Lucky!

We were so darn lucky the other day when a tree cracked in half and fell outside during a rain storm! The funny thing was that it wasn't actually that windy, it was just raining REALLY hard. The tree, which has looked 'off' (half dead and droopy) to me for a while, is right next to the woodshed out back. When I used to have time, there was a very pretty flower bed under it with some roses, sedum, hostas and columbine. Then the tree started dropping branches and the poison ivy moved in too and I had 2 more babies and we started the addition and I just couldn't keep up.
Anyway, when the tree fell, it missed the woodshed AND the carport and fell right in between the two. So basically we just had a bunch of firewood and no damage! How awesome is that??

Just Stuff

It has been very cold here recently - so cold that our ponds were frozen! Our poor ducks would try to chip a hole in the ice every day. Sometimes they would get enough of an area to swim in and some days, it wouldn't work. I couldn't figure out why they didn't go up to the barn and stay where it's warmer in the hay. They are in the barn almost all the time - we were thinking we might have the only ducks who didn't like water. Not sure why they waited until it was so cold to go in the water.


The boys decided to check out the ice too and Dallin learned that you should NEVER walk on ice with both hands in your pockets. What a black eye he had! It's healing slowly - now it's the yellows and greens of an old bruise.



Tim (and the boys)put in a beautiful wood floor in the new office. I can't wait to move into the office - it's also going to be my scrapbook/crafting room.


The insulation was blown in this week. What a mess it makes!



The old stonework came down on the fireplace so that Tim can put his MUCH nicer stonework up and so that we can put a flat screen TV up too.


Keenan hurt his ankle playing soccer on the front yard - just in time to tryout for a new club team, of course.

This little girl.....

Kirsten's personality has definitely emerged lately! She has her own mind --- wants to do things her way when she wants to do them. She has her own sense of humor --- you'll have to ask Keenan about the things that Kirsten thinks are funny (it drives him crazy!). She also has her very own sense of style that I KNOW is going to be an issue when she starts school this fall! Tim and I went out to run some errands yesterday and she was dressed so strangely Tim said to make sure that people know she's with me and not him! Of course, he was kidding, but DANG girl!! Can't you wear some of the cutie-patootie clothes that you have???

This is an example of what she wears ---- summer clothes on top of winter clothes (or more summer clothes!), usually with flip-flops or cowboy boots!

Christmas 2009

Christmas this year was so much fun! It was great to have Brandee and Scott here for 2 weeks.

We went to Old Salem and enjoyed an organ concert - it was beautiful! Then we walked around - the weather was perfect and Old Salem was gorgeous as usual. Don't look too closely at this photo, because Keenan was being a goofball - from a distance this photo is nice.


Some more from Old Salem:



We also went to Zootastic which is a new place that opened in Troutman - they had a drive-thru Christmas lights thing that was nice. Our good friends Scott and Lorenzo came along too. There was a point in the drive-thru where you could get out and go look at animals in a barn. They had some goats and a HUGE horse and a zebra and some camels (look out! they spit!) and a kangaroo to pet. Kangaroos are so soft! Kirsten wanted to pet it again but couldn't think of what it was called, so she bent her arms and pretended to hop like a kangaroo and said "I want to pet the....(hop, hop, hop)" That was cute!

Christmas day was rainy and cold, but it was nice to finally get some pictures without the stupid "sunspots" that I usually end up with. Please ignore the walls and the floor - they are works in progress!

Happy Birthday Tim!

Since there is no way I could ever come up with something that would even come close to the post that Tim wrote for my birthday, I'm not ever going to try!

But........

Happy Birthday to a fantastic husband and dad!