Let the fun begin!

After only a year, the time has finally come to redo the living room, dining room, and kitchen.  We're so excited!  A friend of ours, Allen Thompson, is going to be doing the work since Shane just doesn't have the time with his work schedule.  That's why it's taken so long to get around to it in the first place.  At any rate, I took some before pictures and thought I would blog the progress and then the final product.

Here is the living room before.  Now, keep in mind that we have been slowly working on the deconstruction over the year, so it hasn't looked like this the entire year.  Also keep in mind that these pictures were taken after we took out the furniture and things that could be taken out, so it's not usually this empty, either.

Allen will be finishing the fireplace/hearth, enlarging and finishing the doorway into the dining room, sheetrocking that same wall, installing new can lights in the ceiling, replacing the windows, retexturing the entire room, painting and putting up new trim.  Under the carpet is what appears to be an oak hardwood floor, so once all the other stuff is done, we will take out the carpet, and sand down and refinish the floor.  The light fixtures will be replaced with ceiling fans.

These first five pictures are taken from the front door, starting with looking to the north and then making the way around the room.

Josh was being silly and posing.

This one is of the front door from the dining room doorway.

Now here are pictures of the dining room.  In here, we will be painting, putting in new trim, a ceiling fan where the smaller light fixture is, and a new laminate floor. 

This picture is taken from the living room doorway. The blue chair doesn't actually live there; it lives in the living room.  It was too wide to get down the stairs with the other furniture and there isn't room for it in the bedrooms, so it will get shuffled around depending on what room is being worked on at the time.  Eventually, we're going to put a cabinet with built-in desk in the corner where the desk is now, but that will be a little ways down the road.  That doorway leads into two bedrooms and the bathroom.

Here's from the doorway by the blue chair.

And here's from the kitchen.

Finally, here's the kitchen.  We're getting new cabinets (including room for a dishwasher!), same laminate flooring as the dining room, and it will be repainted.

These pictures are taken from the dining room.  This doorway leads out into the laundry/utility room.  That room is one of next year's projects.  Some of these kitchen cabinets will be moved out there for additional storage.  That will be really nice.

And this one is taken from the laundry room.  That missing cabinet door just came off in the last week.  Good timing, eh?

So yeah, we're pretty excited to get all of this redone.  We're hoping it will be done in time for Thanksgiving, since the family usually comes here to get together for the holidays.  I'll post updated pictures as we go along so you can share in our excitement.  :)

First Snow

Last night we got our first measurable snow of the season.

Shane and the kids spent much of the morning cutting and stacking yet another load of firewood.

And, of course, where there's snow, there must needs be playing in said snow.  Olivia's snow horse:

I guess it's time to dig out the snow pants and hot chocolate!

I Spy a Baby

Some pictures too cute to not share

Here are a couple of pictures I took of Rebekah in the last couple of days.  It's hard to believe she's getting so big already!

Joshua loves Mickey Mouse.  I mean... LOVES Mickey Mouse. Olivia had this stuffed Mickey doll that she has now passed down to Joshua and he plays with it all the time and sleeps with it every night.  One night Shane was playing around and put one of Rebekah's old pacifiers into Mickey's mouth.  Well, Joshua was so tickled that now he insists on Mickey having his pacifier every time he's in bed, too.  Today at nap time I snapped a picture of the binky buddies and just had to share.

Joshua is 2!!

Okay, so I'm a total slacker on the blogging lately, but things have been busy.  We've started back with our homeschooling routine, we've got lots of activities/meetings going on with church, piano lessons, Thomas is back in scouts after the summer break, and I've been spending my free time doing a lot of knitting and crocheting.

But I had to share the news that Joshua turned 2 last Thursday and share some pictures.  Joshua continues to be a sweet and wonderful little man who is such a joy.  He still isn't speaking and we're not sure if it's due to the slight hearing loss he suffered as a result of the meningitis he had, or if it's completely unrelated.  Either way, he's doing very well with signs and finds ways to communicate his needs.  He doesn't express nearly the level of frustration that Benjamin did at the same age when he wasn't able to speak.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our little man on his second birthday.  Plus a bonus picture of Rebekah, who is now 4 months old!

Here's his haul from Grandma & Grandpa Skidmore.

This was his favorite gift of the day - a wooden rubber band gun.

He got $2 in birthday money from Grandma Skidmore, which he spent on two candy bars right before we had his party. So by the time we had the cupcakes, he wasn't hungry anymore and never did eat this cupcake.

And here's our sweetie pie, Rebekah.  She still looks just like a blue-eyed Olivia.  So darling!

Basic Crochet Newborn Cap

Crochet Newborn Cap

Supplies:

Worsted weight yarn.  I especially like Caron Simply Soft.

Size H/5.0mm crochet hook

Yarn needle.

Gauge:  About 3 DC and 2 rows per square inch.

Pattern:

Round 1:  Make Magic Loop.  Ch 2.  10 DC inside loop.  Pull yarn end tight.  Sl st into top of ch 2. (10 DC)

Round 2:  Ch 2.  2 DC in each st.  Sl st into top of ch2. (20 DC)

Round 3:  Ch 2.  *1 DC in next st, 2 DC in next st.*  Repeat * * to end of round.  Sl st into top of ch 2. (30 DC)

Round 3:  Ch 2. *1 DC in next 2 st, 2 DC in next st.*  Repeat * * to end of round.  Sl st into top of ch 2.  (40 DC)

Rounds 4 – 7:  Ch 2.  1 DC in next st.  1 DC in each stitch until end of round.  Sl st into top of ch 2.  (40 DC)

Make edging:

For girls cap:  *Skip 1 st.  5 DC in next stitch.  Skip 1 st.  Sl st into next stitch.*  Repeat * * to end of round.  Sl st into first st.  Fasten off.  Weave in ends.

For boys cap:  Ch 1. SC in each stitch to end of round.  Sl st into ch 1.  Fasten off.  Weave in ends.

Add optional embellishment of your choice.

Feel free to sell the items you make using this pattern, but please do not sell the pattern.  Thanks!

MIA

Sorry I've been so long away from the blog.  It's been a busy summer and I haven't had much time to really sit down and update things.  I'll try to get back here and share some news in the next week or so.  I've been doing a lot of knitting and crocheting and will share some pictures of what I've been creating as well.  I designed a newborn crochet cap and am sharing the pattern on Ravelry.com, which is a knitting and crochet pattern database website and needed a link for others to see the pattern, so I'm adding it here to the blog.  :)

The Toddler and the Diaper Sprayer

Yesterday I was in the dining room and I heard a sound coming from the bathroom that got me more than a little concerned.  I raced to the bathroom and, sure enough, there was Joshua with diaper sprayer in hand.

Was he hosing down the whole bathroom, as you would expect the typical toddler to be doing?  Oh no... that's much too juvenile for Joshua, the grownup trapped in a toddler's body.

He had taken a clean diaper from a hamper of diapers that I had folded, but not yet put away, tossed it into the toilet and he was hosing it down.

I honestly didn't know whether to congratulate him or to discipline him.  I mean, it's kind of hard to be mad when they're using the thing they're not supposed to be playing with in the appropriate manner, and then when they look up at you with a big grin, so proud of themselves.  So I just laughed, took the sprayer away, led him out and closed the door.  Funny boy!!

Chickens

Having chickens this year has been a new and fun experience.  It has also been a challenge at times.  About a month ago we bought 60 baby chicks (mostly hens, some roosters).  Some of them were going to other owners, but most of them were going to be ours.  Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago a skunk got into their little coop and killed all but about 10 of them. Over the course of the next week the rest of them died, we suspect from the trauma.  So that was very sad and frustrating.  That leaves us with our adult chickens - 1 Leghorn rooster, 2 Leghorn hens, 3 Barred Rock hens, 1 Silkie bantam hen, and we still have the 2 turkeys as well.
 

The good news, though, is that our adult hens have started laying eggs!  Not real consistently yet, but we've had 4 eggs in the last week - 1 brown from a Barred Rock hen and 3 whites from Leghorn hens.  Our chickens are free ranging and have taken up roosting and hanging out in the barn.  I had started looking around while I was out there to see if they had started laying yet, but hadn't seen anything yet.  Then last week the kids came running in the house yelling and jumping up and down with 1 brown and 1 white egg that they found in the barn.  The next day there was another white egg.  Then nothing for a few days until today when Liz was out in the barn cleaning her horse tack.  One of the leghorn hens started clucking very loudly, then started pecking at the ground.  Liz looked and saw that the hen had just laid an egg!  So she swiped it up and brought it in the house.


This time I got out the camera.


Here's today's egg...

 

And here's a picture of the lovely lady who provided it...

 

Here's also a picture of our rooster, which the kids have aptly named Foghorn Leghorn...

Collecting the eggs has become Olivia's job and she loves going out every day to see what she can find.  We plan to get some more chicks eventually, but probably not until next spring at this point.  That will also give Shane a chance to finish the permanent chicken coop so we can hopefully avoid the same tragedy the next time.


I also snapped a couple of pictures of our gardens this morning.  This is the one we call the "big garden."  It has sunflowers, squash, beets, peppers, tomatoes, and beans.

This is the "corn garden."  It has corn, squash, cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage, as well as a few more sunflowers.

There's also a smaller squash garden with squash and more sunflowers next to the hay barn in the corn garden picture, but I didn't get a picture of that one.

One month old

Just wanted to share some updated pictures of Rebekah now that she's 1 month old.  She's such a sweet, easy going baby and already sleeping most of the way through the night!  We all just adore her!

 

She looks almost exactly like Olivia did at this age, too.  I even had this picture of Olivia on the computer and fooled Shane and most of the kids.