Summer

Some of the pictures, which are all from my phone, do not look like real life at all! I hate that. The sky could be a beautiful bright blue with lime-green and rich green grasses in the background but it doesn't look that way. So, I do edit the pictures to look less gray and dull. 

The lot next-door to us (where my parents will move soon)

I guess Warren is learning to drive

My wood arrived! Did I ever say how much I hate carpet! Some people (probably without seven kids) might love carpet...I loath it! So our house will not have anything in it that can't be taken out and beaten! I've also learned from my wonderful housekeeper of a mother, that untufted wool rugs are the best for cleaning and durability.  Not too cozy or soft, but we don't lounge around on our floors very often. We're usually on a couch or bed. I put clean way ahead of form or function most of the time anyway. 

Warren's team took second place. They are so darn cute! I just love this age and I have a soft spot in my heart for little boys (maybe because I have five of them). 

Shad made All-stars in his league and we had a great time traveling around to local tournaments. But I'm tired...and football starts Monday. I never thought I'd be a sports mom. Not my thing. But as James has said, you don't really have a choice with five boys. 😁

We spent eight hours, two days in a row,

 smoothing out load after load of wet rock. I think I worked muscles that didn't exist before that day. It was really nice being down there as a family working together. 

Fresh of the grill burger break 

Fun in the Sun!

These first pictures were taken a few weeks after moving here. Then spring came! 

No...we don't look like homschoolers with our scraggly hair and bonnet! Oh my!

We are having fun in the backyard. The trees are a little naked and Connor said the grass looks like shredded wheat. But it's warming up and we spend every spare second we can up on top of the canyon where the house will be. I've never seen such a big blue beautiful sky. 

The kids love exploring down in the creek bed and finding bugs and holes and climbing the trees. 

Warren decided to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house and babysit this time, but now that there's a dirt mound, he wants to join us. 

We have been busy with baseball...when I say busy, I mean that it has consumed our evenings. I'm not sure how I feel about it. The boys love it but I do NOT like driving around that much. We drive 25 minutes to Warren's practices and games and sometimes over 30 minutes to Kyler and Shad's. I'll be happy on June 1st when it's over. It has it's benefits, it's making time go by faster and the kids are getting lots of exercise and making friends.

I started deciding on some interior finishes...actually I have spent several years thinking about them, but it's getting closer to decision time. I remember when I was a little girl and I would hide from my friends in my room so I could decorate my dollhouse by lamplight. I spent hours placing each tiny, handcrafted piece in it's place, down to the tiny glass fruits in the fruit bowl on a cherry wood dining table. Then, I would go get my mom and she was so patient while I made her crouch down and look through each and every room. She was very enthusiastic. Good mom. 

This is just a big dollhouse...but the husband isn't wearing a tux and filled with stuffing, and the baby's arms bend. 

Planting Time

Breathtaking! That's all I can say about the views on top of the canyon. It reminds of Scotland...or a fairytale. It's amazing. My phone camera likes to FLATTEN everything though! It's much more amazing in person.

OUR ADDRESS TAG CAME!

Audra and I stopped for a really cheesy, huge and
deliciously unhealthy burger
at a local restaurant.
It's owner is also our contractor!
Oh and our kid's baseball coach! Small world around here.

The men started planting a few weeks ago. Planting and harvest are a big deal here. Every prayer in church and around the dinner table includes praying for good weather. Sometimes they need rain, and sometimes they need sun. 

I was driving home the other day, and I couldn't believe what a good decorator God is. They really know what they are doing up there. Summer will come with lots to do and then once fall and winter arrive, it's time to settle down and kind of hibernate for a little while. I will LOVE hibernation in my little house. 

The permits have been drawn and the loan is closed. It's a little scary. We signed our lives away to a Mort-Gage. Yep, mort means death. 

We have an address now! Just no house on it yet. I was kind of hoping that we got to pick our own street name and address number. I may have had one picked out, but I guess that's not how it works. And I guess we don't actually have our own street, just a looooong driveway. 

We had a scare when we were told we may have accidentally dug our foundation hole on the edge of our lot, possibly overlapping my parent's lot! But, I caught the surveyor coming up the canyon and he assured me that we are OK! Phew. 

Concrete finally came after two weeks of tsunami weather. We are two weeks behind our schedule already, but I guess I mentally prepared myself for that. Now that framing is going to begin, it'll start going faster.

The boys tried out for All-Stars baseball team...I assumed they didn't make it and I was ready to be done and focus on something else....

FUNNY STORY!!!

Well, I got a text from the coaches...I thought the text was for practice from Kyler's coach (Kyler is 8), so I dropped him off and realized afterward that it was actually Shad's first All-Star practice! (Shad is 10) He had made it and I missed the text saying that Shad was on the All-Star team. Kyler was fuming mad that I left him there with all the big boys. They kept calling him little dude and tried to figure out who he was and why he was there! I'm laughing so hard I could cry! They let him practice with them anyway which was so nice. But really, for an 8 year old to have to play with 10 year olds and he wasn't supposed to be there...poor Kyler! He was a good sport about it. So it's back into the swing of things with baseball...no pun intended.