We're In!!!

For some time now Manis and I have been working on building our own house.  Many of you have been praying with us, supporting us, and in many ways encouraging us through this process... THANK YOU!  We moved into our new house in January.  The house isn't completely finished but we are very much enjoying having our own space and being able to leave work and go home :)  I am sorry I haven't posted any pictures till now.  There was so much to be done and I never felt it was quite ready for pictures :)

Mom was here the last two weeks and helped me get the house from livable to pretty :)  So, without further ado, our new house...

 

This wall faces the the front door. The paintings are not evenly spaced because I tried to leave room for frames... hopefully it works!

That writing isn't actually on the wall yet but it is an idea of what I am planning to do after we paint.

Mom and I had so much fun picking out all that fabric and Mom made all the cushions.

This desk was my great-grandmother's!

Mom made the curtains too :)  She also found the dining room set at a used furniture store... YAY!

  Looking from the other side of the half wall.

Grandma and a friend of hers quilted the table runner for me.  I wish you could see in the picture how beautiful it is.  The little sign in the plant was part of a set that Ani got as a gift.  It says "Pray for Rain."  :)

Ani's book cabinet is in the hallway now.

The bathroom... obviously ;)

Shower and shelves

Eventually the sink will be here.

 

  Door from the hallway into our room.

Our room.  

Aunt Phyllis has made cushions for the glider, they should get here on Monday.

Our bed and Ani's bed.

Ani's space

The closet for now.

 My prayer corner that Mom set up for me and more curtains that she made.

 
 Proverbs 31 that Grandma cross-stitched for me as a wedding gift.  

Well, that's the end of our virtual tour for today :)  Have a GREAT day!

Christmas Eve

 As always we had a Christmas Eve party past night.  It was put on by the school, the church and the youth group working together.  They did a beautiful job.  I will be posting some pictures over on Lemuel's Blog later today but for now here are some of Ani and the rest of us. 

 All dressed up for the party (yes that's the same dress she wore to the wedding:)).  

She is standing next to her new ornament from Mema. 

 With Tati Bobo and the cat

 

 Twirling to the music at the party

 With the kids who were waiting to go sing.

One of the teachers lent Ani his Santa hat.

 The family :)

No smile but she's precious none the less.

 The matching musicians, Sam ad Manis.

Asleep under the tree.

 An angel when she's asleep.

 

This morning when she woke up there was a surprise waiting for her in the other room.

"Is she for me momma?!"

" I love my baby!"

She named her new doll Princess.  

More photos to come... but I want to get these up before it gets any later.

The Wedding

 On Saturday Ani was in another wedding.  I think I lost about three years off my life stressing over her hair which totally did NOT work the way I was planning but in the end I thought she looked pretty darn cute :)

 All dressed up and ready to go.

 

At the church... she wanted me to take a picture of her holding out her dress :)

Just goofing off waiting for everyone to get to the church.

 

She did it!  She walked down the aisle!

We hung out outside for the rest of the wedding.

 All the stress behind us.  The dress and shoes came off as soon as we got back to Wawa's house!

Progress!!!

 Last week Dad, Don and Dennis Keeney, and Rick Bucklew came down to work on our house!!!  They got a ton of stuff done!  We also had the huge surprise of being able to put in tile floors!  We hadn't expected to be able to to that for a long time yet... if at all!

 

 Ani enjoying the house :)

 The solar panels are installed and the electrical system is working!

The front of the house

 Looking out from the dining room

The rock wall Guilbert made for me!!!  It's not quite finished but already beautiful!

Looking down the hallway to the bedroom.  

Bathroom on the left, pantry/storage on the right.

 The shower in progress

 

Looking out from the bedroom 

 Looking down the hallway from the room.

Praise God!  We're getting closer!!!

The Roof has Been Poured!

This Thursday we were finally able to pour the cement roof on our house.  Here are a few pictures...

  Setting up the form and the beams to hold it up is three-quarters of the battle. 

Two metal workers from PauP worked with the guys here to do all this metal work.

Why I love this land so much... the view.

The cement mixer that was given to Lemuel by friends in Ohio made quick work of the concrete pouring part... it only took 6 hours as opposed to the 12-18 that it would have taken if they were mixing by hand.  Thank you Keeneys!!!

The first bucket of concrete on its way to be poured

 A chain forms and they begin passing the buckets down the line

The engineer supervising the work 

 

Ani supervising the work :)

 

 The last few buckets of concrete being poured... yay!!!