flute solo and trio

Last weekend Shaylee had a contest including a flute solo and trio. There were lots of other children there practicing in the gym. She's so beautiful. Here she is practicing before hand.

These three girls practiced and then when it was their turn they played for the judge. It went really well.
Grandma Rhonda thought she recognized the song title so she was following along with Shaylee while she practiced. Grandma loves the sound of Shaylee playing her flute.

After the solo and trio, we waited around for the results. It took awhile, but when they were finally posted, she earned a I- in her solo, which would be like an A-. Her trio earned a I (1). They did a great job. Her music teacher thinks she could have scored higher in the solo, except the judge didn't know it was Shaylee's first year playing. She was likely judged by them thinking she should have been playing a harder piece. Either way, she did great!

some motivation

In regards to my post last night, about having no motivation. I would like to say that I actually took the dog out for a long walk tonight. In fact, he was walking beside me with his tongue hanging out by the time we got home, so he was pooped too!

So what does that mean........well, maybe I'm getting the beginning of some motivation. Finally!

Only in South Dakota...

would we turn around on a gravel road, get out of our car, all so our kids could take a picture with

ROAD KILL.

darn motivation

Every night I can envision tomorrow as a new day, one that means I will get up and get on the treadmill and walk. I picture myself losing weight and eventually becoming happy with myself again. However when the morning rolls around, I start eating bad, then I don't get on the treadmill.

I even told myself once I got a dog that I would be the one walking him. Nope, my kids do that usually. It's so frustrating. I hate being fat and I want so badly to lose weight, but I can't get the darn motivation to DO IT!

Anybody else have visions of themselves doing something great with their life and not actually following through with it? Because I swear (except I try not to), I'm going to do this one of these days....

Monday again

Considering it was a Monday, it wasn't so bad...and for that I am thankful. My little man had the biggest conversation on the way to daycare, except I couldn't understand a word he said. It was still really cute.

I had to shampoo the boys' room tonight...yes, the room that we just remodeled because the dog pooped and peed while we were gone. The dog generally stays in the kennel when no one is home, but today I thought I would try letting him stay out. Bad mistake. I guess the dog has to be kenneled.

We tried a new recipe tonight. It was ok, but probably nothing we'll try again anytime soon.

Tomorrow is Tuesday and will present a much longer day. I plan to take some pictures of the boys' room on Wednesday to share. I think we're finally done in there. Yay!

Why am I posting such a boring post? Well because I realized I haven't posted much of anything lately, kinda slacking off, ya know? So I thought a rambling jargon update is better than nothing?

case of the crabbies

I sit here with a case of the crabbies. Everyone in my house has a case of the crabbies. The kids' mom even had a case of the crabbies, or maybe it was lack of parenting experience. Either way, she brought them home early because she was sick of them not listening. Isn't that where parenting comes into play? I wish I could just "take my kids back" when they don't listen too. It would put a whole new twist on parenting, huh. But I guess we're not Wal-Mart, and you can't just return things when you don't want them anymore, especially your children.

But really, I have a case of the crabbies. I think partially it's because my schedule got thrown for a loop today. We had planned to go to Sioux Falls and do a few things before we picked up the the kids, but with the sudden change of plans, it meant no trip to Sioux Falls. I don't deal well with spontaneity and I really don't do well with change of plans on short notice. I'm very much by the book and like to know exactly what's going on, when, and for how long.

I could also be crabby because I'm tired of spending my weekends working on the house. This weekend I tackled the entire downstairs carpets. I shampooed them twice and three times in several spots. Our carpet downstairs is old and I would love to replace it, but that of course costs money, and also our children are tough on the carpet. After this weekend, the carpets are clean, or at least cleaner than they were.

I played a little joke on my husband with water. Apparently he didn't find it funny, but I did. So now I'm feeding off of his case of the crabbies. Hopefully this case doesn't stick around long.

many updates

1. At 9pm last night, we finally got the bunk beds put back together and the boys finally spent the night in their room after many, many weeks of construction to fix the water problem. We still have to put trim on the window and closet and hang the closet rod and shelves back up, then that room is done. It looks cool and I promise, pictures to come.
2. We ripped the lattice off the deck this weekend and started putting breathable landscape plastic down, so we can put the rock down.
3. I earned several blisters on my hands from the hard work of cleaning the enormous pile of landscape rock in the driveway. I swear if I ever pick up a steel rake and a hose it will be too soon. My hands literally are slow moving today from all the raking, scooping, and shoveling I did trying to get the dirt and pine needles out of them.
4. Shawndra stepped on a nail that went through her shoe and into her foot. Thank goodness she had a tetanus shot in 2004. It's still painful for her.
5. My 3 year old son is finally pacifier free. Yes, he's had a pacifier at night time since he was a wee babe. It was so easy to break him of the habit too! We didn't really intend to do it that night, but when bedtime came and we couldn't find one, what more we're we to do? I told him he was a big boy now and didn't need a paci. Of course his bottom lip came out and he was very sad, but he was sleeping within 45 minutes. That was on Friday and we haven't looked back since!!
6. I learned how good a bed feels after working so hard physically with no time for rest. It really does give a new meaning and love for our bed.
7. Mike's truck quit running yesterday and he had to call a co-worker for a ride today. But he's since got it running today. I'm glad that didn't take long to fix!
8. I figured out how much summer rec activities would cost for our kids and holy smokes, I think we need to sell a kidney to pay for it!!!
9. Shawndra, Joseph, and Dalton have their Spring Concert on Thursday. At least I got "days" notice on this one, instead of Shaylee's where she let me know 2 HOURS before it started.

Well, I can't think of any more updates at the moment. I'm anxious to share pictures of the boys room and the struggles that went with it because we certainly ran into more problems.

a night with the king

Shaylee is at "A Night With The King" tonight at our church. I'm anxious to hear how it went. There was a big surprise in store for her tonight. Here are some pictures of her getting primped and ready! Starting with her hair.

Now she's being silly because I was taking lots of pictures!
She's so fun. And the lady doing her hair couldn't believe how much hair she had!
Hair is done. Next up...make-up!

Donna was so nice and helped her with her make-up. I'm not a girly girl, so doing the whole make-up thing is a bit beyond me. But Donna and other ladies were there helping out.

Shaylee did some herself. She's growing up so fast.

Getting her nails done. It's fun to be a girl on days like today!

Checking herself out in the mirror. I love this picture.

And again, except this time, I focused on her reflection in the mirror.

Finally, all primped and ready for a fun night.

And since beginning this post, I just had a chance to talk to her and find out how her night was. She had so much fun. The big surprise was her dad showing up and spending the evening with her. They even taught him and the other dad's how to dance, so they could lead during the dance. Shaylee told me her dad gave her a ring. Right now it fits on her pinky finger, but she wants to get it resized to wear it on her ring finger. I'm anxious to see it!!

This night was all about her, and being pretty, and feeling pretty, and being loved, and spending a night with the king.

updated: guess

Ok, well a few of you emailed me with your guess and a few commented. They were good guesses, but no one got it right!

They were trying to pull the tree down using the bike. Ok, kidding. They weren't doing that either.

But....

what they were doing was trying to straighten the forks on the bike. Joseph apparently hit something really hard last summer, although he claims not to remember (maybe that's good for us). Anyhow, the forks on his bike were literally bent and almost touching the frame. In fact, his front tire reminded me of a unicycle, considering how straight it was under his bike. We thought he would need a new bike this year, but thanks to Grandpa Craig and Mike, they used a chain, a tree, a pipe, and a lot of strength to pull it back. And now it looks like it was never bent. Yay!

guess

Can you guess what they are doing?

making progress

Tuesday is a good day. Today means we made progress on the house. We're getting closer to getting things completed and hopefully we'll have no more water problems! The pink wall is a before shot. Nice wall, huh?

No wall anymore! Now Devin has a closet. A walk-thru closet if you will.
Here's looking through the closet into Devin's room from the hallway. Essentially, she has 2 doors to get into her room, except, this door will not be open space for much longer. There will be shelves and storage cubbies, and a place to hang her clothes! So exciting. She's been sharing a closet with the boys' since we bought the house 2 years ago!

And the boys' room is coming along nicely. George came in today and got the final piece of sheet rock hung and taped everything off. Looks like we still have some sanding to do, put the trim on, paint, put the carpet down, and finally....put the boys' room together!

I'm hoping by the end of this weekend it will be done. We'll see.

Tuesday is the day

Tuesday afternoon is the day where my house will begin to come together. George's crew will be here tomorrow to finish the boys room and to cut a closet into Devin's room. After that, I can paint and the boys can finally go back into their room. I can't imagine how nice it will feel for our entire family to have them out of the living room and for things to return somewhat normal.

So, Tuesday is the day!

landscape

Today was an absolutely busy day. Mike got a lot of the boys' room put back together. Just one panel of sheet rock is left, then George will come on Monday and tape it off and finish it. I'll post pictures later of that project, but our big project of the day was to get rid of the bushes and rock!

After trying for quite some time with the truck and chain, we knew that big bush wasn't coming out with some more power. We had already planned to go to the farm to get the skid loader to slope the land away from the house. I thought it was crazy how it would go up on two wheels!
It took 15 minutes to get that first bush out. Mike had to change positions several times with the loader. The kids thought it was really cool to watch.

Then he drove it over to the trailer and dumped it on there to take to the pit here in Volga.

Then the next one was ready to go. We didn't really want to get rid of them at first, but we knew we had to in order to dig under the window to actually fix the boys' room. Plus, the inspector and George told us we really needed to get more slope from the house.

Here's my hard worker coming back to the big root that was left behind.

Then we had to pick up all the rocks. Wow. That is such work! But that's where we had the kids come help. It took several hours to complete.

After the rock and plastic were out, Mike started pulling dirt out. He had to pull the dirt out first before we could bring it back in and level it.

He moved a lot of dirt. Our lawn is definitely a mess now. We'll have to put seed down.

This is not where we left off, but it's where I stopped taking pictures. The dirt is lower than the windows and is sloping away from the house more. We still have work to do tomorrow on it.

After everything was out, I decided I didn't want the rock back in there. We don't really have a plan for the landscaping in the front, yet. Tentatively, we plan to use the rock from the front in the back under the deck. That will be another project!

daymon

I've decided to rename Monday. I'm flipping the first 3 letters with the last 3 letters and calling it Daymon. Why? Well, Monday's are no fun and I don't like saying the word Monday. Today I decided to call it Daymon because today was evil and I think when you say Daymon fast it sounds like demon. Hence the change.

Today was definitely a Daymon.

I went to Walmart and got a key cut, took it back to work, tried to unlock the door with the new key and it didn't work. I went back to Walmart and got the key cut again, took it back to work, tried to unlock the door with the new key and it didn't work. Do you see a pattern? Well Walmart decided they weren't going to try again because they didn't see anything wrong with the key, even though the key wouldn't even go in the door. Walmart failed epically.

So I decide to go to Ace. I'm on the phone venting about my day because it wasn't going well anyhow and I was annoyed and stressed about the stupid key situation. I park at Ace and realize I don't have my purse. Seriously! So my boss tells me I can use a purchase order, thank goodness! But, get this! As I'm walking about 5 feet from the van, I find a $10 bill in the road! That made my Daymon much better. Plus, the key worked!

The rest of the day continued to go downhill. Mike's truck decided it was going to overheat (again), so it took him forever to get home. He had to keep stopping to try to get it to cool down. Then he spent the entire night fixing it, which we believe he did. I'm so glad he's mechanically inclined to do this stuff. It saves us big money in labor!!

Anyhow, Daymon is over and tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully better.....even though it is an 11 hour day for me....

beginning landscaping

What a busy day we had yesterday. If you didn't scroll down to my last post, you'll need to do that to see the boys' room and the progress we made in there. Well, the secret is, Mike made the progress in there, while I made progress outside. So we were both busy! Last summer towards the end, we decided we hated the 3 bushes that were in the corner, so we got rid of them, leaving the roots. Obviously we had to do something about that this summer, so hence, yesterday the kids and I went out and started picking up all the little rocks. And let me tell you, those small landscaping rocks take forever to pick up, plus there are pine needles mixed in, so we all got our share of pokes!

Finally able to rip the plastic up so I can start trying to dig out the roots. The plan is to bring the landscape around the house and put grass where those roots currently are.
We made a special trip to Lowe's (lifesaver) and got a tiling spade and a garden claw and started digging up the bottoms of the roots. Once we got a chunk uncovered, Mike came out and hooked up the chains to the truck and the roots and out they came.

Tada!
We're not sure what's happening here, but we want to take out the wood ties on this side of the house and possibly the trees, although we can't decide. They're kind of nice to have in the summer to offer a bit of privacy since that is our bedroom window, but yet they do scape against the house. The other problem here is the landscaping has settled next to the house, which could be the cause of some of our water problems in the boys' room. We'll start by building up the land next to the house and making it slope away. The front of the house will have to have the bushes taken out in order to do so. I wish landscaping was my forte, but it's not, so we'll see how it goes.
Lots was accomplished this weekend. The weather was gorgeous and we spent almost the entire days outside. I could live in spring weather year round. Not to hot, not to cold, just the way I like it.

boys' room progress

Quite a few weeks ago, Joseph went into his room to get something out of his dresser and his socks got soaked, which led us into some bigger issues with lots of water in their room. We attempted to clean things up, dry things out, and make a mess in our living room while we tried to figure out what our next step would be. Check out this post to see that day.

After talking to lots of people about what could be wrong and what the best way is to fix it, we became slightly overwhelmed and decided to contact a relative of mine, who owns Houtman Construction to guide is in a general direction, not to mention we have outside work that we want them to take care of.

So after George left our house yesterday, we knew we had our work cut out for us, except we thought it would be a bit simpler than how it turned out. We started by tearing out the baseboards and finding black mold. Not sure if it's actual black mold or just dirty mold or what, but either way, what we found wasn't good. We thought we could get away with cutting into the corner and seeing what the blocks look like.

The board that is along the entire bottom of the wall was rotten and literally crumbling in our hands.
Mike measured about 3 feet high and that's where he began cutting until he could cut the drywall out and pull out the styrofoam insulation.

The next portion showed the wooden boards rotten on the bottoms from soaking up the water over periods of time.

Lots of stinky, black crap covered the base of the floor. The blocks are damp. And all the boards are rotten on the back side.

Mike knew he had to keep going until he found the beginning of good wood, or the end of the rotten wood, so he kept cutting away more wall.

In the meantime, the carpet from their room hangs over our deck in hopes of saving it. George advised us not to throw out the carpet that many times letting it be out in the fresh air can get rid of the smell. Since we just laid that carpet down last summer, we thought it was worth a try. After the repairs are done in the room and we bring that carpet in, if it still stinks, we'll replace it at that point.

We also found hairline cracks running under the window in the grout. We're not sure if this is the partial cause of why there was so much water coming in or if there are other reasons. The landscaping outside settled in towards the window, so we'll have to tackle that next. The darker gray areas are where the blocks are damp and towards the left is where it finally dries out.

At this point, we had to remove the entire south wall and half of the west wall. And now we just wait for George to stop by and figure out if we can fix this from the inside or if we need to excavate on the outside. George had mentioned we could "paint" this stuff on from the inside which would lock out the moisture, so we're hoping that's what we can do, but until he sees this much, we wait.

We're really hoping this can be fixed from the inside, as we don't want to dig down outside.

love my lens

I love my new lens. Love it, love it. I have so much fun taking pictures. The backgrounds blur depending on where the subject is in the depth of field. I can make the background really blurry or just slightly blurry.

And the crispness of the photos amazes me. I have many more pictures to share, but those will go with other posts soon.