Weekend Project. Day 10!

Day 10 was a Sunday. 

We've not had home church in quite some time and this Sunday we had ourselves a little home church. We have been home churching with 2 or 3 other couples but have sort of disbanded at the moment.  Papa played his guitar for the 1st time since Baby J was born.. did I mention we've been busy! We sang some songs and listened to a short 30 minute sermon Papa found online about The Holiness of Jesus. I don't remember who it was by but it was very good and even the kids learned something. Here they are singing in their PJ's. on the trunk in the living room. (One of the nice things about doing our own church at home is that we can do it in our PJ's :) Another is we can sing as many songs as we want. LOL. I remember the first time J was at a 'conventional church' after we'd been home churching for awhile.. he wanted to sing more songs (and he had a few picked out!) and couldn't understand that he couldn't just ask them to sing his songs! He was only about 2.5. 

Doing the actions for My God is SO Big! R is NOT happy.. she can't keep up with the songs actions at all so her and I did them together. The totes in the back ground are part of a never ending search for more space. These were filled with books, and out grown kids clothes,  that eventually made it outside on the big floor for storage. I put about 18 of these totes out recently! 

 Being a Sunday we didn't do too much on the addition but we did clean up the area and move a bunch of stuff out for ease of working and got a look at what it would look like done.

Papa did get all the insulation in and the plastic up that afternoon while I was out stocking the larder with easy to prepare foods. My mom did bring us a couple of meals while we were building which was awesome!! 

Weekend Project. Day 9!

Well as it turns out we had to get the ceiling up before we could finish off the walls. So day 9 was spent insulating the ceiling and tacking up these 4 by 4 sheets of underlay we found at Home Depot. They are marked on the other side for installing lino but the underside is beautiful wood. I just asked Papa what kind and he doesn't know. The only problem was that because the side we wanted to use was the BOTTOM (unseen side) of the side everyone else uses they had placed 2 stickers on opposite corners on each piece! One in each of our national languages. What a pain! We did hit on a system that worked to remove the stickers and once we figured it out they came off very nicely without much time lost. Here is Papa placing a 4x4 sheet on the ceiling. Papa made a jig to cut the panels which made life a lot easier. I had to help hold a panel 3 or 4 times but other then that he did it all himself. He also tied a 2x4 to the back side of the step ladder and used it to hold the top of the panel in place while he fitted and nailed up the other side. Very neat! 

Papa also got that last back window in. So here is what I worked on that day! The bales in that end wall. They are sitting in the corner there under the window but very hard to see. All made to fit and ready to be put in after the ceiling was finished. I also got 6 bales for the last row of bales on the long trailer side wall up on the trailer roof so they could just be fitted in. I also did some laundry but the rest of the day is a bit of a blur. I remember we were BUSY all day but don't remember what else we did :( Sorry. Oh RIGHT I just remembered I took that wall on the left side of the door down and Papa made sure it the wood beside the door was not causing the door to shut hard. It still shuts hard but that board isn't causing it. Then I rebuilt the wall. I also took down the bales on top of the window and door next to the trailer and Papa added another board on top of the door jig so the bales would sit even. He also screwed the window box to the trailer as we had some trouble with it moving! 

Before we went to bed that night we had ONE FINISHED WALL!!!! Beautiful isn't it! Papa finished it while I sat on a lawn chair and watched! I was very tired and a tiny bit cranky.. I look on my blog and I see, as do you Day 9. But what I, or you, don't see is the days in between the days. Yes it's day 9 of working on the addition.. but it's been since Sept 9 that we've been working on this addition. Almost every day Papa has had off since Sept 9th has been, in some way, working on this addition!! That's 3 months!! Not 9 days! 9 days sounds fast. 3 months is SLOW!!! Anyway it was late and seeing a finished wall lifted BOTH our spirits and all of a sudden it felt like maybe we'd have an addition after all!! 

A view of the part of the ceiling that got finished that night!

That night we had Pizza and Root beer floats for supper.. sort of a celebration for the, at that point, almost finished wall.. 

Snow... and a Beautiful Sunset!

J on the Tramp with his 1st snowball of the year! We went through all the kids winter clothes that afternoon and the older boys need boots and J needs snow pants but the girls are good for the year. So J and L are in rubber boots, but it's still pretty warm so they were not cold. 

The kids play area. They are all standing in front of the sand box which has been covered for the winter. Love the light in these pictures! The sunset must have been amazing that night! Too bad we can't really see the sunset from our place! 

I told the kids to line up biggest to smallest and didn't notice that Chip had really wanted to be in the picture as well.. so I took one with him in it too. From a very young age he would sit when ever he was confused and he still does it. 

"I'm behaving, honest I am..PLEASE can I be in the picture too... " 

Weekend Project. Day 8

Pipe for the wood stove is in!! It was a bit tricky to get in as it snowed and rained and snowed and rained.. and froze at night. So the tin was a sheet of ice! Then Papa had a great idea and on his first day off (of 5 in a row!) he sprayed the roof off with our outside sink hose.. Warm water! Melted the ice off the tin and that evening it had dried off enough to put the pipe in. It's an 8 inch insulated pipe through the roof. Looking forward to having a 8 inch pipe all the way up. With the old setup we had a 6 inch neck in the middle because of the hole in the roof. This will be MUCH better! BTW thank you to R and C from Josh's work who let us borrow the step ladder for the weekend! Got to get us one of them!! No more standing on a bucket! :) 

The outside wall. The windows are 4 by 3 and look super nice!! The wall is almost finished in this photo.. just need to stuff some cracks and fill in the top above the windows. See the chicken?? She's been roosting up there for the last few days. Papa and I need to take a pair of scissors and go clip some wings so they have to stay in their winter quarters. Right now, even with the fence hot, they just jump out. 

This is what took up a good chunk of Day 8. We went to town and got parts and pieces and picked up 50 more straw bales. We also picked up my yearly bulk food order! :) 

Door windows got put in and BOY DO THEY LOOK NICE!! This is the back door. The window opens for venting front to back. 

This is the front door! Love it!! 

Baby J is 4 Months Old!

The pillow is there for sizing! He's a BIG boy!! Look at the rolls on his legs!! 

Jesse is 4 months old! He has a tooth and is around 18lbs. He loves his toys and siblings and can move around on the floor to get to either. Smiles lots, laughs often and eats like he's got two hollow legs :)  He's in 12 month clothing and they fit him nicely! He is a very gentle baby and loves to play with my hair. He loves to laugh and L is the best one to get laughs out of him. Recently in J's school he had to make a book with a page for each family member and say how they help the family.. He said Baby J makes us SMILE!! So very true! He normally sleeps at least 9 hours at night and loves his blanket over his face! And he's cute to boot :)

Making The CAKE!!

It's tradition around here that the birthday child gets to help make their birthday cake! Here is E wielding my new mixer while R looks on! She was pretty excited for her birthday and we had to count down for some time, around 30 days!, because she'd ask us every day 'When is my birthday!' She's the only birthday in the fall as everyone else is in the spring or summer.. so she waited  A LONG time for her birthday! 

Yummy chocolate cake! J asked me the other day if I knew how to make any other flavor of cake.. Apparently he thought I only ever made chocolate because I didn't know how to make any other kind. Which is funny because he's right I've not made another kind of cake in YEARS!! I think I may get a request on J's birthday to make another kind. We rarely make anything but birthday cakes around here and they always want chocolate.. Except Papa.. he gets apple pie as he doesn't like cake! What a weirdo I married.. who knew there was people who didn't like CAKE!! :) That's OK though as we all like apple pie too :) 

Awana Wacky Hair Night!

J loves awawa.. but it's kinda hard to do 'wacky hair' when you haven't got much of it! Mrs. T had some colored hair spray and so we made him a red headed boy! His vest is missing the green patch that says Hangglider... I need to sew it on. Speed sew did NOT work.. bummer. I hate to stitch. :) 

Washing it out! We had to do it a couple of times as the color really stuck! I think the water in the background is cool! 

~A Little GIRL 4 Year Old Birthday!~

This week when we got together with the T's for our weekly Friday afternoon we hit on a little girl birthday!! Mrs T had planned a mini party for E and got all the kids to make her a card as well! 

 Working on the card! Mrs T has all kinds of crafty stuff!! Here she's giving out stickers, princesses for the girls and Mickey Mouse for the boys!

The end result! An AWESOME Rainbow Birthday card! 

 The Birthday Girl making part of the rainbow! Miss T looking on! The skirt E is wearing is from Miss T and she loves it and HAD to wear it to go see T's!!

Mrs. T made cupcakes and served them with candy's and (missing from the picture) homemade chocolate chunk ice cream I made the night before! YUM!!