A Veritable Smorgasbord Of Random Photos For Your Viewing Pleasure

We have had lots of rain for a week and a half or so. Yippee. Today the skies opened and we got three inches this afternoon. Across the road from us, there's a road that doesn't drain properly and it always makes a lake when it rains much. The kids had a blast playing in it a little bit. (The picture is Logan and Sara, my niece, who is here with us this week). Now the boys have had a bath and I need to get them headed for bed!

Just call me two-faced!!!

We had a fun slumber party with the Lyndakers. As you can see, food and eating figured largely into what we did.

The boys had an absolute blast tearing the railing off the porch. Caleb says it's way more fun to wreck stuff than build it. Is it a guy thing?? Notice Josiah in the back with a crowbar!

Here are some various spring-time activities. Caleb was having fun riding one of Keith's bikes. The boys are on a lego kick again - partly thanks to a visit by the Lyndakers. Caleb has adopted a style of building from Collin. And that's Keith tilling the horse poop into the garden. Yay!! :-) And, of course, Logan in the trusty old sand-box! What would we do without it?

We had Alabama here for four days while Jeff and Wendy went to Grandpa Gingerich's funeral. What a hoot! It was fun to have a girl's hair to comb. :-) One day Caleb got inspired to build a little "house" in the living room. This is the result. Caleb slept in it for part of a night and Logan slept in it one night.

Speedbumps On The Highway of Motherhood

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Josiah's so good at making extra work for me! The other day I was engrossed in making supper and the boys were playing "Hide and Seek" with Josiah. All of a sudden I realized they were calling and calling for him and he wasn't coming. Where was he? I found him in the bathroom with the potty chair dissasembled. He had the "bowl" of it and was dipping water out of the toilet and pouring it on the floor. Sigh!

Tonight I had dressed him after his bath and shut the door because the other boys were stil in the tub. Then Caleb finished and got out by himself - and left the door open. Next thing I knew, Logan was hollering, "Mommy, come QUICK!" I went and found Josiah in the tub again. This one made me laugh - and grab the camera!

Because We Could

Arthur and Iris are in town for three nights on their way from the city back home. Last night we had a "slumber party" with all of them. We even had Arthur convinced that he and Keith would sleep in the bunk beds and Iris and I would have our bed. But we were joking. We had a fun time and the kids had fun crashing in the basement. The guys had some bonding time doing some word-working in the basement. Of course, Iris and I had to stay up late to talk because that's the only time we could! We had a great breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon this morning. I'm so thankful for friends!

Happy Spring Thoughts

When I went out for my walk this morning I thought, “This is the time of year when I really like to live here! From now until about October or November!.” The leaves are just coming out on the trees this week, the grass is green, the dandelions are blooming… (My kids caught wind that I want to spray weed-killer on the lawn which would kill the dandelions. They were not impressed! What should I do??)

Another sign of spring: picnics on the patio. We had two this week already. On Monday night my family was all here for supper since we had a special guest from PA – Rhonda Schantz. It was great to see her. I haven’t seen her for so long and of course, she’s all grown up now! Crazy!

On Tuesday night our cell group had a potluck here. We ate on the patio again. And I made some great iced tea. Thanks to some helpful hints from Dru it turned out pretty well. I don’t know how many people were here that night, but it was pretty crowded. Everyone came and some brought friends.

Keith and I decided to tackle a home renovation project. I think this is our biggest one so far. And we really have very little experience! We’re replacing the steps and railing of our front porch. Tonight we all had fun ripping it apart. Why is destroying things so much fun?? :-) I hope we haven’t bitten off more than we can chew. We knew that we need to re-finish the wood siding which is along the porch, but we thought we’d do it later. After ripping off the railing, etc. we both think we should do it now while the railing is off. The porch project might end up being a bit more long-term than we had thought!

And then there’s the garden! Our friends, Keith and Debbie have horses, so we went over there last night and got a truck-load of manure. Keith tilled it into the garden so it looks great and is ready to plant whenever I think it’s warm enough and get around to it. And, we still have those trees to plant…

That’s all for now. Happy Spring!!

Just In Case You Thought I Was Dead, I'm Not!!

My dear friend and relative, Rhonda, recently referred to herself as a slacker blogger. Well, I think I get the slacker blogger of the month award! I won’t try to make excuses. I’ll just start “talking”, and I promise (Rachel) I won’t write a book. I’ll just try to write more soon!!

Spring has sprung!! It’s so wonderful!!! I’ve done a bit of digging around in the flowerbeds and I’m starting to think about getting the garden ready to plant. We have some friends who have horses and, apparently, unlimited, um… fertilizer. So, I’m hoping to avail myself of a truck-load of that! We have four new trees sitting in the yard (still in their buckets) that we hope to plant soon. We want to start working toward some shade for our very-hot-in-the-afternoon-and-evening patio. I bought two Colorado Blue Spruce, a Columnar Poplar, and a Maple. I’m thinking of one or two more. If you have any brainy ideas for how to arrange a “grove” of a variety of trees, let me know.

This past weekend we went to Kenora on Friday afternoon and came home Sat. night. We stayed with my dear friend Debby. Supper was around the camp-fire in the back yard and Debby entertained myself and her sister Joann with her interesting shenanigans. (You’ll have to ask her!) I hadn’t laughed so hard in months!

At Debby’s our little family was all snugly fitted into Debby’s little guest room. Caleb decided to wake up before 5:00 and loudly call me, which woke up Josiah. Yay. Josiah never went back to sleep. Caleb did, but then Logan woke up and his talking woke up Caleb again. All this time I was trying hard to get everyone to BE QUIET and get a few more winks. Keith finally just got up and took Josiah out to the living room. By 6:30 it was evident no one was going to get any more sleep and I was feeling badly for the others in the house who were trying to sleep as well. Then inspiration hit! I said to Keith, “Let’s throw the kids in the van and go to Tim Horton’s!” So that’s what we did, and it was well worth it. I don’t know if coffee and donuts ever tasted better!

By 8:00 we had all had breakfast, Josiah was ready to go back to bed, and Debby, Joann and I headed out garage-saleing. What fun. We all found some great stuff. The funniest part was that by the time we came back, I was pinned in the back seat of the car under a great big shelf. Why didn’t we take the van???

Keith then took Caleb and Logan and headed for the logging expo which was the reason for our trip. (Well, Keith’s reason, anyway. I just wanted to buy trees!) We ladies and Josiah went tree shopping and had a lovely lunch at Casey’s to celebrate Joann’s birthday. It was a really fun time and we made lots of good memories!

One more quick thing… Since we got back from Montana, the boys have been in swimming lessons two days a week. That’s one of the reasons why blogging has fallen farther down my list. That, combined with a new Wed. morning Bible study, has made life really crazy right now!!! But, there are only two more swimming lessons left and then we’ll be able to think about other things a little more! It has been worth it though because Caleb and Logan are both doing great in swimming. It’s so fun to see them learn! Caleb already passed one level this session and is working on the next one. I’ve been taking Josiah to aqua-tots (I go in the water with him), so I don’t have much time to watch Caleb and Logan swim. So Thursday I’m not going in the pool so I can just watch them and see what all they’re doing.

That’s all for now. My hubby has already headed for bed, so I need to go join him! :-)