What the boys have been doing...

We've spent a good bit of time at the new house.  Sometimes we have meetings.  Sometimes we meet Chris there after work to see what's been going on that day.  The boys have found some fun things to do amidst the nails, boards and orderly chaos.

Asher built a "tree house."

Hammer.  We keep some hammers in the back of our van.

Mostly just for the sake of hammering. 

What boy doesn't like to hammer?

When it's muddy, sit in the locked car and watch Inspector Gadget.  

Have a picnic lunch in the pantry while we walk through the house with our builder.

Or when all else fails, lay down and take a rest.

We have a big weekend coming up.  Grandma, Grandpa, Mary, and Elsa come tomorrow!  Then, Uncle Bryan and Aunt Tess come next week.  We will write on the walls this weekend when they are here.  I'm excited they get to be here for this because it will be an even better memory for the boys.  I know there will be so much excitement when we show the house to the girls for the first time.

Plus, we have about 1,001 baseball games.  Spring is so much fun.

Baseball pictures coming soon.  I know you were missing them. 

A Fun Friday... and Windows!

We take Fridays off school.  A couple of months ago, I bought a Groupon to Dinosaur World in Glen Rose, and it was about to expire.  On our way there, we stopped at the house to see what was going on.  The windows had arrived and were sitting like this in the back yard.

We spent hours agonizing over windows.  How many panes?  What color?  What kind?

And then one day, they just arrived... so fun.

[Sorry about the blurry picture]

Then it was off to Dinosaur World.  It's an hour away, and dinosaurs couldn't be any less exciting to me.  But I knew the boys would like it.  So I endured. 

These dinosaurs were very big.  As you can see.

You walk this nature trail and see all sorts of life size dinosaur replications.

The boys loved it.  I actually enjoyed it more than I thought it would.  The trail you walk was peaceful with pretty trees, and the park was fairly empty so we could run and make all sorts of noise.

They also have a fossil dig, so the boys all came back with three of their very own fossils.

Scary t-rex.

Then we headed back to the house.  This was the first time the boys were able to walk the upstairs.  They were very excited about seeing their room.  I was excited to walk mine as well :)

Graham the Builder?  Not quite as catchy as Bob the Builder.  As a side note, one of our builders is named Bob.  Whenever I crack the "Bob the Builder" joke, no one laughs.  I guess I'm the only one who finds it funny.  Maybe I'm the only one who's watched countless episodes of Bob the Builder.

Cry Cry the Builder?  No, they won't make a tv show out of that one either.

Believe it or not, he is almost always this smily.

Sweet and precious boys.

Smelling the cedar shake.  I love that smell.

"Toys" in the backyard.

And the windows were in already.  Amazing.  Then we topped it all off with a fun dinner at Chipotle with good friends.  A wonderful Friday was had by all.

As a side note, several people asked about these blocks.  I absolutely love them.  They are called Keva planks.  My kids play with them nearly every day.  This is one of Asher's creations.  He was testing out his architectual skills and attempting to replicate our new house.  He was doing such a good job, and then it was destroyed.  That's how things go around here.

A Special Guest

There hasn't been too many times when I've made a 911 call to my mom to say, "Please come down.  I NEED help with the boys."  But this house is going up fast, and I was feeling the weight of all the decisions that had to be made.  Decorating decisions are hard for me under normal circumstances.  Adding the happy chaos of 5 boys to that is not a good mix.  With things like carpet and tile decisions, I needed a clear head.  I knew I could TAKE the boys to the tile showroom, but I couldn't THINK at the tile showroom.  So I called my lovely mother and asked/begged for her to come down and rescue me. 

And she did.  She came.  It was such a great break for the boys from the worksite.  It's rained off and on, so lately, I can't even get them out of the car when we're there because it's so muddy.  Thank goodness for old episodes of Inspector Gadget on the ipad.  It's a show they all agree and there's 1,001 episodes to choose from.  So they can watch and watch and watch if we end up there longer than we expect, which always seems to happen.  I'm not a big fan of the kids watching tv in the car, but this is just a season.  I have to keep telling myself that.  But with my mom here, they were able to have much more fun than watching Inspector Gadget.

I came home one night to this.

It's amazing.  My mom said not one tear was shed while playing this game.  She must have a magic touch.  She also took them to park every day, played with them outside, and baked with them.

These were taken on the way to the airport.

I'm not sure why Jopie has the one glove on.  He's never even heard of Michael Jackson.

I'm sure there will be many more pictures on these stairs.

Thanks Mom.  Your presence here let me think.  For 4 days anyway.  Now it's back to reality.

And this.

But it IS just a season :)

This and That

Here's what we've been doing around the house this last month.

Playing outside.

I'm pretty sure this is not a normal way to get shade, but he thought it was.

I just love when they sit and look at books quietly.

And when the bigger ones read to the littles... pure joy in a mother's heart.

In case you thought they always were reading.

What we often have for lunch.  Hummus on Central Markets wheat tortillas.  Mine has spinach, cucumber, red pepper, salt and pepper.  Yum.  Except I'm always hungry an hour later.  Then I have to have some cheetos and diet coke to counteract all that healthy food I had for lunch.

Graham's been a reading machine lately.  He's been into the Ranger's Apprentice series.  Just ask him.  He'll tell you all about it.

Hoops in the garage.  It's a competitive sport at our house.

Hot chocolate on the lawn.  What a nice Mommy I was that day.

They had made a nut store.

Yes, probably another thing that only home school boys do.

If you don't have these, get yourself some.  Hours of fun.  Thanks for the idea, Sarah.

Bonding brothers.  Sweet moments.

Warming up for the baseball season.

And lazy mornings by the fire.

More Framing

I need your help.  This week we're going to write on the studs, before the house is drywalled.  Each boy will get a sharpie in their favorite color to "decorate" the walls.  I'll give them some liberty on what they want to write, but I do want them to copy a few verses or quotes in certain spaces.  In the school room, for example, I'll write a homeschool favorite:  Deuteronomy 6:4-9.  Here's where I need your help.  I'd love for you to leave a comment with a Scripture or quotation and where you would write it in house.  I'll take pictures and you can see your idea in ink later.

On to house news...

This continues to be an amazing thing to watch.

Walls up on a house you have envisioned in your head for years.

There's a nervousness in it for me.  Am I going to like how the space feels?  Will I like how it looks in real life?  I'm not good at seeing things in my mind spatially.  So being in the house felt different in some ways than I thought it would.  For example, our ceilings downstairs are 10 feet tall, so all the rooms feel bigger than I expected.  We have a wonderful architect.  I have always been confident that even if our house turned out slightly different than I imagined, it will still be because she designed it.

Our front porch.  I see a swing right about here.

The back porch.  I see many hours spent here watching the boys play while I sip my coffee and catch up on what's going on in the world on my phone.

He's a hoot at the house.  He gets dirty from head to toe.

This is on top of the second floor.  This is when I wondered if we had insurance.  We do, but this sure made me want to check.

These guys are so talented, and fast.

Fascinating to watch.  I'm sure they love it when we all come in the evening, stand and stare at them for an hour.  And then add a strange woman (me) who is constantly taking pictures of your work.  That wouldn't be annoying at all.

We tried to make up for our annoying qualities by granting a few of their requests.  I brought them cookies a couple of times.  Then Chris asked them what they really wanted, and they said, "Fajitas and beer!"  We got them fajitas on a Wednesday of course.  Because it's 1/2 price night at Pappasitos.  

Fun on the wood piles.

Cry Cry seemed to always be in the dirt somewhere.

Now that nicer weather is here, we have mandatory showers every night anyway.

Little boys and cars.

The boys love to look at the plans.

I love to see the interest they're taking in the whole thing.

It's quite the adventure for them.

It's an adventure for Chris and me too.  We don't thrive on decision making.  And we've had to make hundreds of little decisions in the past couple of weeks.  Here's to hoping we like them :)

And don't forget to comment.  I'm pretty much out of creative juices and could use some help coming up with quotes and verses, or anything else you can think of.

Thanks!