Finished

The deck for the most part is finished!  Woo hoo!

Rosie has moved in.

View from kitchen window.

View from sliding glass door.

Complete with gutter, downspout, and dog!

Why is there a picture of a bull?

Well this bull stood and stared at our new deck off and on for several days.

He would just stand there facing it for about an hour at a time.

Christmas Morning

Two boys ready to begin.

First things first.  After all isn't Christmas about Christ?
We always read the Christmas story every year before we open gifts.

This year Nolan read it.

Connor wanted to read some too.

Every year there is that one gift you don't want to wrap because no matter how you wrap it it's easy to figure out what it is.  Well I decided not to wrap it at all.  I hid it inside the tree.

Dwayne wanted a Crossman pellet rifle and I worked and worked to get it between the branches of the tree.  I then made a card that said, "Your gift was eaten by the tree.  It's yours if you can wrestle it free."

Can you see it?  I put a black shirt over the end of it.

It's behind the flower on the right side. hehe

So Dwayne read his card and proceeded to look for it.

I ended up telling him which side it was on.

The boys new where it was and kept giggling until dad found it.

Oh look!  There's a pellet gun in the tree.

Christmas Cookies

I made more Christmas cookies this year than ever before.

I made some special cookies for Connor.

The original recipe is called Peanut Chocolate Whirls.

I made them with Sunbutter and they turned out great!

Deck Update

Almost finished.

Gerbils Part Two

I promised more gerbil pictures...

Brownie and Snowflake.  Brownie doesn't cooperate for pictures as much as Snowflake.

Bald Eagle

You never know what will show up in our yard.  OK it wasn't in our yard but you could see it from the back steps.  Soaring high above the trees with a glowing white head was a bald eagle.  It disappeared when I got my camera.  We keep looking out the back window to see if he's floating in the crystal blue sky.  If we actually see him again and have the camera (insert laughter here), we'll post a picture.

Steps

Now Rosie can get on the porch by herself.

Watching and waiting for Dwayne to get home from work.
She does this everyday... but I'm not sure how well this will work when the railing is added.

New Porch Video

Very cold out!

Deck

Deck progression.

The platform for the steps was also added but it was too dark for a good photo.

The steps are across from the sliding glass door.

Hopefully tomorrow the steps will be finished and roof will be started.

We're pretty excited... even Rosie seems to like it.

Dwayne lifted her up there and then she didn't want down.

I have a feeling her new "home" will be under the sliding glass door... as soon as the steps are finished!

Eight More Feet

Nolan got two gerbils this week.

I'll try to get better pictures when they get their bigger home.

They don't cooperate very well... they won't sit still!

 The brown one is Brownie and the whiter one is Snowflake.

Their new home.
Two very happy gerbils.

Skill

Dwayne found this egg sitting on it's end in the nest box.

Apparently our chickens have some egg-laying skills!

Snowball Fight!

OK.  So it's November 10th, 2011.  We've just had our first snowfall... that wasn't supposed to be measurable.  Well in my book it could be measured (I'd say about 1/2" but who's counting, right?).  It was definitely measured by two boys who have asked for over a month when it was going to snow.  They saw how much there was and went outside in the DARK to play in the snow!

The first snowball fight of the season soon began.  The boys said it made perfect snowballs.

Not so bad looking here.  Then it really started coming down.

And it kept coming. 

And the flakes got bigger! 

Chicken Feeder

My homemade chicken feeder.  One plastic storage container with lid, one Schwan's ice cream lid, one screw, and one nut.  I drilled holes in the bottom of the container and the center of the ice cream lid.  Then I drilled holes at the bottom edge of the container to let the food fall out.  I attached the container to the lid with the screw and filled it with food.  We now have a lot less wasted chicken feed on the ground.  It's not pretty and it didn't come from the farm store but it didn't cost me a dime either!

To Grandmother's House We Go

 We decided to take a day off of school and head north to see Grandma Knapp.

It was a quick trip but we had a fun visit.

I should have known that this pose was a foreshadowing of things to come...

I tried to get a good picture of the boys with grandma.. not sure who started the tickling.

This was the best we got... after all the giggles and wiggles.

And of course we had to get one "big eye" picture.

Saw beautiful sunset on the way home.

My pictures can never seem to catch the amazing artwork of God.