Nothing.

Nothing. That's what we've been doing for the last two or three weeks. We've been trying to wait out the gray, cold, rainy days.
We scored a sectional sofa off of Craig's list to add to our new room. Still waiting for the walls to get finished and the beams to go in. We treated the beams with a termite stuff and it's taking forever for the stuff to dry. Could be because of the gray, dismal, damp conditions. Then we have to seal them. Then flooring and we're done!
Our biggest source of amusement has been the new paper shredder we got. I never knew a paper shredder could amuse a child for so many hours. (yes, it has a safety so no little fingers can go in it). I would've bought one years ago if only I had known. The only downside.....I'm picking tiny pieces of paper from places where there shouldn't be tiny pieces of paper. Everywhere.

Sweater woes

So I decided to make Alex a sweater. It looked so cute on the pattern picture. Really, I wanted to practice knitting a small sweater so I could boost my confidence to eventually make a "me" sized sweater.

I finished it yesterday and, as expected, he REFUSED to put it on. He would soundly proclaim "It is too big for me." without giving it a second look. Eventually I coerced (um, forced) him to try it on so I could at least take a picture. Can you see the joy in his face?

The good news is it came out ok, it is shaped to fit a small human, I got lots of practice, and he already has a jacket he likes so you don't have to worry about him freezing to death.

I guess I'll have to package up the lovely handcrafted sweater to another unsuspecting child. Perhaps one that is too small or not vocal enough to have an opionion!

fireplace stone and really big boxes

The fireplace stone is done! In this picture the mortar between the stones is still wet so it's darker than it will be. The mantle is a 6X6 cypress beam. The picture really doesn't do it justice. With three coats of poly it is a gorgeous orangey/brown. We have more beams to span the wall between the current dining area and the new room. So, basically the new room will be quite open to the existing house once the wall is taken out and the beams are in place.

The kids were playing in a big box. All three were popping up at different times so I never caught them all but I thought all those pictures were cute.

We had some visitors, this morning. Several big turkeys were foraging behind the pond. I know,

the picture looks kinda like one of those bigfoot pictures but they really are turkeys! I took it from the house. Haven't seen them since last spring.

Report cards came out Friday. Julia got all AAAAA's and Aaron got E's and +'s. (kindergardeners don't get letter grades). Yay!

Pearl, Daffodil, and Jesus

I'm a little behind from Christmas. Here are a couple of Christmas morning pictures. I've discovered that Christmas morning pictures are never very good but I guess they capture the moment!

The big Santa gift this year was....

drumroll.........parakeets! One for each kid.

Aaron got a blue one, Julia's is yellow and green, and Alex's is green. They are named Pearl (blue), Daffodil (green/yellow), and Jesus (green). Jesus has a little cross of yellow feathers on his head so Julia named him Jesus although Alex insists that his name is Birdy. Overall they seem very tame already and will sit on fingers and shoulders. The cats spend their days searching the house trying to figure out where the parakeets are hidden. - I put them in our room when the cats are in - .

We had Christmas day with the Aucoins and then the Townleys came to visit shortly after Christmas.
New Year's Eve was fairly low-key. Some friends came over and brought tons of fireworks. The kids enjoyed the fireworks and everyone was in bed by 10:00.