Hi everyone!  We are building our forever home and I thought I would share the ups and downs this way for anyone that wants to follow along!   I am so excited to start this journey but so nervous at the same time.  We have lots of work to do to get our house ready to put on the market in a short time, so the stress level is a little high right now.  The fun part though, is picking all of the features in our new home.  Super excited about that!

Last week, we made the first payment to secure our lot.  Here we are on our homesite!  It says that it can have a 3 car garage, but we went for 2.  Because we all know that it is a Jimmy Schuessler tradition to not get kids their own car unless they want to commute to college.  Make em' earn it!  huh, Dad?  haha

Of course, it wouldn't be a true Tracy blog if I didn't include blurbs about the boys.  As everyone knows, Ben is my ornery one.  He is the smartest 7 year old I know, and he knows how to push my buttons better than anyone.  His new thing is to try to say bad words disguised as good words.  So as we were standing where our new home will go, he picked up a piece of rock and asked Alison, our sales rep, if the rock was made out of "ass-phalt," obviously with an emphasis on the first part.  That child.  He has been telling everyone that our driveway will be made of asphalt.  I can't even.

Anyways.
The model that we have chosen is the Florence-elevation D.  It was important for me to have all of the things I have always wanted since we are building.  So this elevation has a big front porch that I can sit on.  Inside, it has a neat loft for the boys to have as a game room/playroom, an office area for me since I work from home now, and a big master bedroom and bathroom.  My favorite part though, is the addition of the morning room.  I will post pictures of that later on.  This is what our house will look like:

Sorry about the poor quality...it is a picture of a picture on my phone haha.  In fact, these are the colors that we love.  It is a greyish siding (called Flint) with a navy door and navy shutters.  The only difference is, we upgraded to a stone porch so the entire porch and half way up the house and garage will be stone.  Here is an example that we tried today. 

Speaking of upgrades, they will kill ya!  haha.  I wanted ALLLL of the upgrades.  But, that is just not in the cards.  So our upgrades included a morning room (which adds a whole new room in the basement for storage), we upgraded our cabinets/countertops to the Sienna package (cabinets will be white), we got the stone front, we changed the master bath to have a walk in shower, and we added an electric fireplace (another thing I have always wanted!)  I wanted other things too, like a finished basement, a fancy ceiling in the master bedroom, and all hardwood floors, banisters instead of a wall, and extra windows...but it just isn't in the budget.  Rats.  Oh well.  The boys are already planning for a pool and Steve wanted to upgrade to add a wet bar buttttttttt yeah, no.  haha.

Next week, we get to finalize our color choices, meet with Guardian about the electrical stuff, and pay the rest of our good faith payment (eek. that one hurt.)  Then in about 2 months, we will break ground!  ahhhhhh!  As of now, our closing is set for October 12th.  That means that Benny is going to have to go to a different school at the beginning of next year.  He doesn't seem to mind at all.  Andy was moving to a new school anyways for 5th grade so no biggie there.

Sooo now, we are concentrating on getting our house ready to list!  Painting, fixing little things here and there, planting new grass, anddddddd the major declutter.  Boy do you accumulate a lot of stuff in 9 years.  Can everyone say yard sale?  Yeah, it's coming.  Here is our cute little house.  If you know anyone that wants a nice starter home, I'm your girl.

Well, I think that is enough for now!  I will update next week once we meet with Alison to finalize color choices!!!  :)