Saturday, June 29, 2013

Strawberry Cream Cakes

Spending time working at our farmhouse has been hard, but also good for our kids.  They get bored and hungry and extremely dirty. But, on the other hand, they are becoming masters of entertaining themselves. 
 
I spent a couple mornings there this week and thought I'd give you a snap shot of their creativity:
 
~One morning they spent 2+ hours "farming" the tent caterpillars that have set up shop in one of our trees.  They would capture them, build them homes, drive them around the yard on their kids size ATV, and then put them back where they found them.
 
~They have established a place down in the crawlspace called "Dusty Island."  Sometimes it's an archaeological dig, sometimes it's a restaurant, but it's always full of dirt & dust to play with!
 
~Yesterday, after quite a while playing quietly by herself, Kip presented me with my very own strawberry cream sawdust cake for my "birthday."  It was made of a 2 X 2 square of scrap wood, covered with sawdust, and it seriously did look like a little cake with icing!
 
Some days, I feel like we're just playing out a modern version of Little House On the Prairie, and it's such a joy to see our kids adapt and thrive in this new environment.
 
 
 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Picnic in the Park, with Cherries

 



 
Had a fun outing for a lunch picnic the other day. 
 And, yes, Kip is almost always in a Princess dress these days:)

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Windows!

So, this is the back of our farmhouse before we started work.  Notice the two 1st floor windows.  They were the same as all the other windows in the house, except for the fact that they were installed horizontally instead of vertically!
 

This is yesterday....
 
Out with the old!
 


And in with the new!!
 
 
The new windows are wonderful for a shorty like me-I can see out without feeling like I have to be on my tiptoes!! 
 
Scott has been doing an amazing job knocking things out lately, so we are very close to being finished with both the electrical & HVAC rough-ins.  Woo-hoo:)
 

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Week Away

After my school let out for the summer in early May, we took a week off for a family vacation.  Can you guess where we went?
 
 
 
 
 
Bingo! Williamsburg, VA
 
The kids were pretty good sports about riding around while I drooled over colonial style gardens for one whole morning.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Then we chanced upon a guy, hauling an old fashioned sandbox on a cart,
 
 
who led us straight to the brickyard, where Gus got to do some heavy lifting.
 
 
 
 
 And now there will forevermore be a brick in some new/old colonial building with my son's name inscribed:)
 
 
Did you know that back then they could only make two bricks at a time?  It's mind boggling to me the amount of time and effort that went into EVERYTHING you made back then.
 
 
 
Playing in the sand pit:)
 
We also visited Smithfield, VA (the Ham Capital of the World, I kid you not!), spent many afternoons at the pool, had several movie nights, introduced the kids to the Candyland board game & ate lots of special vacation treats.
 
It wasn't the most relaxing week (for us parents), but it was so good to get away from the normal routines of life for a bit.