Fun Random Pictures

 Can you spell "TROUBLE"?  Lydia does EVERYTHING Caitlyn does. This was the 1st time I let her lick the spoon after making a cake.

 She saw Caitlyn doing it and insisted that she too could do it.  Well I guess she was right, she cleaned it up like a pro!!

 This was a puddle after a rainstorm we had.  We desperately needed the rain. Not only were we almost in a burn ban, but as you can see from the puddle (and the swirls), we also had LOTS of pollen!!  Thanks to the rain, it washed a lot of it away.

 This is really hard to see, and this is actually the top of a shampoo bottle.  The little black thing is actually a lice.  Yep, it was pretty scary, and I had no idea what this was at first.  Poor little Haley probably had one of the worst birthdays this year.
This is why I don't have any other pictures of her birthday, but after I brought her home from school (on her birthday) I was looking at her head and noticed a little bug moving around.  So, I asked her to hold still for a second while I got a bug off of her.  Well, while I was trying to grab it with my fingers, all of a sudden about 3 other little bugs started running around on her head and I said, "OH"!  Well, this freaked her out and she ran around the house screaming, "I can feel them in my hair, they're moving in my hair"!  When I finally got her calmed down, we decided to try and wash the little bugs out.  After thinking it through and talking to Brian and his mom, we came to the decision that these were LICE.  Sad times.  We went through everyone else's hair and also discovered them in Meghan and Sadie--although not to the extreme that Haley had.  It was a HUGE laundry day for me, and a long night for the girls.  Needless to say, not a fun experience, and we are actually still dealing with this.

 On a lighter NOTE--hee, hee, excuse the pun.  Lydia has discovered that she can climb up on the piano bench by herself.  She has always enjoyed sitting on Brian, Meghan or Haley's lap while playing the piano, but this is even better because she doesn't have to wait for someone to put her up there.

She just has to be like everyone else! Our sweet Lydia.

Construction Again. . .and a Few Good Pictures

 This is where our triple windows were looking out into the yard.  They brought in so much needed light into my kitchen, and I will probably miss them the most with this new addition. I will no longer be able to look out into the backyard and watch the girls run around while I'm making dinner (sigh).

 They have finally insulated the walls.

 It was pretty cool watching them SPRAY this insulation into the roof/attic.  It was blue, and expanded as they sprayed it. It did smell bad though and took 2 days.

 This is our new septic system. I'm not sure on how it all works quite yet, but from what I do understand, I guess when the tank gets too full, it will release some of it's excess through this sprinkler system.

 The purple tubes are where the sprinklers will be (I guess).  Anyways, we will need to set it up to go off at night so we don't have to worry about little girls running through septic water sprinklers.

 Here are the bricks, ready to be put up on the outside of the house.

 Many men working on the bricks--they ran out quickly and ended up having to wait a couple of days till another delivery of bricks could be made.

At the end of the day and end of the bricks, this was how far they got, almost completely done.

 Here's our NEW wood burning fireplace!  We are very excited to be able to finally use our fireplace this winter!!

 Here are the extra pictures.  Lydia decided to organize the shoe boxes.  She knew this would be a big task, so she got her little Winnie-the-Pooh chair so she could organize in comfort.

Construction and More

We are now opened to our new addition. They knocked out our kitchen wall and windows that was blocking us from the outside addition part, so needless to say it's been a little chilly in the mornings when we've gotten up for school. Luckily all of our rooms have stayed fairly warm (our poor furnace is probably working double time to not only keep the regular part of our home heated, but also our new addition, which still has holes and NO insulation on it yet).

Lydia has some strange fascination with our new addition, unfortunately there are many nails and other items that we don't like her getting into, so we have to barricade this part all off.

We also had an incident dealing with a thunderstorm and a roof that was not sealed very well. Lot's of dripping water in our living room and our bedroom.
 

The last picture is one of a curious 3 year old and 17 mo. old. While mom was busy, they decided to pull ALL of the books off of the bookshelf and attempt to make a tent with the sheets off of everyone's beds. I wondered why they were soooo quiet--you'd think I would know better by now!!   "Lucky" dad found this nice disaster just as mom was headed out to a prior engagement.

Construction Again

Here's  my quick update for the week, as you can see they have moved very quickly getting the roof up. There has been even more done since these pictures were taken, I just haven't had the time to get out there and get some more updated ones yet.  I'll try to get those ASAP. 

Construction Cont'd

We thought the Framers would come on Mon. to start the framework, but they must've taken President's Day off (o.k. whatever-even my kids didn't get out of school for that) even though it was a perfect day (weather wise) for it.
So they ended up starting Tues. but I do need to give them Kuddos, because once they started, they flew!
They did 1/2 of it Tues., then came back Wed. and did the rest.  Then Thurs. they worked till noon, but only because we were expecting some wicked storms (which did follow through and come).
 This was the view most of Thurs. morning--they were up at roof level most of the time (notice the legs at the corner of the house above)
They started putting up walls Thurs. It's starting to look like real rooms.
   On a sidenote, we aren't sure if when they cut our pine tree down there was a nest or two that went down with it, but we've seen these hawks pretty faithfully every day (even before they cut it down).  They are "HUGE", at least in my eyes as far as hawks go, and there are 2 of them--so we're assuming male and female.

A New Addition

Well, we have the beginning of a new addition to our family.  If you haven't heard, we are adding onto our house, and we are all extremely excited about it.
The first thing to go was our huge pine tree.  That was so neat to watch.





I think they were trying to aim the tree to fall at an angle towards our back fence, but it ended up falling towards our neighbors fence.  Everybody held their breath for a minute until we got the "thumbs-up" that the fence was still in tact and without injury (phew!).
Then after tearing the tree apart limb by limb they burned most of it and hauled off the rest of it.

The next couple of days were filled with plumbers, and people getting the foundation ready to pour cement. They'd work for about 2-3 hours then leave until the next day. 

We were so excited when they finally poured the cement 2 days ago--that time they were here ALL day even till it was dark.


Then yesterday they brought all the wood that will be used for the framework which they will start tomorrow.

We love Grandma . . .

Lydia & grandma. Grandma always knew how to calm Lydia down, just take her outside.

We love grandpa too, especially with his comfy shoulders!

No matter how tired, there's always time for a story before bed.

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