They do grow right before your eyes!

Yes, Garrett did grow over an inch in less than a month

And Emily grew almost 4 inches in a year

Most of the other kids grew quite a bit also, but these two have been the fastest growing lately.

Tall Tales

I'm pretty sure the library would prefer we didn't return these all at once...

1 down 6 to go...

"Skating" on the creek

Just some pictures of the impromptu skating party the other day.  Cabin fever had set in and the kids jumped up from their school work and headed out at the mention of the possibility of ice on the creek.

The case of the missing pocket knife, part 2

A rare guest post by Todd

So after Tamara "lost" Garrett's pocket knife, I sat him down for a Father-Son talk.  "Now Garrett, you know that all of the girls in our family wear skirts and a lot of times skirts don't have pockets.  So when you loan your knife to a girl, you have to keep track of it and as soon as they are done with it, you have to ask for it back so you can put it back in your pocket."
Yesterday Garrett kept asking me to show him how to sharpen his new knife.  So I asked him for it and went out to the kitchen to find the whet stone.  We found the leather sleeve in the drawer but the stone was gone.  I guess we will have to add a stone to the shopping list.
Today Garrett was wandering around the house singing  "Where did Dadda put my pocket knife? Dadda lost my pocket knife..."
He finally found his Mom and asked, "Do I have to be careful about boys too?  Dadda lost my knife!"
There it was on the counter right above the whet stone drawer, right where I had left it.  I guess it was my turn to learn a lesson!

Unexpected overnight guest

We were trying to get the kids to bed tonight and they were keeping up their normal chattering and bantering back and forth.  They kept mentioning a car on the road and kept talking about a light down the road and did we think we should check it out. (The weather is horrible tonight and there is no way to even get out the driveway - way below zero wind chill, winds and blowing snow) I was intent on getting them to bed and kept saying I would check it out in a little bit.  Finally, one of them said, "Mom, will that person die tonight if they are stuck?" I looked out the window, and sure enough, there were headlights about 1/2 mile from our house - and they weren't moving.  So we made some phone calls - to the sheriff's office - they wouldn't be able to get anyone out.  Snowplows had been called back - all the roads in the whole surrounding area are closed down.  We tried calling someone nearby who we knew had a snowplow on their pick up truck - no luck.  Finally we got a phone call from someone he (the person who was stuck) had called who knows us asking if he could come here.  So he walked - and thankfully he made it.  It is still amazing to me how intertwined this small town/country life is.  Somehow everyone knows everyone through someone.

The case of the missing pocket knife

Garrett has had his pocket knife for about a week - and it has been "missing" already for a few days.  Tonight Laura was fixing the vacuum.   The following conversation went something like this. Laura - "Garrett, can I use your knife?"  Garrett - "Or Lincoln's?" Laura "No, I need yours because I need the pliers" Garrett got a sheepish look on his face and Laura realized - "What? You lost your knife? It lasted a long time, didn't it?"  I chimed in, "Garrett, did you really already lose your knife?" He came over to me with a hint of a tear in his eye and look on his face that told me that he didn't really want to have to say this.  Garrett "Mommy, where did you put it?" Me "What do you mean?" Garrett "You used it last - I gave it to you and you didn't give it back."  Me "When did I use your knife?" (BAD mommy moment here!) Garrett - " 'Member when you used it to open the mineral blocks for the cows?"  Ooops - I hope I can find it in the back of the van, or I'm going to be buying a little boy a new knife...

Edited to add - I just went outside to the van and whew, there was the missing pocket knife - right where I left it Tuesday afternoon...

Boat Shoes

The kids were doing some cleaning today (I had to make a Rural King run to get some stuff for the cows).  Most of them were working in the basement, but Garrett wanted to clean his room.  Once in a while he gets into a whirlwind cleaning frenzy, and today was one of those days.  Anything in his way gets put away or swept or cleaned - very quickly and thoroughly. (It is really hard to put it into words, just something you have to see, but picture him taking off the couch cushions and throwing them on the floor, grabbing the broom and giving the entire couch a sweeping, then putting the cushions back on the couch all in about a minute using a broom twice the size as he is. It is just something he occasionally does, not something you can talk him into, unfortunately. :)  Anyway, back to his bedroom cleaning today... He came out to inform Laura that he was dusting all of his shoes because they had cow pies all over them and he wanted them to be clean.  A few minutes later, he came out to the kitchen where she was washing dishes and tried to get down the vegetable brush.  "What do you need the vegetable brush for?" "I'm cleaning off the shoes in the bathtub."  "Oh."  She went back to the bathroom to investigate.  There were several shoes bobbing around in the half filled bath tub - and not all of the water had stayed in the tub.   When he started using the screwdriver on his new pocket knife (yes his Dad did decide he was old enough to be able to handle a pocket knife)  to "straighten" the outlet covers, Laura decided he would be better off with the rest of the cleaning crew in the basement...

I think I'm old enough... do you?

The kids have all been helping out building the new bedroom. Todd has taught them how to use several tools for the job (under supervision and ability appropriate).  The boys have used Todd's pocket knife a lot - opening up boxes and whatever else a pocket knife is useful for.  They have been taking turns carrying it in their pockets.  The other day, when we were at Menard's, Garrett was walking beside Todd and looked up at him and said, "If you think I am old enough to handle it, I think they have pocket knives here."

At the end of today...

We replaced the old vinyl sliding door that had been used as a shed door a few too many times and was broken in several places.

Replacing a door at the end of December (and painting the wood part of it) is a chilly job! We were glad for the sunshine and above freezing temps today.

Glad to have that job behind us - it involved cutting out the old door, including cutting and replacing some siding to get the old door out.  Todd will have to go back to work to get a rest.  It has been a nice vacation staying home (except for trips to Menards for more supplies) and all working together on the room.

The flooring got done as far as the closet. We wanted to take advantage of daylight to get the door replaced.

Lots of fun running and spinning and sliding!

On to the floor!

The first piece 

Making progress

Almost halfway there!

A new game

We bought Laura a game for her birthday - Axis and Allies. It is a strategic game of World War 2 and since Laura is a World War 2 history buff, so we thought she would enjoy the game. We hadn't had a chance to play it since her birthday, so we thought we would take a little time today to give it a try.  Todd opened it up last night to read the instructions and we realized that it would take more than just a little time when he looked at the last page of the instruction booklet and it was page 31...  He read the instructions and then we found a 1 hour video online (broken up into 4 segments) about how to play the game.  We got started and 2 1/2 hours later we had gotten around the 5 players... 1 time...  Laura, Abigail, and Charlotte all think they will enjoy the game - Todd thought it was fun... I had glazed over eyes by the time my turn came (I was player #5) but I think it will be a good game and will go a lot faster after we get all of the steps and exceptions to the rules figured out.  (Kris R. - if J & H are interested in playing some day let us know (it is a lot more involved than Catan but if they like strategy games they will probably enjoy this - they  might want to watch the YouTube videos of the 1941 edition first - we'll try to get it figured out better too - it is a relatively realistic set up of the war)

Trying to figure out how to set up the board

Moving her troops

Fighting a battle

More basement pictures and a few pictures from the week

(Feel free to skip all these basement picture posts - we just wanted a timeline of them for our memory :) )

Garrett playing the piano and the guitar upside down

Just being cute

Cutting up ceiling tile scraps for "soup"

Ceiling tile cakes (cutouts for the lights - the stove wasn't burning)

Painting trim

Cutting ceiling tile

Pretty close to being done with the ceiling - there is an old light fixture to remove and then we can put in these last tiles

Abby and Laura put in most of the outlets

   

Emily kept everyone happy with chocolate chip cookies