Farmhouse Update

Sorry I haven't been good about keeping up with the blog in the midst of all the craziness we are experiencing. We are very blessed to be as unaffected as possible since the girls and I are home all day anyway, and T's job is secure, being in healthcare. I know many many others are not so fortunate and these weeks of limited contact will be a definite hardship. :( We are praying that our family can be used for God's glory during this time whatever that looks like.

So here is the post I meant to post yesterday but with words this time...:P

I haven't posted anything about the Farmhouse in a while because I've been on burnout. Working on one giant project for four years means that I go through phases. Sometimes I'm raring to go, wanting to spend every waking minute knocking things off the to-do list. Other times I don't want to look at another hammer, saw, drill, 2x4, or anything house related. During those times poor T just plugs along on his own. He is so great. He rarely asks for my help, but always welcomes it. 

We worked hard over Christmas break and got 95% of the walls framed both upstairs and down...

Boo's room 

Peanut's room.

Peaches' room.

 

And Bug's room (behind her). 

And then I spent most of January and part of February ignoring the addition. Haha. Part of the problem, for me, was that it was all plumbing and that is not my forte. I can frame with the best of them...or at least the competent of them, lol, but I'm pretty much only good for gophering when it comes to plumbing. Thankfully Grandpa came over and helped T get most of it done!

They had to open up walls to the existing house to tie in the plumbing. Thankfully T had planned ahead and made it easy to access.

The girls' bathroom is kind of a Jack-and-Jill style. It's a big long rectangle broken into three smaller separate rooms: 1) sink/vanity 2) toilet and tub 3) sink/vanity. So Bug and Peaches will have their sink/vanity/storage room and Boo and Peanut will have the other and they will share the toilet and tub which has pocket door access to either side.

You can kind of see her...Peanut is in Bug and Peaches little room. The tub room is beyond that, and then the other room beyond that.

 

Here is T plumbing our tub in the master suite. He is in a 4ft crawl space under the addition. Unfortunately since it was open for a while the cats used it as their personal litter box so it does NOT smell good down there! 

 

One weekend we got the girls to help us clean up after most of the mess had been made.

They like throwing the wood scraps down into the pickup bed.

Once the plumbing was finished we were able to move on to electrical which I can help with. I can't do the actual wiring of the fixtures but I know how to run wire and put in canned lights. 

Let their be light! This is the common room looking East into Bug and Peaches room.

And here is looking West into Boo and Peanuts room.  It is college apartment style: two bedrooms on either side with a common room and bathroom in the middle.

Now we are moving on to electrical in the downstairs. I am kind of surprised at how fast we are moving. The HVAC guys came and installed everything related to that so upstairs we are ready for insulation and Sheetrock! Maybe a benefit to all the social distancing will be that we are able to get the house done faster this Spring! 

AWANA Fun

Funny Friday

Happy Friday! :)

Leftover Thursday

One of my favorite things about living in the country is the sunsets. They are so much prettier when there aren't houses blocking your view in every direction, and I just notice them more out here for some reason. The only bad thing is I can't capture how pretty they are. 

These two look so-so, but in person they were gorgeous and also rainbow colored. For some reason the green never shows up in pictures, but in person there is a full color spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. It's so pretty!

Going to the hardware store with Daddy. Haha!

Reindeer!

Reading books with sister.

Static-girls!

Happy Thursday! :)

Wordless Wednesday

Early Spring?

 We have had SUCH nice weather lately! There were predictions that all of our snow was going to come in February (like last year) so in January we put the snow tires on...and I guess that was futile because we got a couple of inches, several times, but then it all melted and we haven't had any snow since. In fact it's been downright pleasant! Sunshine and 40's is great for February! One day we went out and played for an hour after lunch and they were all so happy!

The big girls wanted to climb the tree.

And the little ones were "cooking" with birdseed and found acorns.

Lou thinks she is just as big as the rest! She wants to be a big girl like her sisters!

Silly.

Jax loved the company and showed us how quickly he can dig a hole. :P

Lou tested the bird seed "stew".

 And we all just enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air.

 I hope there are many such days in our future!

 

Basketball Tournament

The girls' culmination of their basketball season was a weekend-long tournament! Boo had a game on Friday night, but we had a church thing so Noni and Papa sweetly volunteered to take her. The next day Peanut had a 9am game, so T took her early. She was excited to play with her preschool friend, L,  who joined the team for the tournament.

  

They played their best ever and even though they lost it was a very close game!

 

  

Apparently for tournaments the parents have to "volunteer" to help...although it's more like drafting because they give you a schedule of when you have to help. Lol. We had the 9-11 shift, but one of my friends took the first hour for me so we could watch Peanut's game...so sweet! 

Boo and I did the last hour of the shift. It wasn't hard. We just had to sit there and take money and stamp people's hands as they came in. T had taken everyone else home and put Lou down for a nap. We joined them when we were done and had a quick lunch before heading back to the gyms for Boo's 1pm game. Lou hadn't had time to eat so she spent almost the entire game eating her lunch. That was very helpful in keeping her occupied! She loves to eat. :) 

I cannot believe how much these girls have learned in six weeks! It was so fun to watch them!

I think Peaches took this picture. :) 

 

Fun with Daddy!

 

This game was super fun to watch because they were well matched and played really hard! It was close the whole game, but near the end they went up and ended up winning by around ten points.

  

It has been so fun to watch Boo as she improved over the season! She went from knowing nothing about basketball to being a pretty good little player! If she keeps practicing I think she could be a star player!

  

Peanut's second game was at 3pm and although I really should have taken Lou home for a nap I was pretty sure it would be her last game and I didn't want to miss it! I took the other four out to the playground while she warmed up with her team. From inside it looked warm and sunny out. From outside it was sunny but pretty darn cold. 

 

They still had fun running around for twenty minutes and getting a few wiggles out.

 

 

One last game!

 

The little ones played with things I had in the diaper bag. They were so busy. :P

 

I think Peanut had way more fun talking to her friends than playing. Haha.

SO CUTE!

 Peanut improved a lot too, but it's hard to make a lot of headway with only one practice a week. I think she only had 6 practices and 6 games. It is a very short season. But she did great, had fun, and we are very proud of her for trying something new!!

 Boo's last game was at 8pm so I wasn't able to go. :(  T said she did great and had fun though. I'm glad they had this opportunity to try basketball. They are already looking forward to next year!

We are proud of our little "ballers"!