue the pantry has to go in, but this generally, is the dining room. If you look way over you can see a doorway into the mudroom. That door used to be our side entrance. Which used to lead right into stairs. If you look closely you can also see the exposed beams on the floor with no plywood on them. Those are the new floor -joists over where the old stairs used to be. Old stairs = completely GONE.

 Thats Jim, in motion, cutting wood. He's our construction lead and we just love him. We really got lucky here. Who builds a house and says at the end "we just loved our construction company?" I'm pretty sure we will. He's been great and we're very thankful.

 This is looking into the bathroom on the main floor from the living room area. Behind it is Collin's old room. Its hard to "see it"- I know. But trust us that there will be a bathroom on the main floor in this space :)

 And finally, a closed front door. We don't live in a barn, guys. Geez.

Windows!

Windows have made a dramatic difference in my world! The house looks soooo much better. I'm pretty excited about it these days!

If you've been following along, you can probably figure out where each of these are taken from, but for those of you who don't know well, I'll still narrate.

He're the front of the old house. I never thought I'd say it, but it looks like the big garage and upper actually belong to it. It looks like we maybe even designed it that way! Ha! We had the windows put in this week, which makes it look so much more complete!

I love the windows.
I guess I should though. I picked them.

Here's the garage and the nursery room. The front door goes in that little alcove area. Those little tiny windows in the bridge above the alcove are one of my favorite parts.

Here's the standing in the street view.

And the view from the back.

This is the west side of the house.

If you look toward the bottom of the photo you can see the new windows in the new basement.

Here's an inside view of the windows in the soon-to-be-stairwell

And here are those fun little windows in the bridge.  I love natural light. Can you tell?

This is the master. Its cozy, but has so much light (and as an added bonus a vaulted ceiling)

This is my kitchen window. Here's the view I'll have to the backyard when doing dishes so I can see my little guys playing.

Finally, here's the living room, with the french doors. The fireplace goes between those two windows on the west wall.

Thats it for this week! We're pretty happy about the windows though. We could ride along on this happiness for a few weeks longer I bet :) We'll see what next week brings.

Stairway to Heaven??

Things are finally moving along at the house. Enough so anyway, that I don't think its looking so much like a monstrosity. I've even started to like it a bit in its rough in form. There isn't a hole in the roof anymore, which is nice, and its looking less like a "slapped together" old and new construction piece. Most of roof is even shingled.

So here we are. The hole is gone. Its our new stairway dormer. I love this part of the house. You might call it my little stairway to heaven. It sheds loads of light in to the upstairs, and I'm a huge sucker for natural light. Here you can get a sense of how its going to look, which makes things a little more appealing.

Here's the side view- now there are shingles on the new portion in the back.

Inside the house, here is what used to be our room, that will be the boys room in the renovation. The windows have yet to be replaced, but you call see the bare bones of their room.

The boys being the boys on a 10 degree + some nasty windchill value day.

Here's the view from standing in the open area at the top of the to-be-constructed stairs to the rest of the new construction out the back. The doorway on the left is to the bedroom above the kitchen. The thing that looks like a doorway on the right will actually have a railing and be a "window"/balcony down into the living room.

Back to their bedroom. Running around having fun.

The new cutout for the stairs (this is that giant dormer in the front of the house with a temporary piece of plywood slapped over it).

This is the view standing in the new bedroom over the kitchen looking back through the door. The little window across the way is the stairway that will go down.

The bedroom over the kitchen again.

Here's the view from the balcony that will be in that very bedroom down into the living room.

Another view of the living room and back windows.

Here you can see the existing house wall- still all together here that is going to be removed soon.

Here's the little knee wall in the new bedroom over the kitchen.

Here are the boys standing around in the play area that is at the top of the stairs.

Another view of the bedroom and stair openning.

Here's the view from the top of the stairs play area into the bridge that goes over to the garage addition.

The boys and Samson looking out the window in our new master bedroom.

The space for the stairs on the main floor.

The backside view with new shingles!

The mud room and bridge.

Another view of the to-be-constructed stair space.

And, from the front again.

That folks, is the update for this week. Who knows whats in store for next week!