The Farm House update

Before we (and I say "we" very loosely) took the house down, Ryan needed to remove 3 trees near the house, and the most of the pine trees to the west of the house. They came down very smoothly, and no one was hurt! It made a nice stack of firewood.

The entire house came down in under an hour.

During the demolition, Matt in the backhoe would load up the trucks with the rubble,

which Ryan and Ron dumped into a hole. This is our entire (burnable) house!



Then Ryan set it on fire.

And the next day, there was nothing left but smoldering ashes.

"Out with the Old, In with the New"

Here the guys are measuring out the spot, setting up dig lines. Notice the little supervisor in the red stripe dress. She was right in the thick of it the entire evening.

After Matt dug a nice, square hole, Ryan shoveled pea gravel in the bottom.

Today, the Masonry team came and poured our basement footers.

The Masonry guys should be done at the end of the week!

I am Sooooo EXCITED!!

We've Had a Busy Week...

PHEW!

We have been going, going, going.

I washed up brand new sheets and hung them out in the fresh summer breeze. Jack likes to sleep in them.


Aren't his chubby little arms so cute?

In keeping up with the house, laundry, feeding this family, I started working every day. I got a haircut. FINALLY. It's been 5 months. We've been swimming, to a wedding, the drive-in, church, lunch with the clan. And Jack. He's getting so big. He has two "meals" a day now, cereal, fruit and vegetables. He likes them all!

He loves to sit in the grass and pick. I think he likes the way it tickles his feet.

And I had a birthday. I feel the same at 34 as I did at 33. Very tired, but very, very blessed.

This is the cake Elle and the sitters made for me!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Uncle Ben, Happy Birthday to you!

Feelin' HOT*HOT*HOT

Summer has arrived... and it is warm! I am not complaining~ Winter is my season for complaining. What you cannot see in the photo is the sweat beads on her lip. Poor Princess!

Saturday evening Bea, Jack and I went to our good friend Jen's wedding. How hot was it? It was so hot we left before they cut the cake. No one was more shocked than myself.

Happy Fathers Day!

This morning we got up and in the car early to meet my parents for lunch and to swap kids. Elle has been with her Grandparents in Arkansas for the last two weeks, and Will is going to be there the next two. Elle and Will have stayed with them on their own for several summers now, but only for a week at a time. Elle told me on the way home it was a long time, but Will wanted to stay for the exact same amount of time Elle did. We'll see how it goes!

Elle wanted to have a "special lunch" with her Dad since it was Fathers Day. Ponderosa right off the interstate met all of her expectations!

The Daddy of our house, and his kids!

My Dad and I.

Happy Fathers Day!

It's Official....

We are Homeless.

At 8am this morning we had a home. Minus a few trees.

By noon it was gone.

The video clip is like 5 minutes long. A long clip, but when I think about it, it takes months to build a house, and a day to take it down? Amazing.

The Summer House

This is our Summer House.

It's been very confusing trying to figure out what to call this place. Home? not really. By the land-owners name? odd. The rental? strange. So we've settled on: "The Summer House".

It is a really nice home, perfect for our needs the next 6 months.

My favorite part? This. The driveway. It is long.

Makes it quiet, and I have no fear of any child getting on the road!

It also has several "cutesy" features. This little shed being one of them.

And the best part?

I can see our farm from the kitchen window.

As I finish this post, the shower is on, we're getting ready to go watch the demolition of our "Farm House"!

House Update

We've finally gotten all of our things out of the "Farm House". A big thanks to those who helped...we couldn't have done it with out you!



A lot of our things are in storage, but we still have things to unpack at the "Summer House".



And the demolition has begun! Everything that we planned on taking out of the house is out, Ryan had a good time with it. He enjoyed hanging with his buddies and ripping it apart. After the water was turned off and the power disconnected, I decided I was more useful somewhere else!

This week Ryan is taking down 3 trees and cutting them up for firewood. Thursday the backhoe/dozer will arrive. The house should be gone by dinner time Friday night.

I'll keep you posted!

Jack's 1/2 Birthday!

Jack is 6 months new! We went to the Doctor on Friday. He weighs 18 pounds and 4 ounces and is 27 inches tall! He may be the size of a toddler, but he's our little baby!

With his good behavior sticker, and the ever present perplexed look.

Saturday he pulled up on his knees from a sitting position. He'll be at kindergarten graduation before we know it.

The Other Baby.

She's had a rough couple of months.

Jack has rocked her world.

Potty training has gone down the tubes. She pops his paci in her mouth whenever she gets a chance. We've tried everything. Today when she wanted to help stem strawberries. I said: "babies cannot use the kids knife". She immediately took the pacifier out of her mouth and in a very big girl voice said: "I'm not a baby, I'm a BIG girl".


On another note, she got her finger pinched several days ago. She's smashed it several times since. Poor little princess.

Fruit of the gods...

In the midst of our moving, (yes, we are still moving). My friend and Co-worker Shirley, gave me a ton of strawberries!

My fridge is full of these beauties. They are red, juicy and sweet! duh, I know all strawberries are red, but these are red all the way through. Not like the nasty ones you buy at the grocery store that are white in the middle.

After a discussion with another co-worker (ok, she's my boss) on the amount of sugar used in jam making, I decided to do an experiment. In years past, I've always made the same recipe. See yellow box above. 2 cups of fruit and 4 cups of sugar. Yes, twice as much sugar than fruit. We love it. Especially my brother Reuben, and I always make him a few boxes.

This week, I made all four of the recipes shown in above photo, picked up some rolls at Kroger and had a taste test at work. A little breakdown:

Sure-Jell (yellow box) 2 cups of fruit, 4 cups of sugar. The most difficult to make. (as if it was difficult)

Sure-Jell no sugar added recipes (pink box) 4 cups of fruit, 3 1/2 cups of sugar. As difficult as the yellow box.

Sure Jell easy prep packet (blue envelope) 2 cups of fruit, 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Easier than the boxes.

Ball no cook packet (yellow envelope) 4 cups of fruit, 2 cups of sugar or splenda. Easy peasy lemon squeasy.

The result? A tie between Sure-jell pink box and Ball yellow packet. For some reason the sample of the Ball recipe was a little runny. The containers I left home set up fine.

As for me, I'm changing the jam at my house...less sugar...tastes better? win,win!

Try it out and let me know what you like!

Three First's

Jack is sitting up by himself pretty well...

He had his first teething biscuit this week. All organic Elizabeth!

And yesterday he reached for me....

*a little tear for our last round of "first"*

To Good To Be True!!

Most of you know that I have pledged my eternal love to Kimberly. And Ryan. And my children. Oh, and the Verizon man too. His name is Todd.

But Kimberly and Elizabeth, well, They're some of my favorite people.

Sometimes when we hang out, I laugh so hard I could pee my pants.

Not only are Kim and Elizabeth fun to hang with...they BOTH are very talented artist.

Kimberly took my portrait when I was 9 months pregnant with Jack. They are beautiful, priceless photos that I will cherish forever.

She leaped out of a warm bed in the early morning after a late night to photograph Jack's birth in the middle of December. And from that she created the most beautiful gift for me. Ryan gave it to me on Christmas morning 2008. It is the only gift that has ever made me cry.

She has not only captured my children's personalities perfectly, she's captured their soul. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

As I wipe the tears from my cheeks, I have to tell you that Portraits by Kimberly is Celebrating this month. She is Celebrating 15 years in business! And boy is she Celebrating! Check out her blog, and leave some comments...you'll love it when you win!

The After Party

On the last day of school we hosted a "Summer Kick Off" party for both Elle and Will's classes.

These kids were crazy. No, they are not supposed to be up here. But they are.

At one point I had to pull the kids from the bottom of the mosh pit/ball bin/sweaty body pile so they could breathe.

Gross.

The littlest partiers, partied the hardest!



"Take my pikshure, Mom"

Our "Pretty, Pretty Princess".

The Shaking Has Subsided...

And I've pledged my eternal love to the Verizon man.



We've been back online for almost 48 hours after being off for 2 whole weeks.

Catching Up:

The kids are out of school, and we all are enjoying sleeping in! The last day of school was Awards Day. Elle Cantered at mass, we taped all of the songs, but this one was the best:

She also earned several awards, including the 3rd grade scholar award.

We are so proud of her!

If an hour of mass, awards and the thought of summer was not enough,

All the students walked to the Ice Cream store.

I got to walk with Will's class. I had cookies and cream... mmhh

The carpool clan

Really??

I'm working on my Internet problem. I am starting to shake, and I can hardly pass by a computer without sitting down and madly reading all the blogs I follow. AAAHHHH!

On the other hand, I just joined "Facebook". (it's a slow work day...c'mon).

Uh, really? I think everyone I know is on there.

Look me up!