Amelia's Birthday

BEFORE

The upper right hand corner of the "before" picture (above) is what we sawed down, cleared out and mowed...  

...to make a CAMPFIRE!  Well, that was the incentive.  Naomi has conniving ways of getting child labor to help her clear the jungle.  Um, no, I think that was a bad sentence!  Actually, I was babysitting away from the house for my mother-in-law who was hosting sophisticated dignified ladies such as those attending the homeopathic class.  It just happened to be on Amelia's birthday!  So we went to Ben and Naomi's house.  Because Naomi had some other work that needed to be done... and it's always more fun to work all together, right?!  And a few toddler hands in the mix help get more done, riiiiiiight? :P  

Well we hacked and yanked and grunted and moved fallen tree-logs (with very impressive girl power!), and eventually the job was done!  Then we carried stones and Ben helped dig the pit for our new campfire!  We had many lemonade breaks and made it a "party" by having a treasure hunt all over our property with the kids finding in the end a special gift for Amelia and the makings for s'mores for everyone!  At one point Simeon spied a helicopter not far down the road - it is unusual to have helicopters around here except for medical emergencies airlifted out - so I ran and grabbed my [emergency radio] pager and we loaded up and headed out to investigate!  Soon we saw it was a modern flying sprayer (crop duster) for the fields so we all jumped out and stood in the open prairie space on the gravel roads, surrounded by fields all around and an interesting helicopter above!  It kept coming around and then landing on it's truck to re-fill it's tanks with whatever chemical it was spraying.    EDUCATIONAL MOMENT!!!  Naomi was thinking!  Lol, I don't care if school is done, if kids are with Naomi we are still going to learn, even if it means chasing helicopters!  The cool thing was, we waved to the man in the bubble in the little funny-looking specially-designed helicopter and he buzzed us - lower than the power lines!  It was so exciting and special for Amelia's birthday!  And he did it TWICE!  So, to whoever that was, thank you; you made our day!!!  (Unfortunately my phone was being uncooperative and not working at the time of the helicopter so sorry, no pics of my own.)      

The Work Crew  er... birthday party go-ers!

The girls!  Amelia (turning 12) is in orange.

P.S.

As a random ending to this post, Mom texted us just as we were eating the last of our s'mores and said Pastor was coming to pick up the 15-passenger van (which we were, of course, using)... in HALF AN HOUR!  And it really needed to be cleaned out!  Yikes!  So we loaded up, went back home, got the shop vac and emptied that bus out!  A lot of people must have been missing a lot of things, because in addition to the normal junk of gum wrappers, tissues, and other trash, we found 1 guitar, 13 shoes, 6 winter coats, and a host of matchbox cars, books water bottles and the like!  Welcome to life in a big family! :D

[this day happened on May 16, 2012]

House Project 101

This is what our house currently looks like:

You're probably thinking, Kind of the same as the last picture I saw of it, have they done anything??? And I feel it is my great privilege and duty to tell you YES!!!  ("See, no stairs!")  The frustrating part of  building/remodeling a house is that for the first 95% of it, you can't see much progress!  And in the last 5%, you see 95% of the progress as walls get painted, decorated, and in general, moved in.

Ben is working so diligently and so hard over there every day, for now in the 'invisible stage' of reinforcing, straightening, leveling, exchanging, and bracing so that the floor will be even enough for flooring and the walls will stay standing! :)  And I just want to point out all his work even if you can't SEE it as easily, because he is doing an amazing job and he is only ONE man for this very big project! And for goodness' sakes, we are only 21 and designing and figuring out how you want to build your house seems very intimidating (to me especially) and something that people in their 30's or 40's, with lots of experience living in houses, might start to do about now!  Yikes!

We are pressing on and someday when it's done it will be great!

My Saturday mini-project was visiting other people's kitchens, taking measurements and getting ideas, and picking the wives' brains as to what they love about their kitchen and what they would improve and all the little things in-between!  Many thanks to the families who let me snoop in every one of their kitchen cupboards and drawers - it was fun!  Haha! ;)

This is my beautiful sister-in-law Charisma and her monstrous batch of monster cookies!  They have chocolate chips, m&ms, peanut m&ms, peanut butter... and OATMEAL!  <-- See?  They are healthy! And oh, so good! :)

And another picture of her... (I love this one!)

Oh yes, I am so blessed to have a sister who blesses us very often with her baking (pumpkin pie just the other day...)!  Of which I shall continue to be the very happy beneficiary! :D

Interior Design

The model kitchen that we fell in love with at IKEA:

...it is almost perfect just as it was for in our house (modified slightly to work with the windows):

We are debating between leaving it open under the south window (above) or putting built-in low cabinets/counter there (below).  That is my cute little wooden step-stool directly under the smiley face, if anyone was wondering!  I am vertically challenged. :)

Looking in from the dining room:

And... the floor plans.  Made with the cool, free design software at ikea.com

So, that is what it will look like (as of plans from Feb. 18, 2012)!

Fall

This is the combine by our house!  (See the 'Ben and Naomi' pines?)

This is what it looks like all around us these days!

Everything has changed to fall colors (i.e. brown)!

It is so beautiful outside these days!  There is a warm wind from the south teasing us with Indian Summer... the constant hum of the combines harvesting day and night (mostly beans and soon the corn)... the leaves changing color, rustling in the wind and falling, and the sun glinting off the leaves and sparkling between the trees in our forest grove!  I have the windows open today for the wonderful refreshing air, and I feel very European! :)

Dinner!

Actually, that was yesterday's dinner!  Tonight we are having something special that Ben will really love! :D  (Hint: he likes seafood!)  I've got to go make it now, so this is me signing off! ~NSS

Fettuccine Shrimp Alfredo  Shhhh...!  Don't tell him! ;) 

Dry Goods in the Pantry...

Happiness is... a well-stocked, well ORGANIZED pantry! Yay for fresh ground whole wheat flour, re-filled rice, and oh the amount of oatmeal! (The last now being our breakfast four times a week because it's cheap while still being healthy!)

This is also cool because it's posted from my phone! You see, I'm in the pantry and the computer (in the living room) would be too far to walk! :P Double yay for Blogger finally getting a proper iPhone app!