Pick up lines.

(Always use pick up lines with caution as they occasionally back fire and result in a punch to the mouth.)


Hey beautiful.  Come here often?
What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?
Are you okay?  Because heaven is a long fall from here.
Bond.  James Bond.

I've heard a few pick up lines in my time but I've never actually used one myself...until Saturday night.  That's when I met the new love of my life...in a dark alley...in a bad part of town.  The second I laid eyes on this stunning specimen, I knew my life would forever be changed.  I'd never seen one so strong and sculpted and even beautiful in all my life.  My heart began to race and my hands began to sweat.  I knew this was it!  I had to say something before my chance at this love would surely disappear.  So I did it.  I said to a man I'd never met before, right there in that dark back alley, "What's your bottom dollar?"  And guess what.  It worked!  I knew I had to work fast before he realized what was going on and changed his mind.  Fortunately, Jeff and my dad were with me and they grabbed some straps and duct tape, quickly loaded my dreamboat up onto the trailer for me and then we road of into the night.

Knowing you all would want to see the stunning physique of my prey, I quickly took a picture for you right there in the dark so the quality is worse than usual but the allure still shows through.  There's just no hiding it.  Are you ready?  Maybe you'd better sit down first.

Taa-Daa!

I only paid $70 for this oven that fell straight from heaven!  It's a GE electric range circa 1955ish.

I found it on craigslist Saturday afternoon and immediately called Jeff and asked him how he felt about buying an old turquoise oven.  He said with the sound of disbelief, "Really?"  But since he doesn't do any of the cooking, he doesn't really care so I asked him if he'd pick it up on his way back home but he couldn't because he didn't have the Suburban.  So then I asked him if he would mind to swing by the guy's house to give him the money for it so no one could buy it out from under me and Jeff said, get this, "I doubt that would happen."  What???  Are you kidding me???  He obviously had no idea what we were dealing with here so I drove the Suburban out to the land and we picked up one of the trailers so I could go and nab this baby.  It wasn't until Sunday morning in the Walmart parking lot, when he noticed that every woman that walked past our trailer queen would slow down, smile and wave and bat their eyes at her like they were trying to lure her off the trailer to come home with them, that he began to understand exactly what we had, but I knew.  I knew the whole time.

I'm pretty sure that if it hadn't been black Friday weekend, which managed to distract every other woman in the Midwest, I would have missed out on this beauty.  Or it would have a least required the use of small firearms and bloodshed to get it.

As soon as we got it into the new house I started chipping away (literally) at the 50 year old baked on grease.  Ewww!  Let me save you some trouble here if you ever have 50 year old baked on grease to clean up...  Just go right for the razor blades and straight ammonia.  Nothing works better.  Just be careful not to scratch the enamel.  I was having a hard time getting into all the nooks and crannies though, so the kings of overkill swooped in and COMPLETELY DISMANTLED IT!  Aaacccckkk!!  I think the 50's look of the stove reminded Jeff of his old cars and he got sucked into the process and my dad just likes to take things apart.  Together, they're dangerous!

                          

The previous owner said it had been used by a renter who said one of the burners didn't work but I don't really care.  Cooking is not my forte.  I just wanted this oven 'cause I think it's purdy.  Shallow, I know.  Jeff however, is quickly falling in love with it too and being the perfectionist that he is has already found all the replacement parts to get it back to like new condition so that we can use it to it's fullest potential.  Ha!  As if.  The total investment will be around $200 and when these ovens have been restored, they sell for a few thousand dollars.  So consider this my children's future inheritance.  That's how much I love them.

                                    

Once they got the oven apart for me to clean, we found it to be full of asbestos insulation and mouse poop.  I'm guessing that many a mouse has succumbed to mesothelioma thanks to that old stove!  Consider it a time release method of pest control.  This finding lead my mom and I into this completely normal conversation,

Mom: "We just had a couple of mice."

Me:  "Oh yeah?"

Mom:  "Yeah.  We caught two in one trap, Renegade."

Me:  "Oh really?"

Mom:  "Mm-hmm.  Which is funny because Thunderin' Billy is usually our best mouse trap."

Me:  "Huh.  That is funny."

Yes, my parents name their mousetraps and keep records of their killings, just for sport.  (They nixed their TV a few years ago too.)  My dad also calls every dog he sees Beauxregard and if you're eating chicken he'll always ask you how your cheeseburger is.  The other night he was talking to Sophie while she was hungry and crying and asked her if she wanted a baloney sandwich.  Nursing always equals a baloney sandwich in the Hawkins household.  These are things you can take to the bank.  You can't find that kind of stability anymore.  In fact, the day my dad stops naming his mousetraps and purposely calling everything by the wrong name is the day I will no longer know up from down, left from right.  As reassuring as my dad's steadfast sense of humor is to his family, it definitely has it's embarrassing drawbacks.  Just ask my sister Erin, who, while taking her driving test, learned that the big slabs of concrete running down the middle of the roads are actually called medians, not comedians.

Now that I'm done chasing rabbits which are in the rodent family like mice, we come full circle, back to my kitchen appliances.

Saturday morning we ran by Lowe's so I could pick up a microwave for the kitchen that will also allow Jeff to eat something other than sandwiches while he's working on the house at night.  We're pretty much in the home stretch so it's going to require him to start burning the midnight oil for a little while.  I hate that. :(  Anyway, the microwave is a $200 black under mount that I got for $99.  My choices were limited.  That means my kitchen will have a 10 year old black fridge, a brand new black microwave, a like new white dishwasher, a 50 plus year old turquoise oven and a strict "no drooling" policy.  Now, if only I can find an old copper farmhouse sink the look will be complete.

Aside from slaughtering my oven right before my eyes, Jeff and my dad also got the metal building completely back together.  That gives me real hope for my oven.

                        

As I predicted, it took all weekend, right up to dark last night to take it down, transport, and reassemble it.

                      

Next up will be the plumbing and electrical in the house.

One last thing.  Today is my oldest baby's birthday.  At 8:30 this morning, Madison turned eleven.  Whaaaa!  It wasn't supposed to be going by this fast!  I remember when she was a tiny little baby, suffering with colic every night, and thinking, "Will this ever end?"  And now here she is, eleven.  Boo-hoo-hoo.  As sad as it makes me, I wouldn't turn back time if I could.  She's just as amazing and precious to me now as she ever was! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADISON!!!

                            

Is anyone else feeling a little sick today?

Happy Black Friday everyone!

This is the best black Friday I think I've ever had.  It's warmish and sunny and Jeff and my dad are in my kitchen feeding the kids leftover chili and mashed potatoes for breakfast while doing my dirty Thanksgiving dishes.  And, as if that wasn't enough, I don't have to go shopping today.  Life is good.

Yesterday they (Jeff and my dad) spent most of the sunlit hours taking down our "barn."  It's a metal building that started out as just a carport and we've moved it from house to house with us over the past few years.  What can I say, we're grandchildren of survivors of the Great Depression.

Today they're back at it again and plan to start a barn raising out at the land later.  I'm guessing it will probably take the rest of the weekend to get it back together.  Jeff isn't enjoying this part as much as working on the house and keeps mumbling something about "a day off."  He gets a little fussy sometimes when his blood sugars off.  He probably just needs a piece of pie.

My mom and my sister, Erin, also spent the day with us while the guys were working out back.  We spent the afternoon watching sappy, smoochy, girl movies and doing some cooking.  Then once the guys were done working we indulged in gluttonous activities and then felt like throwing up relaxed around the fire to watch more movies.  It was a fun, somewhat non-traditional Thanksgiving.

I'd like to finish all my transplanting this weekend since it's supposed to be so nice out.  I don't know if Jeff will be doing anything to the house.  I doubt there will be time.  We only have a little over a month before we'd like to move in so I also need to start doing a little sorting and packing everyday.  It's starting to feel like it's really going to happen, whether we're ready or not!

Happy Thanksgiving!

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away I thought I might take the time to share what I'm thankful for.

Hmmm... Thinking...thinking...I'm t h i n k i n g . Okay, there are just too many things to list so maybe I'll just name a few of the things I'm thankful for.

My husband.  You're a fiery, passionate man (whew!) and a wonderful daddy to all our sweet babies. You aredee best...even your imperfection is stupendous!  What's his imperfection you ask?  He sees me through rose colored glasses.  (sigh) I love him!

My children.  I have five of you precious little packages that look just like me and your daddy and even though you also act like us sometimes I still can't get enough of you.  You all make me want MORE of you!!!

My family.  I have the most wonderful parents that always give me an arm to lean on and two sweet sisters who gladly lend me their ears to blather on and on in.  I love you guys.  I even love all you Okie outlaws...we don't get to see each other enough, I know.  And a special thanks to yuns for my hubby!  Ya done good.

My dogs, Sadie and Chili.  Sadie you're my children's protective companion and I think you love Jeff as much as I do.  And Chili, well you're really gassy and you always lick my ankle just after I've taken a shower so I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Chocolate.  Oh chocolate.  What can I say?  You've always been there for me through thick and thin, through good times and bad times.  And now, because of you, I can no longer wear a size 6 and I have high blood pressure, but I will always love you...till the day I have a stroke and die because of you.

My followers.  All nine of you.  You know who you are.  You're the reason I'm here.  The reason I get out of bed every morning before my children do and run to the computer at the butt crack of dawn.  Ooops.  Did I say butt out loud?  Anyway, thanks for being my friends, I need all of them I can get.

God.  My God.  You're my father in heaven, the lover of my soul.  You redeemed me with the blood of your son, my precious Savior.  You painfully chisel away at me like your creating a diamond all the while drowning me in comfort and hope.  Without YOU, I'm just a worthless, empty vessel.

I could go on all day listing what I'm thankful for.  Those were just the icing on the cake.  I hope you all take time to count your blessings and give thanks to God too.

Oh, and Chili, I do love you...in some special way.  A way I just can't quite put my finger on.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Child's Play

I feel like we really got a lot done this weekend.  We now have steps that lead into the house, all the windows are in, the house is completely wrapped and interior walls were built...then torn down and rebuilt.  Hmmm...  Anyway, I also now have all but three of my twentysome plants, grasses, bushes etc. transplanted to the new house so I'd say it was a pretty productive weekend. 

Notice the trash pile is gone!  My dad burned it.  Hurray!

Goodbye ladder!

2x4 labyrinth.

I took a box of sidewalk chalk out to the house to draw in the upstairs to see if what I had in mind would work so the girls and I had fun pretending to use the chalk drawn bathroom and walk through the chalk drawn doors.

Then the kids decided to color all over the floor downstairs and naturally that lead to drawing hop-scotch.  As soon as Gracie finished drawing the last square, rocks began flying everywhere and children began hopping all willy-nilly, like loud, squeelly, laughing popcorn.  It was obvious they had no idea what they were doing and needed an intervention.  I, being an expert on the rules of hop-scotch, calmed them all down and began to explain how to really play the game.  Once their eyes were sufficiently glazed over, I knew I had thoroughly explained the rules.  Then eight year old Gracie said, very seriously, "Hop-scotch is complicated."  Just call me the fun sponge.

I don't know which is worse, that my children didn't know how to play hop-scotch or that they now think it's hard.  This is what happens when you homeschool.  Next weekend I'll be teaching them to jump rope and hula hoop.  That should be fun!

Isaiah spent the weekend being as manly as possible for a four year old boy.  He hammered nails into everything he could and wore a piece of rope looped over his shoulder because that's just what men do.  I think it was for therapeutic reasons.  He is after all, the only boy and he's always surrounded by a bunch of girls.  I think it gets to him after a while.  These things must be done to reaffirm his manhood and regain his dignity because occasionally when his daddy isn't around to protect him, things like this happen...(I don't have five daughters.  Isaiah's the one in the hat.  Poor guy.)

My apologies go out to his father and all his grandpas and uncles.  Oh, and to Isaiah.  Sometimes girls just can't control themselves.  We must girlify everything.

Acorns anyone?

Let's say that a while back someone gave me a pair of tap shoes and encouraged me to give them a try...for him.  Not too excited about the idea, I reluctantly put on the shoes and started to tap.  Little did I know that these shoes were magic shoes and when I would tap dance in them, every now and then, a few people would magically show up to watch and listen.  I stumbled and staggered through it a few times before I realized, "I think I like tap dancing."  Then, just when I felt like I was getting into the swing of it, an aquantance of mine came by and so sweetly said, "HEY!  With every tippity tap of your so-called tap dancing, innocent little puppies are dying slow, painful deaths on the other side of the world!"

And that, my friends, has been my weekend, thus far, in a nutshell.
Except for the part about the magic tap shoes and dancing.
Oh, and the puppy massacre.

Maybe I'm being punished for my smarty pants take on the pumpkin shortage.  Some things are just too serious to be taken too lightly.  Profound, I know.

Let's move on to the house, shall we?  I'll take the K.I.S.S. approach today, which stands for Keep It Simple Sara, or something like that.

Friday:
Jeff (tmi) built bathroom walls.

Oh yeah, this is funny.  Jeff got distracted Friday night by the 136 phone calls from his crazy, hysterical wife a deer he spotted in the woods, and installed a wall up side down!  Yes, that's right, up side down.  Then, being the non defeatist that he is, he threw in the towel and quickly headed home to console his crazy, hysterical wife tell his family about the deer he spotted in the woods. 

So much for the K.I.S.S. method of blogging.  Oh well, my name isn't Sara anyway.

Saturday's to do list:
Turn up side down wall right side up.

Pictures to come later.

For those of you who're affraid I've done gone and lost my mind, it's alright because I have two dogs named Sadie and Chili and turnips are mostly white except for the little purple ring at the top.  But don't worry because all is forgiven and I love Mad Libs.

the end.

What??? There's a pumpkin shortage?

I just heard there's a bit of a pumpkin shortage and we're only a few days away from the big day when pumpkin pie is the center piece, the piece de resistance, the crown jewel, the cornerstone on which this holiday was founded!  I could go on, but I digress...except that I must first say, au contraire mon frere!  Which translates into, "Whatch you talkin' 'bout Willis???"  Just take a look at my freezer!

All that beautiful gold colored stuff is PUMPKIN from my garden.  We've been living in pumpkin-shortage-ingnorant bliss, eating homemade pumpkin butter, the likes of which this world has never tasted!  (And for you who are compulsive cleaners and are only focusing in on my freezers dirtiness, at least I have pumpkin.  Pumpkin for days.)

If this pumpkin shortage is old news to most of you, remember, we don't have TV so I don't always know what's going on in the world.  But I knew this day would come.  All the best economic doomsday sayers have been predicting a food shortage and here it is!  They've been telling us to drag out our rototillers and get them running again.  To be prepared to rip out our front yards and turn them into vegetable gardens because pretty soon seeds will be worth more than gold and you'll need these seeds just to buy stuff, like food.  Well, I took these soothsayers seriously and planted my garden.  Then I told everyone around me to get ready!  Start your gardening!  The end is near!  The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!!!  But did they listen?  No.  They did not.  And now, here we are, right smack dab in the middle of a real live pumpkin scare.  What, pray tell, are they ever going to do?

Seriously though, if a lack of pumpkin pie is anyones biggest burden right now, be thankfull.  And if you have bigger problems than that, turn them over to God and hang in there...then come by my house on Thanksgiving, I'll save you a piece of pie!

Please punish Jeff, not me!

*Just a note. This post has nothing to do with the house.*


*Oh, and Jeff put me up to this...I promise!*

My husband, who really is of legal marrying age, still loves to freak his mother out every chance he gets. I know, he's sooo immature like that sometimes. And because my mother-in-law has such a good sense of humor, I guess I'll oblige. Sorry Jackie...I love you...

Jeff wants me to show everyone what we ate for supper the other night...

Eeewww...I know. We had rare porter house steaks. Rare as in "Oh look mommy! Your baked potato is pink now!" said one of my children to me mid bite. It's terrible, I know. But it was sooo good! Really.

Jackie. Jackie!! Bob, will you pick her up off the floor, Jeff has more he wants me to tell her.

Mark, a friend at work, raised a few cows this year and we bought one at butchering time and split it with my parents and my cousin Ricky and his wife. So now we have a freezer full of steaks and roasts etc...which means it's time for me to learn to cook. We've had fully cooked steaks before and hate them because they're so tough, so we've been cooking them for shorter and shorter amounts of time to find out how we do like them and it turns out rare is dee-vine! Incidentally, they keep getting rarer to find out just how rare we like them. Justin, another guy at work, says he likes to cut off a bite before he even cooks it. Now that's rare! Don't worry, I don't think we'll be going that far. Wouldn't want the kids to become vampires or anything.

Anyway, the only reason we'd ever eat a steak this way is because we knew the cow. Well, the guy that raised the cow. Oh, and the butcher. Don't eat it rare if you don't know the butcher. We don't actually know him but we talked to someone real nice over at his place on the phone. That was good enough. We're trusting like that.

Besides opening our eyes to a whole knew way of eating, this experience has also taught us that 1/3 of a cow just isn't going to be enough for our family. We'd like to stock the freezer next time with enough beef to feed our family for a year which would most likely take one whole cow. So here's the other thing...are you feeling alright now Jackie?  Stay with me.  As I was saying, next year we plan to buy one of these...

We'll fence off an area on our land and raise it ourselves too. What??? Now you can't imagine eating another hamburger as long as you live? Oh sure, it's cute...now. But just imagine when it's grown-up and smelly, poopin' big ole cow patties, swattin' flies and slingin' snot everywhere. Does that help? No? I'm sorry. Forgive me? Here, will this make you feel better?

For those of you who've never met my sweet mother-in-law, Jackie, she's a golf coarse living, country club loving, city girl who'd probably rather be having a "spa day" about right now. And she doesn't care to eat beef. She says "it tastes like an ole dead cow." (See, I told you she has a sense of humor.) Don't worry Jackie, we'll keep the freezer stocked with rabbit too for the next time you visit.

**I'm so ashamed of myself I feel the need to apologize to my own mother. "Sorry momma."**

F.Y.I.

Forget what I said yesterday. Last night when Jeff got home he read my post about piers and tire tools. Well it turns out you can call those post things piers because as Jeff explained it, the name pier is more about the mechanics in what's being built than what is being built. Ppffft...fine...Lesson learned.

Then later last night we were watching the episode of the Office on Hulu where, because of a Mafia insurance sales man, Andy dressed as a mechanic and carried one of these tire tools around with him...

What??? I asked Jeff what it was and he said it's a "tire iron." Hmmm...to me it looks strangely like a CROW BAR. Now I know it's not but surely you can see the resemblance. That must explain why 90% of women have at least at some point mistakenly called or thought of tire tools as crow bars! Mystery solved. And by the way, I already knew you actually use these tools to remove the wheel and not the tire...I'm just speaking in my native tongue. You ladies know what I'm talking about, right?

Oh, and one more thing, the world is ROUND...not flat. I'm just sayin'.

Moving on...

I didn't go to the land at all this past weekend because of Evie's fever. She's fine now by the way. My super, fabulous, awesome husband took the big kids with him all weekend though, so they could get some fresh air and spend time with their daddy and I could get some peace while I took care of Miss Sicky Pants. My dad was there too and took some pictures for me yesterday with my pathetic little camera (he has a fancy camera.)

There's super dad himself! Standing in a new window opening on the second floor.

And here he is nailing in the window. They finished the floor upstairs which looks even smaller than it really is. And they got the house dried in except for one upstairs wall that's about half way done.
It's a good thing too, because it was cold and rainy out there Sunday.
Hey, that stuff works pretty good!

Edjumication

Okay, I just realized something while looking for houses of similar style to ours today on the Internet. Those things I've been referring to as piers are not actually piers. And if I'd ever thought about what a pier actually is (you know, something you can walk out over lakes on) I would have caught the mistake much sooner. Those posts in the ground have several names and a pier isn't one of them. They're really called stilts, pillars or pilings. Duh! Okay, I'm an idiot. But I know I can't be the only one that had a disconnect concerning the name of those posts holding the house up off the ground because no one ever corrected me and everyone seemed to know what I was talking about when I'd say "Our house is being built on piers." Of coarse I'm usually talking to women and we women seem to speak the same language and most men know it's not always safe to correct a member of the opposite sex, on anything, so maybe they just nodded and smiled at me and had a good laugh about it later.



It's just one of those things that happens sometimes when I talk about man stuff. The names and mental pictures of things don't always line up. Kind of like those things you need to remove your tire when you get a flat. You know, a crow bar. I just also learned today that that's not what those things are called either. Had I thought about it, it would seem pretty ridiculous to try removing a tire with a crow bar.

Exhibit A. The crow bar

Exhibit B. the thing you use to take off tires a.k.a. the Four Way Wrench

Anyway, for those of you who speak my language, here's a pier...

And here's a house on stilts...

Whatever.

Jeff has worked things out at work so that he can take off from work after their Friday morning meetings which will give him three day weekends to work on the house. Hopefully that will help thing move along a little faster. Working on the house at night after work just wasn't working out.

I may not be out there at all this weekend. Evelyn is coming down with something so I'm staying home with her till she's better. One of the things I hate most about one of my kids getting sick is it's usually only a matter of time before it spreads throughout the whole house and wipes us all out, sometimes more than once because by the time the first person is getting over it the last person is just coming down with it and gives it back to person number one and here we go again! Not much fun. Anyway, I figure I'll post while I still have a chance.

Today I'd like to talk about the ladder stairs. We haven't decided on the particular look we want yet so I've been scouring the Internet for ideas. Here's an interesting one. It doesn't take up much more space than a ladder but I'm afraid I would become dizzy or confused just looking at them and wind up in a pile of broken bones at the bottom.

I like that these stairs have a hand rail, but the alternating steps might be difficult for a small child to navigate.

Here are some that are similar but simpler.

I'd have to say, these are my favorite. I love the color of the wood and the depth of the treads and the little slots for your hands. Yeah, this might be exactly what I want.

However, anything would be better than the ladder we've been using. It's just plain scary!

Zippin' Good Time!

We had another beautiful weekend and the house is ever closer to being "dried in." The roof is on, the house is mostly wrapped and the first floor windows are in.

Finishing the roof was a little scary because Jeff used roof jacks which are held in place with one screw and there were only three roof jacks which means he was being held up by only THREE little screws! Even he was nervous!

The house will most likely still be wearing nothing but a towel, a.k.a. house wrap, when we move in and stay that way for a while. It will be enough to keep the house dry while we finish the inside so we'll wait till after we've moved in to finish the exterior. Isn't it lovely? I think it looks good with the Sanford and Son theme we have going.

If your wondering about the clothes line with the big nail dangling from it, it's a zip line and a concrete stake. More about that in a second.

Next came the windows. Now it's really starting to look like a house!

Sunday morning, while Jeff was working by himself and waiting for the rest of us to show up, he made the kids a zip line with his repelling gear. As soon as we got there the kids lined up to take turns riding it. One by one, they'd crash to the ground or get dragged across a yard full of rocks, hanging on for dear life only to be thrown off when the ride came to an abrupt halt at the end of the line. A good time was had by all. Once the kids had all the fun they could stand, Jeff put a 2x4 on it so they could sit as they zipped down the line. That turned out to be a little gentler and provided them with hours of pain free fun.

I did get a video of Isaiah who managed to survive the ride on one of his turns.

Plank Walls

Tonight we'll be going out to the land to get started on another weekend's worth of work and the weather is going to be great! Sunny and low 70's. It doesn't get any better than that!

We've been going back and forth on some of the details of the house and some of those details are the walls. We're leaning toward wood planks on the walls. For Jeff it's because it's easier for one man to do than sheet rock which he hates to install and for me it's because I LOVE plank walls!!! I can't decide if I like it better vertical or horizontal though. There are things about both ways that I love.

Here's vertical...

And of coarse, this just happens to be exactly how my bedroom will look with the exception of the bed size. It will be king size.

And here are the vertical planks upstairs...

This also just so happens to be exactly what the upstairs will look like too! Amazing!

I like that the vertical style is very traditional. It's hard to go wrong with traditional.

Now, here's the horizontal look...

I personally like white paint on the planks the best but I'm loving this green color too!

Horizontal planks seem more old timey, more authentic, you just don't see it as often. I'm pretty sure it's my favorite and what I really want but the vertical seems safer. What do you all think?

I even love the way it looks in this kitchen. There's no need for a separate style of back splash.

But I don't want to get my hopes up too high in case things turn out badly and look more like this...

I hope you all have a nice weekend!

Bed Head

You know those mornings when you first wake up, look in the mirror and think, "Hmm, not too bad." Then you pick up the mirror and look at the back side of your head and suddenly feel embarrassed hoping the hubby didn't get a look at that matted down, greasy mess! Well, that's about how the house is looking, deceptively good in the front.



Here's the front...not bad. (Ignore the junk on the ground, house building is messy work!)








But now take a peek at the back side. Hopefully that will get done next weekend.









Every time I'd show up to the house Jeff would be up high and hanging over the edges working. It was hard work and very scary at times, but I managed to survive. Jeff? Oh he's fine. Just a little sore from climbing up and down ladders all weekend. No biggie.





Here are some shots from the second floor. The kids are going to have some nice views from up there.























It looks kind of small, and it is kind of small but it will be fine for a few years till we can add on.








That's my mom holding Evelyn who's crying...as usual. She did a lot of that this weekend. I'm not sure if it's because of the new baby or maybe the big skeleton of a house that her daddy always seems to be dangling from is freaking her out. Either way, she been somewhat unpleasant company these last few days.







She did enjoy the little fires and marshmallows we had though. She doesn't actually like to eat the marshmallows, she just holds them.






We did a lot of fun stuff this weekend.


The older kids are always coming up with stuff to do out there like this...









We had a birthday lunch for my dad...












which included cupcakes.














Sophie took a lot of great naps.










We had a weenie/marshmallow roast and hot chocolate around the fire.













We were entertained by watching Jeff repel down the roof to get those last few screws in.









I even got to do a little landscaping amidst the rocks and poison ivy.

All in all, not a bad weekend.