Pumpkins, cats and birthdays.

I made it to the computer all by myself, it only took me 1/2 hour to get all the pillows, ice and phone here with me. I thought I would start where I left off and update in chronological order.

We had great fun decorating pumpkins but they froze and melted before we got pictures so you don't get to see the final masterpiece. The kid's did a great job with their chosen designs. Here are the "in progress" pictures. Emerald scratch carved a fairy on a unicorn, Jayce did a window cutout with a cat on one side and a spider on the other. Alexis did modern art flowers with paint and Alectra painted a black cat in swirls.We have the best kitty! She is amazingly patient. And she loves to be petted and loved any way it comes.
The next big event was my birthday! Wow! Warren took me to dinner with some friends and we had a great time eating great food without any interruptions. I'm blessed with such wonderful friends that love the Lord. Thanks Guys. When we got home Jayce and Emerald had made me a carrott cake and decorated it. They decided that 40 candles were too many, thank goodness. It was delicious!
Jayce, Emerald and Warren cut, hauled and stacked this load of wood all alone. They were pretty proud of all their hard work. This was our third load of wood and Warren says it won't be enough to last the winter. We will see, the house doesn't take much but the shop will take lots.

Alectra and Alexis are 6!

After Emerald's party, Alectra and Alexis decided they wanted to do the same thing for their birthday. Since I'm flying to VA on their birthday we had their friends over this Saturday. We had a big tribe of Indians for the Pow-wow, Thirteen kids under 6, including three babies!
We made headbands and painted faces, hunted plastic snakes, lizards, and frogs and made pouches to put them in. We decorated the pouches by pounding leaves with rocks and staining the fabric. It made quite the noise, but it was fun.Alectra blowing out the candles.

Now it is Alexis' turn.
My Indian Maids were worn out but have alot of fun memories. They had to really work to take such a serious "Real Indian" picture.

Warren and Jayce's fun

Jayce and Warren skipped church last Sunday to go trolling. They had so much fun and caught some fish! Yummy!
Warren has been playing with the backhoe making a new road to the pond on our property. He needed to practice some before he dug up the foundation on our house.Practicing oboe is much more fun with a kitten in your lap. I couldn't believe Wenge stayed, it's kind of loud.

Emerald is 9!

September 25 was an exciting day in our house. Emerald turned 9 and found out she was chosen for the Homer Nutcracker Ballet. We had a family party on her birthday and invited some of her friends for a party the next day.
Jello Poke Cake with Pudding frosting was a hit! Cone tepees and horses are easy decorations.
Her friends came and made headbands and braided feathers into thier hair. We painted faces and choose Indian names, Emerald was Dancing Chickadee.The Indian maids, Kailee, Alexis, Alectra, Summer, and Katie by the tepee in the carport.

Dancing Chickadee with loot!
Kailee shooting bow, she was the only girl to stick the moose target!The Indian maids had a great time!

A month (2)!!

Jayce: This month I have had a lot of fun. First, we bought a water filtration system. It cost $3600 and was really good (for the price we paid, it better be!). We also started school. It was good, except for the math. 1 hour, 2 hours, 1 and1/2 hours. This is like not a good time, but I am finally getting it under control. Next, we just got a CAT! It was very fun. The top image is me holding the cat. The bottom image was the cat licking my fingers. She seems to like eggs, because that's what we had for supper.

A month!

We moved the middle of Aug! The house was finally done and with moose season starting we needed to be on the property so nothing happened to the buildings. Here are some more pictures of the final product; the hearth got its trim along the sides and bottom.The dining room and kitchen are finished and the windows washed.
We tried something different in this kitchen, Warren put laminate on the walls and then we didn't put a backsplash on the counter. I really like it, it is so easy to clean.
Alectra is showing off the girl's new rug in their room. It is green so their horses have grass to eat when they are playing. :-)
It was harder to get all our stuff from the trailer in this little house than I thought it would be. We traded two big bedrooms for three small bedrooms, a dining room, and a bigger living room. It doesn't seem to have the storage space the trailer had. We seem to all be adjusting and learning how to live in the country. Alectra is helping clean out the big machine shed. Emerald loves driving the bobcat any chance she gets. She is getting better and better at it.
The week after we moved to the Ranch Warren went up north, almost to Prudhoe Bay, hunting caribou with Phil Slabaugh for a week. They had some good bear stories and saw lots of new country. It is over a thousand miles from Homer! WOW!Warren got one caribou and it filled my little freezer nicely. Everyone likes to help grind the hamburger. Of course we never get it ready until late at night so everyone helps wearing their P.J.'s. By the time we are done they probably need another bath.While Warren was gone the kids and I unpacked more boxes from storage, set up the school room and went to the fair. Jayce made it to the top of this climbing wall twice. We all enjoyed the trick horse riders and the pig races.This is what the school room looked like before we started. Emerald said the walls were "macaroni and cheese yellow with avocado trim, GROSS"! Warren painted before he left and the kids and I took the form trailer to Kenai to get carpet.
We just rolled the pad and carpet out on the floor. We will install it correctly when we remodel the whole place. It make a great place for all the school and craft stuff. We started school last week, and so far it is going well.We set an extra bed up over there as well in one of the rooms. Warren wants to fix the bathroom yet and then we are ready for company. Come and visit!

House in July

Not much happened with the house in July with all the other things we were doing. We painted the mechanical room in the shop. All the walls were covered with mold and the floor was orange from the rust and iron in the water that leaked all the time. We put in the first stage of the water filtration system as well.
Here you can see the beginning and how nice it looked when we were finished.We also got the laminate wood flooring all installed and the trim painted and put on. Emerald was Warren's helper on the floor project.Jayce spent the month putting in new outlets, switches and plates. It was a great finish to our unit on electricity in school.
Brandon, his cousin and best friend, came for two days and helped him put up all the new light fixtures. They did a great job and only got shocked a "few" times.
Alectra and Alexis spent most of their time picking up trash and hauling it to the trailer. In between loads they "worked" with toys and leftover scraps of whatever was being installed at the time.There was a grubby, rusty Vermont Castings stove that I gave a new coat of paint. Warren built a new hearth for it, in this picture the hearth is still missing the trim around the edges.
Here is the new front door! The old one was orange on one side and burgundy on the other with no window. What a difference it made to the feel of the living room!
The girls were installing cabinets with Dad. We tried something new, putting Formica on the walls, I'll let you know how it turned out.Last week Warren took the entire week off so a lot of things happened. I'll do another post in the next few days so you can see the results. But one of my projects was pulling out all the bird vetch around the shop. Some guy from the Dept of Natural Resources showed up at the door and said it was an rare invasive weed in Homer and it needed to be controlled. It grows in warm weather, which we've had, and it takes over like Kudzu. So the girls and I pulled out 8 huge, black trash bags of it by hand. We will keep it mowed off until this fall and then give it some Weed and Feed. It actually is an animal fodder and green fertilizer. I might have to propagate some for the animals without letting anyone know. :-)