Little Racers

Isn't Tony Stewart a cute little thing??

And Jimmie Johnson too??

Here are both of our little racers.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Ford for these great dress-up clothes. The boys have been wearing them off and on since Saturday afternoon.

Time for Change

Well, I can't let Yellow House have all the fun can I??

Here is me before

Here is me after

I really like having short hair. It is way more me. It makes me feel spunkier!!

The Roof is Finished!!

Oh, what a week. You saw the pictures of our old roof being torn off, what you didn't see was pictures of the 10+ inches of rain that we had that weekend. Our roofer guys (or contractors - if you are into the technical terms) covered our roof with the layer of stuff that goes on before the shingles (I'm not even going to try to come up with the name for that one), but didn't get to the shingling. Yeah, I had buckets to catch water all over the house. I was ready to sell it (or burn it) so we could just get out of it. Anyway, the rain finally left and left us with a few repairs to make, but now we have a beautiful and leak-free roof (of course, it hasn't been put to the test yet... ).

Isn't yellow house beautiful??

So, it was all finished on Wednesday or something, Thursday was rather uneventful, but Friday....well, it was a great morning. I was very productive, I got all my morning chores done, all the little things that need to be done and then I was getting ready to go to work (You know, my 6 hour a week job at our church) and what did I find when I went to the basement to get a bottle of water? More water, coming from our hot water heater. Oh, I started to panic. I decided in that moment that although I had always thought of water as fun and good, it was really bad and not so fun. I was ready to move to the desert. Well, since Curt works here and all, I guess we are staying but, it was really close. A big shout out to my friends (Rachel and Brad and Rachel and Chad) who so wonderfully calmed me down and helped to get us a new water heater installed on Saturday. You guys are fabulous and I love you all.

A couple of things...

to share with you today. First, I have some roof progress pictures. Some of them (of the back of the house) were taken yesterday. The ones of the front are what is going on today. It is threatening to rain some more, but these guys are awesome and just keep pounding away.

This is yellow house before its makeover.

This is the roof over our sunroom on the backside of the house (yes, I had to climb up on the ladder. Ethan said "Momma, I don't think this is a good idea." Smart little man he is!)

The outer edge of the sunroom with new shingles (aren't they beautiful?)

Tearing off the front of the roof

Movin' right along!!

Hopefully I will have finished yellow house pictures soon. It is supposed to rain all weekend, so I don't expect them back until next week. Oooo, it's going to be pretty!!

Second order of business is a little video I took last night of Ethan. He was watching Jungle Book with Jacob while they were eating a "picnic" in the living room. Apparently, he thought Mowgli and Baloo were funny.

He was actually laughing harder a few minutes before but, of course, I didn't have the camera in hand.

Happy 8th Second Birthday!!

Dear Curtis,

Today is the 8th anniversary of your accident. Sometimes it seems like it was a whole lifetime ago that I got the phone call to get to the hospital, and sometimes it feels like it happened yesterday. I try not to dwell on the what ifs (what if it happens again, what if next time it is worse) because I know that God has it all under control. But, sometimes I wonder. I am so glad that you are still with me. I appreciate you and love you and I even like you. Thank you for making me laugh (all the time) and for holding my hand when I need that. You are the very best husband that this girl could have asked for and I'm glad that we have been blessed with our life, even when the unexpected happens.

Enjoy today.

K.

It's Happening

We are finally getting a new roof put on our house. Last winter our roof started leaking into the sunroom. Drip, drip, drip, became run, run, run. Anyway, the work crew (thanks David!) are here today starting it. They have already ripped off the roof over the leaky area (it's getting fixed first) and most of the back side of the house. I am so excited that this project is getting done. I will post some pictures of the before, during and after soon.

It's the Little Things...

that make every day wonderful. We have been crazy busy over the summer which you, I am sure, noticed by my lack of blogging. It has nothing to do with a lack of material, just time. Anyway, last week Jacob went back to school. This is his first year to be gone all day. I was worried that the adjustment would be hard (for me; him, not so much). Anyway, I was also excited about the prospect of having more time alone with Ethan and the opportunity to do some things that quite frankly just don't get done when there are two little boys and one big boy hanging around the house. I love them all to distraction, I think that is the problem.

On Monday, my dear friend Rachel came over with her little girl. While Ethan and Hope played (very well I might add) Rachel and I scrapped our little hearts out. I was amazed at the amount of scrapbooking I got done in such a short time. And, when she left for an hour to run an errand, I did a few chores. It was amazing. (Am I tooting my own horn a little?).



As a side note, Rachel and I put both Ethan and Hope down for a nap while we did a little more scrappin', and they both slept really good. Poor Ethan was so worn out that I had to wake him up to go and get Jacob. When I went in to get him and saw how precious he looked I had to grab the camera. Even the flash didn't wake him up.


On Tuesday, I was able to drop Jacob off at school and then go into town to meet with the ladies from our Mom's group at our church. It was wonderful to get together with these ladies again. It is a chaotic hour and a half, but so much fun. Afterwards, Ethan and I went to Sam's Club to get some goodies and then came home and had lunch. When I put him down for his nap I came back upstairs to my scrapbook desk and decided to reorganize (again!). But, this time I made labels!!

Today I decided that Ethan and I were going to make some treats. I found a recipe on a website that I frequent and it looked almost too easy. (Isn't there a saying about that somewhere?) Anyway, Ethan and I decided to make pretzel hugs. I didn't have any Hershey's Hugs, but I had Kisses -- "Surely they will work". Uhh, no. I thought that maybe they were just old because I had dug them out of the candy jar. I still had an unopened package so I thought I'd try those. No again. Ok, is it because they are Kisses and not Hugs? Is there a big difference (besides the stripes, of course) that I am unaware of?? HHMMMM. So, Ethan and I hop into the van and drive up to Felpausch. "Surely they will have some Hugs". No. Seriously?? Ok, so I also heard that you could also use Rolo's. We gave it a try and it finally worked. Wow, I thought it looked too easy. At least we were successful and I guess it was a lesson to Ethan on persistence (or stubbornness, whichever way you want to look at it).

Don't they make your mouth water??

First Day of First Grade

....isn't that a line in a Veggie Tales song?? Anyway, here are a few pics from Jacob's first day back at school.

Outside on our back porch.

Here he is out in front of his school.

Here he is in his classroom right next to Gracie.

He was so happy when he got home because he didn't even cry today. He did have some butterflies in his stomach before school, but he kept insisting that he wasn't nervous. His tummy just felt a little funny.