Camera!

Yay! We finally received an email yesterday from Canon and our camera is on its way home! Can't wait to have a camera again! I've missed it more then I thought I would. It should be home just in time for a little girl's 5th birthday! I'm already making up a list of things to take pictures of.

G's wacky hair do's.
Tucker- looking really nice right now and loves to pose on snow piles etc.
J playing the keyboard.
Maggie in her largeness.

Oh and the list goes on! :)

Oh and yesterday I heard and then saw an eagle on the top of the neighbours spruce tree :)

Window Frames, Walls done!!! :)

 The two front windows!! Frames and walls are DONE!! This will be the kitchen/dining room. The kitchen window is the one Midnight the cat is inspecting. Yesterday the cat was quite a intense inspection agent. He sniffed the whole thing over, climbed all over it and tested several new napping spots. Today Papa will stuff insulation on the tops of the bales and around the window frames. He's also building a ramp for easier access to the house for us and the stucco supplies. 

This is what I did yesterday.. well on the house :).. it's metal lathe that will hold the shape of the corners and allow us to have the nice rounded corners straw bale houses are known for. It also allows us to stucco over the wood. Every stick of wood that will be stuccoed will have metal lathe on it. It's a LONG process. Sewing through bales with a bale needle and tying the ends of the lathe to each other through the bale.  This side is finished. 

This side is in process. I tie the strings to the outside of the lathe before I staple the lathe up to the pole and then 'sew' them through the bales to the inside and tie them off on this side of the lathe keeping it tight so the lathe retains the shape of the corner. 

Some ends will be a two person job. Like this one below. It takes two people working one on each side to get a hole like that filled and properly rounded. These doorways will eventually go from the bedrooms/bathroom/ to the hallway. 

By the time we are done with the lathe we'll be ready to stucco which makes working with this poky, sharp, rough lathe 100% worth it :) Every section of lathe makes stuccoing easier!! 

Funny Faces :) Drama Fun.

These two had to do a Drama activity where you only use your face to communicate  It was fun actually and they needed each pick a face and have their picture taken. L is going for angry and E is going for surprised. 

J's Puppet Show.

For Movement and Drama this term J had to do a puppet show, either Little Red Riding Hood or The 3 Little Pigs.. he choose The 3 Little Pigs and did a fantastic job with it. 

The first little pig and his house of straw.

The second little pig and his house of sticks.

The 3rd little pig and his house of brick.

The wolf talking to the first little pig. 

House one and two blown over, all the little pigs in the brick house and the wolf climbing up on the house to go down the chimney.  

Nutrition AKA FOOD FUN!!!

E and L's groupings of breakfast, lunch and supper using the Canada food guide 

They also had to fill in a chart with which foods they used and put them in the right heading... Grains, protein  etc. 

Rock Candy :)

Kids and I attempted to make rock candy again this year, grade two science, and it didn't really work.. it worked better then last year but not super well. At least this year we got crystals :)

J's Teepee

Side view :) 

The art on the back. 

J also had to make a teepee for school :) He did a great job!! 

Birdhouses

 J was suppose to make a 'stick house' out of a cardboard box, Popsicle sticks and tubes of paper.. I showed it to Papa and we both decided it was a useless thing. Then Papa put his foot down and said 'if he has to build something with wood it should be USEFUL" so we built bird houses instead of clutter.. It  also ties in nicely to our on going bird unit :) He did read the pages that went with the 'stick house' project :) 

J and his birdhouse :)

It really was a family project. Papa and I cut the boards, Papa cut the holes and helped the kids put them together. J, L and E pretty much put theirs together with the drill with Papa only showing and holding and  putting in a couple of 'holding screws.' R and J just passed him screws to put in to their birdhouses. 

 They are only missing one thing.. Papa is going to drill holes in the front under the entrance hole for a stub of a stick for a perch. 

L and his bird house :) 

E and her birdhouse. 

R and her birdhouse! 

J3 was SO very proud of his and that he got to 'help' Papa make it!! He loves it!! 

We marked them so when we put them up we will be able to remember who's is who's. The kids are very excited to put them up around the place and see who decides to live in them. 

House Update :) Pictures :)

 Well here you go :) Please remember that these pictures were taken with my ipad :) 

We've been working quite a bit on the house in the last couple weeks. The weather has been strangely warm and we've been taking advantage of it :) We cleaned out the space, if you look in the link below you'll see how much STUFF there was still in storage here. Some of it went to the dump, some to the bus and quite a lot of it to the newly cleaned out back shed. There are only two cabinets left and they will stay in the house. Papa and I made several To Do lists and a bit of a timetable which is helping us look at our time needed/time that we have. We are hoping to have our newest blessing born while we are still in the trailer but plan on moving into the house soon afterwards and pulling the trailer out. This will be keeping us VERY BUSY!! This means that as soon as the walls are prepped and the weather nice we will be stuccoing like mad to get two coats on so we can live in it. After the stucco we'll be installing windows, doors, walls, kitchen and bathroom. Because the hallway is currently in between the trailer and the house we'll only be building a few inside walls so we don't have to redo them later :) 

Ok this is the back of the house.. Master bedroom and bathroom area. If you look HERE you can see what it was like before our last building stint. 

Here is the front. Empty of STUFF and with the temp wall built.. more on that below. That stack of bales in the right middle of the picture are all the bales that are left from the 200 we got this fall. The temp wall ATE a huge amount of these which is wonderful as it's a great storage place as well as a warm temporary wall. 

Looking the other way.. that stack of leftover bales (for building the two walls around the front windows, more below) is now in the center of the picture. There will be a stick frame wall there across the end of the lower ceiling behind which will be my pantry. The vaulted ceiling of the kitchen, dining, living area starts right there. 

The Temp wall..and a great place to store bales for later use... is where the middle section of the house will meet this section. That wall is right where the living area will join the kitchen dining area. The bales in the temp wall will be used for the outside walls around the living room area and the back.. after the trailers removed. To live in the house while we build the middle of it we needed a wall there. It's just a bonus that we had enough bales left to make it. 

The front two window frames are next weeks project. The plywood there is right in front of the dining room window and the 4 top bales by the ladder are where the kitchen window will go. It is about 24 feet, I believe from the front kitchen wall to the pantry wall. 

 After the window frames are finished we can build the walls around them and start our stucco prep. Still lots of mess to make!! :)

Thankful Thursday Feb 14th :)

Yup it's Valentines day :)

Today I'm thankful for Papa. This morning after our family devotions we muddled through the years to figure out how long we've been married (13 years, 14 in Sept) how old I am, (You wish :P) and how long we've been together as a couple. 16 years, 17 this August 12th.

Yesterday Papa surprised me, after leaving here in the morning for work, and showed up 45 minutes later with a vase of red roses, and 3 boxes of chocolate.. one box of my very favorites!! And two boxes to share with the kids ;) I did share by the way!! They've all had several, much reading of box tops and thinking and asking questions about this sort or that big one or (in E's case) which ones don't have nuts. I'm sorry to say I can't put pictures up just yet as I have none.. the camera is still gone and I've got to have nice light to take good pictures with the ipad.. I will get some yet though.

I put the roses in my room on the dresser. I like to see them there. The table is much too busy of a place to hold flowers :)

ANYWAY!! Back to thankful Thursdays!! I'm thankful for Papa because he is an amazing man of God, father, husband, teacher, worker, cook, provider and so much more!! I actually wrote out a mushy sort of list and decided that it was our business :) not yours.

Suffice it to say I LOVE MY MAN!!! Thank you for all you do :)


I hope you have someone who loves you like I love him and he loves me. He is my other half and I'm his. Together we are complete. One.

And if you don't I hope you find him/her who is your other half :)