An excursion with "The Boys"!

Last Thursday, Jeff and his brother Steve, left at 4am to head over to our other farm across the mountains to chop our corn that's over there. I got this wild hair earlier in the week when Jeff was talking about when they'd be going over, to take Ryan and his cousin Jordan (Steve's son) over with me for a couple days while the guys were there. I picked them up from pre-school and we hit the road! Here they are in the car, having a grand (and sometimes loud) ole time!

Jordan saw the day before we left that Ryan had the same jammies as him and asked if Ryan would take them so they could match. Here are the little cuties one morning just after they woke up.
Yvonne was adamant about me not doing much while I was there (as in relaxing) and was so great keeping the boys entertained- this is them putting together a puzzle at the "kids table".
Friday the boys got to help their daddy's and grandpa outside. Here's Jeff getting ready to help Ryan get out of the truck so they could have some lunch that we brought out to them.
Taking a quick lunch break- Ryan with his ham & cheese sandwich and Jordan with his favorite, P B & J! Look at those little workers! :)

Happy Birthday, Shelby!

Last week our niece, Shelby, turned 6 years old! We celebrated by going over to her house for dinner and ice cream cake for dessert! Here's Miss Shelby opening her gifts from us... I think she liked the High School Musical stuff we found for her...

...almost as much as she liked the Airheads candy we also gave her... the poor girl has a sweet tooth just like her Auntie! :)

Getting ready to blow out her candles!
A shot of some of the group who was there. The gal next to Shelby and the guy next to my dad are friends of our family who were here last week visiting from Australia! It was such a treat to get to have them there to celebrate Shelby's birthday and just getting to spend the week with them!

Belly shots

So here's my 35week 1 day belly shots! Ryan took a couple pictures of me earlier today and here they are... this one from the front sort hard to see the magnitude of my big belly! ;)

A side shot.. with my head cut off!
Then Jeff took one of me tonight- I really can't stand this picture as it was after I'd been lounging on the couch for a while, but oh well- just do me a favor- don't mind my face, just check out the belly! :)
I'm definitely starting to feel as pregnant as I am these days- my body aches in places that only ache when I'm pregnant, my middle back, upper inner legs (wonder why- there's probably only about a 6lb. weight sitting right above them!). The other morning around 6am I, literally, shot out of bed with a terrible cramp in my left leg/calf area. I could have cried but it hurt too bad to cry! I only get them when I'm pregnant and have actually done pretty well as I remember having more of them when I was pregnant with Ryan. So far with this pregnancy it's only my second, but this one was way worse than the first one. I can only hope it's my last! That was Friday morning and my calf still feels like someone tried ripping it apart or something- hopefully it subsides soon! Otherwise I can't complain. This is definitely one active guy- he seems even more active than Ryan was so I wonder if that's a sign that he's going to be busier than him, too! Guess we'll see!! We're getting more and more anxious by the day to meet this little guy and FINALLY hold him and see him!

... and AFTER!

Ta-dah!! Here's our new space and we LOVE it!! Our friend, Scott, did a wonderful job fixing it up and has such a vision for these sorts of projects. This is a shot from the same place as the first picture below- quite a change, huh?!

This is the ceiling that we decided we had to keep open and we're so glad we did! There's even a little remnant of Jeff's birthday party up there in the peak! The white panels are actually heating panels of "radiant heat"- they heat objects and not just the room. They work wonders and we highly recommend them! We even put one in in our laundry room and Jeff's bathroom next to this room.
This is the kitchen that we put in- it is SO nice having an extra kitchen when we have big groups over, especially having an extra oven and fridge... they have already come in handy a few times!
Here's the bathroom which used to be the closets.
A different view from the other side of the room. We are thoroughly enjoying this space and are so thankful that we finally got a chance to fix it up so we can USE IT!!

Our rec. room BEFORE....

This is our rec. room that is just down the hall in our house- it was an add-on in the 50's... if that gives you an indicator of just how old our house is if something was added on in the 50's! (our house is over 100 yrs. old!)

Anyhow, we've lived in this house for 3 1/2 yrs. now and this room was just screaming to be renovated and used and we finally got around to fixing it up! When Jeff's parents moved out of town, we decided this would be a good time to use part of the space to make a place for them to come and stay when they were in town.

This is a picture of the room from the doorway you walk into from our laundry room. This is the first day that we did some gutting of the room.

Not long after, the knotty pine came off the walls, a sub floor was put in, the old ceiling was gone, beams were exposed and a wall in the back corner was going up.
This used to be two closets next to each other that we gutted and opened up for a bathroom. (we kept the closet with the green door for our storage.)

We weren't planning on having a vaulted ceiling, but when we opened up the ceiling and saw what was underneath, we knew we didn't have a choice and couldn't cover this part of the structure back up!

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY, JEFF!!!

Yesterday was Jeff's 30th birthday! We had a bunch of our close friends and family over last night for a party and salmon dinner!

When I thought about it today and tried to figure out how many people were here, I came up with about 35! We're lucky to have so many great friends and family that live near us! Here's one of the "kids tables"... Ryan, Mari, Craig, Daniel and the back of Daniel & Mari's mommy, Christiana!
Another shot of more of the kiddos... Emma, Jonathan, Kera, Kylie & Shelby (Brian W. in the back ground!)
Two of our sister-in-law's, Kim & Beth visiting. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but at one point in the evening I couldn't find my camera so that made it a bit difficult! The guys were in and out of the house before dinner as they were cooking the salmon- and I must say, it was DELICIOUS!! "Uncle Yogi" & Scott, thanks for helping with the fish!
So I'm hoping my friend, Karen, got a better shot of the birthday boy as I didn't! Here's the back of Jeff's sweatshirt/shoulder blowing out his candles that I put in one of his favorite desserts... black bottom cupcakes with John Deere green frosting- him and Ryan decided on the color! :) Here's to MANY more birthday's Jeff- WE LOVE YOU!!

Fall is here!

I'm a big lover of summer, but if this is what our fall will be like, I could definitely get used to it! This morning I came downstairs and looked out the window and this is what I saw- it just beamed fall to me.

Like I said, if this is what our fall will be like (or even most of it!) I will be happy. It really is a beautiful morning with the dew on the ground and some fog in the air... and oh, don't want to forget about the sunshine that is coming through!

Happy Fall everyone! :)

1st Day of SCHOOL!!

Yes, it's official, my little boy is all grown up! Okay, well I guess he's not all grown up, but I swear over night he became a really big boy! :) I do have to say, I didn't cry, but did have some mixed emotions of some sadness and also so much excitement for him and his new adventure! I try to remember just to be happy that he's a healthy, growing little boy who is thrilled to be going to school. So enough about ME, here's Ryan this morning, checking out how his new John Deere back-pack looked on him... he was one proud little boy!

Jordan's daddy (Jeff's brother) was at our farm this morning so Melinda brought Jordan by to see Steve and also so we could get a few pictures of the boys together on their 1st day of school.

Ryan & Jordan... little buddies!

Look at those adorable faces! Do they look like happy little boys or what?!!
A family shot- of course, Ryan was over the picture thing at this point so it's not the best of him as he decided to act silly. Oh well!
Ryan apparently had to get all pumped up for school because he asked me to put in "John Deere Green", one of his favorite songs, so he jammed out to that on his way to school! :)

I told Jeff that I wasn't sure who was more emotional when Melinda and I dropped off the boys this morning- us two or their teacher! I've known his teacher most of my life and Jeff and his brother, Steve, and her two sons were good friends in high school and played football together. I think it just hit her how her kids' friends have kids now and that she got to have both Steve & Jeff's boys in her class. It was really sweet. I know Ryan will have a great school year!

Today and yesterday they only had half of the class there to sort of ease the kids into the whole idea of school and classmates, but tomorrow all the kids will be there so that will be fun. Ryan had a GREAT time at school today and asked if he could go back! I said, "Sure, how about tomorrow?!". :)

AWANAS!

Tonight Ryan went to AWANAS, a program through our church for kids, for the first time! He's in the "Cubbies" group which is a combination of 3 and 4 year olds. He had a great time and didn't want to leave when it was time to go so I guess that's a good sign! The only problem is, he starts pre-school tomorrow morning and he had a hard time winding down after such a fun night at AWANAS and then getting home and getting to see his Daddy for awhile.

Here he is with the starter booklet for his Cubbies group. Tonight he needed to say two verses: "Jesus Loves Me" and "God loved us and sent His Son". He said them both to me a few times before he got there and apparently he said them for his leader because she signed off that he did. It's so precious to hear him talking about bible verses.

Instead of "cheese" he thought it would be a better idea to say "bananas" and apparently it really cracked him up! Such a silly boy!
More pictures to come tomorrow of the big boy at his FIRST day of school!!

"Workin' with Grandpa!"

This past Thursday night, Jeff's parents came over to spend a couple days here. Last month we FINALLY got our rec. room/ apartment area remodeling project finished and is fully furnished and ready for guests! We mainly did the apartment area so that Jeff's parents could come and go and have a place of their own to stay over here. It's worked our really well and we're all loving the new space! I'll have to post more pictures later of the rec. room as it was quite the transformation! Anyhow, Jeff's dad spent a good chunk of Sat. morning putting together a new wardrobe piece that we got from Ikea recently. Ryan was thrilled to get to "help Grandpa" and his grandpa was great for letting him help so much! It was really cute to watch them work together and their conversations- he actually did help him quite a bit! Here's Ryan handing Grandpa the nails as he used the hammer to put them in.

Their temporary tool area with a lovely tool set for them to use!
And here's the finished product! It looks really beautiful and I give kudos to my father-in-law for putting it together as I'm not sure I would have even had the patience to do it, but he did and even with the help of his 3 1/2 yr. old grandson! :)