Day 3

Jack got his hands on the house today. They formed the footings which will be poured tomorrow. This phase is so fun because everything seems to happen so fast. The site looks different everyday.

Is my living room really waaaaaay over there?



We have the coolest contractor ever...



... he just so happens to be my husband!

Day 2

By the end of the day, the hole was dug. We've had beautiful weather. I'm so grateful.

Game on

We broke ground today! Jack is bouncing around like a kid at Christmas. He's giddy. We both are. It's finally starting. All of us spent some time at the property today watching the hole get bigger (well, I'm sure Jack's time there was spent a little bit more industriously). Yippee!



There are A LOT of rocks being dug up (this picture only shows the beginning). Jack says that the boys are going to become stone masons whether they want to be or not. We're going to need to be very creative with all of this stone.



The start of the footprint. More big hole pictures to follow. Because what's a blog without pictures of big holes?

Two years ago

On this day two years ago, I had surgery to repair my ruptured achilles tendon. Although it was a long and often difficult road to recover from that injury, I found reasons to be grateful. First, I was grateful that I wasn't pregnant or caring for a baby who needed to be carried at the time. I had crutches for weeks and needed Jakin to carry my cereal bowl to and from the table in the morning. Carrying a baby would have been impossible. If you do the math, I have been pregnant or caring for a little one for about 7 of the past 9 years. So, the fact that I wasn't is indeed notable. Second, I was grateful that workman's comp covered every bill incurred by this accident (if this story is new to you, I was coaching volleyball at the time of the rupture). Two days before the accident, Jack had begun his business and our adventures in self-employment. While I was still sitting on the floor of the gym, I was thinking, "How are we going to pay for all of this?" I am a pragmatist, after all. Today, I am grateful that I can walk. And run. And carry my 8-month old daughter. I'm sure that I take these blessings for granted some days. Not today.

8 1/2 months

Lauren is blossoming into a joyful, vibrant member of our family! Now that she can crawl where she wants to go and she can play with toys and books along the way, she is generally a happy girl. She always has huge smiles for every member of our family. Its sweet to see how truly happy she is to see each of us. Much of her time each day is spent playing with her brothers and sister. While she is certainly more content, she is also more troublesome! Troublesome in an endearing sort of way, of course. I'm starting to find her on the first step of the steps going upstairs. It won't be long before she sets her sights higher forcing us to adjust and set up the gate. I also found her sprawled across a chair yesterday in her attempt to get to the plant on the other side. If her goal was to eat the dirt in the plant, she was successful. I found her with a mouthful. I've always called Corban "My Little Monkey". I think Lauren has some of those same primate tendencies. I anticipate needing to watch her closely.




She keeps crawling into this little spot. She gets stuck every time. I keep waiting for her to learn her lesson and avoid this spot.



Trouble trouble trouble....

Science class

The following three posts provide a glimpse into the wacky world of our home schooling. I needed reinforcements to complete this project complementing our study of the human body. My mom is visiting and she was happy to provide the extra set of adult hands as the kids worked on their paper plate skeletons.

PE class

Our friend Brian, a PE teacher at the high school, is kind enough to coach the kids in archery each year. My boys love it. Even Annie gave it a try this year.




The spectators


The kids practiced some long-distance shooting this year

Art class

Just before we started our "official" school year, my friend Julie taught the kids a little bit about Georgia O'Keefe. The lesson was held in a flower garden with a group of about 9 home school kids. Julie showed some of O'Keefe's paintings and then turned the kids loose in the garden. My boys haven't always been terribly interested in art projects. Their attention span is usually short, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But, to my great delight, they were very much interested in this project. They took their time in selecting the perfect flower to paint and then they both completed very careful, detailed flower paintings using both oil pastels and watercolors. I was quite proud of their work.



Annie started the project but became distracted by her friend Lainey's attempts to make her own painting smell like flowers by rubbing lemon grass leaves on the paper. Then Annie did a few things which made her painting less than what she wanted it to be. Drama followed and the end result was that Annie threw her painting away. It was disappointing because she really was off to a lovely start. Girls.