So I am still getting used to the new format of the blogger, so my pictures are all out of order. I am not going to fix them, cause I feel lazy like that right now. I will just describe them as they appear. (Christmas ones are toward the end)
We spent most of our break just living out on the land in our camping trailer. The kids had a lot of fun. We did have to come home a few times when we took turns getting the 24 hour flu. And of course I would have to come home to do the laundry and restock on food items.
I had a little bit of mommy guilt, because I didn't take the kids to do anything extremely fun or out of the ordinary during the break. Except for the high school basketball game. But we had a lot of fun playing and working together. We have so much that we are trying to get done, that I felt this was a good break and chance to get it done.
This picture is from a few months back when Paul rented this cool Bobcat with a crazy tree chewing attachment.
He got a lot of land clearing done with this bad boy. =)
These are the trucks that put our well in for us. It is awesome to have WATER!!
A picture of the well head in the fog.
One morning it was super foggy. The kids loved going around in the trees through the clouds.
I just thought it looked really cool.
We are almost all done with the framing. We just have some of the upstairs ceiling to finish off. This is the upstairs half wall next to the stairs. This half wall was probably my most uneven cutting job I did, but Paul still made it work. =) He's gotta love my amateur skills. =) But he lets me do as much as I want to, and teaches me along the way.
Stairs.
The upstairs looking back to the kids bedrooms.
If you look to the left of the picture, you can see Hannah out hammering. The kids are really into creating inventions and toys out of wood. They only wish we would let them use the saw and knife to carve things. They will have to just stick to the scraps of wood and nails for now.
Here is Paul putting up the plumbing. I am so blessed to be married to someone who has so many skills in all areas. I just don't know how I got so lucky, but I am sure glad that I did!!!
Don't you just love the pink boards we are building with. My favorite part are all the kids drawings and notes they write on them. The other day I found one where Hannah had wrote, "Mom, I love you." So awesome that I will have all the little notes and cute drawings sealed inside the walls forever. =)
We had a friend come out with his cool toy. The kids were pretty excited for him to give them some rides in it around the land. Here is Jacob getting ready for a fun ride.
Here is Hannah on her ride.
We tried to mix in some playtime in with the work.
You can bet, that we had a lot of muddy messy clothes EVERY day.
So this picture of Jacob's face is so sad. We still had a deep hole over by where we had the well drilled that we hadn't covered yet. Jacob was throwing sticks by it. He got a little too close to the edge and slipped in. We still don't know how he managed to climb out of it, but he did and came over crying. This was the most I could get him to smile.
He was pretty embarrassed and sad. We kept trying to tell him how awesome he looked, but it was not a fun experience for him at all. Needless to say, he will probably be a little more careful when standing on the edge of muddy water areas now. Or at least I can hope.
The kids loved playing in the trench that we dug for the well. This was obviously before it rained and filled up with water.
All prepared to go on a muddy adventure.
Even Madelyn got in on the muddy action.
We had a really good time. We can't wait until we get our little place built, so we can live out here.
I wanted to take some pictures of the kids. But they decided to hide behind the couch. So I just had to grab a couple of shots of them jumping out from behind the couch. They didn't think I was fast enough to catch them in the picture. But I got em!
Ha! Ha! Gottcha!
We had some fun times dancing. We even went to a high school basketball game. The kids liked it. I am sure I liked it even more. I always have to catch a game around Christmas or else it just wouldn't be Christmas.
Madelyn's present from Santa. This girl loves to color. I am just trying to discover the least messy and least damaging ways for her to do it.
Hannah is really into Ninjas and Legos right now. So Ninjago was the perfect present from Santa.
Jacob loves dragons, dinosaurs, and building. So he has had fun with his Ninjago earth dragon from Santa.
Madelyn coloring while Paul holds her.
Jacob in his new PJs.
Hannah sporting her new robe and pjs.
Here is Madelyn dancing to Jacob's class singing at his Christmas program.
So I love watching Jacob perform on stage or the field. Here are my top 3 reasons.
1. He is usually the tallest so he is really easy to spot.
2. No matter how crowded it is or how far away I am he spots me out and give me a huge smile, wave, and thumbs up. Then he will continually check to see if I am watching.
3. He likes to perform and be a little "ham".
I was pretty far away and it was dark, so the quality isn't that great. But you can see even though I was far away, in a crowd, and in the dark, Jake is looking straight at me giving a great smile for the camera. =)
This is his Christmas program for school.
He did a great job singing and made a cute little star.
Here is Hannah giving her list to Santa.
Madelyn was even brave enough to go up to Santa long enough to get her candy cane.
The kids had fun at the church Christmas breakfast. They made some fun crafts and yummy treats.
The first part of our break we did a lot of fun Christmas crafts at home too. My kids are really into making things and coloring right now. It is fun, but it makes for a lot of cleaning up and takes patience with a 2 year old participating.
We hope everyone had a great holiday season and has a SPECTACULAR new year!!
