We're Billy and Tracy Wickham. I'm an electrical engineer at a telephone-equipment company in Omaha, Tracy is a pediatric nurse at a hospital in Omaha, and Emily is three, going on four, and the boss of all of us. Last October we bought Lot 47 in Harvest Hills, a new subdivision on the southwest edge of Papillion that was a cornfield not long ago, and hired a local builder to put up a ranch plan.

From then until moving day we lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Omaha and drove out to the lot every Saturday morning to see what had changed. In November I bought a Sony Mavica, the digital camera that saves right onto a regular floppy disk, mostly for this. No film and no scanning: the floppy goes into the computer and there they are. I took a lot of pictures. Tracy made me pick one a month.

Click a month to jump to it, or just scroll. It's a long page, and the pictures are small so it won't take all night.

Frozen dirt, a little old snow, survey stakes with pink ribbon on the corners, and a brand-new curb with a storm drain in front. I'm pointing at where the house will sit. Tracy is cold. Emily is investigating the dirt with a stick, which she went on to do every Saturday for seven months. Down the street somebody's house is already framed, and we were jealous.

The excavator came that week and dug the basement out of yellow clay. It was still parked on the dirt pile when we got there. Standing at the edge of your own basement is a strange feeling, and it looked much too small. Everybody says that, and everybody's wrong. Mud to the ankles; Tracy and Emily watched from the car.

Poured concrete walls, tarred black on the outside, steel window wells for the basement windows, and a basement floor with one puddle in the middle, which the builder says is rain and not a low spot, and which I checked with a level anyway. (It's rain.) The lumber is stacked on the right. That's me in front for scale. Tracy says I'm in every picture like a yardstick.

Walls! The back wall is up and sheathed with the window holes cut, the subfloor is down, and the framers' table saw has moved in. Tracy and Emily are standing about where the front door will be. Emily wanted to know which room was hers, so we walked her back and showed her. She was not impressed yet.

Shingles on, windows in with the stickers still on them, and white house wrap stapled over everything. The garage has a big empty hole where the door goes. There's a dumpster of scrap lumber in the driveway and a portable toilet at the curb, and yes, it's in the picture forever now. That's me waving from the front yard. It was hot.

The living room, hung and taped, with the vaulted ceiling we paid extra for and don't regret. Bare plywood floor, a stepladder and a bucket of joint compound. The flash washed out the front window. I'm measuring for the entertainment center, for the third time.

Before the drywall went up, the builder let me walk the house with the electrical plan and a roll of masking tape. More on that under tips.

Siding and brick on, the garage door on, and the new driveway poured and roped off with string and orange flags so nobody drives on it while it cures. The yard is still dirt. Tracy and Emily are sitting on the curb after supper, admiring the outside of a house that finally looks like the drawing.

We live here now. The sod went down that morning (the leftover rolls are on the pallet by the curb), and the rental truck is still sitting in the driveway. Friends from church came with pickups and strong backs, and my brother Wade came over from Lincoln, carried more than anybody, and took this picture of the three of us at the end of the day. We look tired because we were.

Emily's first night in her own room, she came out four times to tell us it was her room.

• Go every week, same day, with a camera. Things happen fast, and sooner or later something will be wrong. A back bedroom window got framed six inches off center. We caught it on a Saturday and it was fixed by Tuesday.
• Walk the house with the electrical plan before the drywall. I marked every box with tape and added eleven outlets. With the walls open that's pocket change. After, it's a weekend and a hole in the wall.
• Run a second phone line. One for talking and one for the modem. Ask me how we lived without it at the apartment.
• Take every picture from the same spot. I meant to. You can see I didn't, quite.
• Keep a folder. Every change order and every receipt. Tracy did, and Tracy is the reason we came in under budget.
• Your three-year-old will find every nail on the lot. Shoes on at all times.

Still to do: get the grass to take, blinds, a swing set for Emily, and finish the basement someday. Stay tuned.