My first "baby-sitting" experience

Yesterday morning while I was making birthday and anniversary cards, the phone rang and Caleb answered it. It was one of our good friends, Beka M. and she said that she was going to get her hair cut at the barbershop and she needed to take her almost two-year-old son, Alex with her, but she needed to have someone watch him. So, since I am the only one (in our family) that Alex likes the most, she asked for me to go with her and Alex and watch him. I was delighted, because I love little Alex! :-) He's one of my many little buddies! LOL. ;-) I also was happy because this was the first "baby-sitting" job I had done.

All went well, and I miss him! :-) He's so cute. Of course, I had the handy-dandy camera with me and snapped four photos of him. My favorite is the last one, the one of him through the mirror. Here they are:

Alex doesn't always like to look at the camera! I used to be that way, too---- I hated having photos taken of me! LOL!

Alex and his "shape ball". Can you believe that I used to play with one of those?! Seriously, I did! :-)

Lookin' 'round

Looking at Alex through the mirror and playing peek-a-boo really made him laugh.

Bye, Bye, old house! :-( (part one)

You may have heard that we have a two story playhouse in our backyard. Well, not so much any more. Lately, we have been discussing the issue of planting a bigger garden. So, we decided that the playhouse blocks out the sunshine too much, and that we should destroy it and make a much smaller one. I was sad, because we have made many memories in that old house: playing ranch or farm, restaurant, courthouse, fort, house, grocery store, general store, bed and breakfast, and most anything you can imagine. But, Jaden, on the other hand, loved the demolition part of the construction! :-) He's just a boy! ;-) He loves to demolishing things and sometimes I ask him for some of his energy (he has an over abundance of energy). :)

Before the demo

Here Abby is taking off the rustic paneling inside

Here I am in the playhouse, hammering the nails out of some boards

Dad even helped some!

Two walls off, two more to go!

Wait a second! Momma told us to never run in the house!

The roof is off and here Caleb is hammer the nails out of boards.

Well, I'm really going to miss the old house, but, at least we will get to build another one (hopefully).

Enjoy!

~Johanna

A project ~

A couple of weeks ago Dad & Caleb moved the washer & dryer from our laundry room (which is very close to where we eat meals) to the Garage. I must say, it is a LOT quieter, and that's especially nice during meal times when we need to run the washer & dryer. Anyway, the wall behind the washer & dryer had started to mold, so they had to cut that section out, and put in new sheet-rock. And...this was during a cold spell! Oh well, we survived & they did a good job! Thank you, Dad & Caleb!

Caleb is cutting out the old-moldy sheet rock.

Dad working on the outside (in the Garage)

Now there's a BIG whole in our wall! And...

...there's Jaden! As you can see, the whole was big enough for Jaden (who's almost 4 feet tall!) to walk through.

Now we have a table in the space where Caleb was in the pictures above, and the wall has no more mold in it. It also gives us more room for storing other items that had previously been stored in the Living Room (which that makes the Living Room look more tidy).

Thank you so much, Caleb & Dad, for the hard work!!

Welding - a newly acquired skill

Recently, Joel and myself learned how to weld (wire-fed Lincoln electric 110) from a neighbor who is generously loaning us one of his welders. Below are a few photos of Joel (darker photos) and I welding fenders on our trailer. Enjoy!



Let there be light? Oh, I think the first light was even brighter than that! Sparks a flyin', with Caleb as the Pyro-technician Smoked ham? Oh, no that's smoked steel.

Joel, happily polishing up on a newly acquired skill.