A little breakfast.

A little time in laundry baskets.

A little fame … after checking the weekly newspaper over.

A little tortilla snackin’. 

Life is good with the little things.

Well, now they are all grown up … just like they are supposed to be.  

I took these pictures a few weeks ago but forgot to post them until now.  At least I am pretty sure that I never posted them.  I have been terrible at getting photos ready to post and letting them sit, only to forget if I shared them.  So I guess if you have seen these … well, my bad. 

This guy …

He was our “one free exotic chicken with the purchase of 25 regular old chickens”.  He scares me more than the others, being even more aggressive than the typical rooster … but since he is a “he”, he won’t be able to scare me much longer.  Chickens in the freezers don’t scare me … just sayin’.

So there they are … our chickens which should start laying delicious eggs for us any day now!  We still have plenty in the freezer but fresh eggs will be a nice change.

And on a completely random note … this was the sunset the night I took the pictures of the “baby chicks” … what the littles still call them. 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Here it is … the place where we stand to change a butt … or two.  Currently the space is also being used for Evelyn’s birthday cards which she thinks is the greatest addition.

So yes, this is where all the fancy diaper changing happens … exciting I know.  But regardless of the lack of excitement I am here to tell you that I did a little change up.   See, the current pad was less than perfect.  I picked it up at a garage sale for a mere buck and even though it was apparently “sammi’s” at one point, and not really a changing pad but a sleeping mat, it did the job.  

Until that is, it started to show some wear.  I am certain that the 30 plus pound three-year old has had something to do with its decline.  Regardless of the cause, it was time to fix it and getting rid of the bold blue/red color was going to be an added bonus.

Having the great idea to recover it for awhile now I had picked up a $4 vinyl tablecloth with the hopes that it would work … and, it did.

Here would be a good place to show you how I put it together, but it was only when I was sewing one of the last parts that I thought to grab the camera sitting inches away.  Sorry.  Basically I measured two pieces of the table-cloth to length, put the foam between them both and sewed. 

And in the end … much much better.  

It isn’t perfect of course … that would be silly … but it works and should hold together until those two little people decide that the potty chair really is the best way to go.

I am not holding my breath that it will be anytime soon but at least he likes the big boy underwear part.

Thanks to all who helped celebrate the life of our favorite girl.

There was a snag though.  See, the shelf was supposed to go up there  … between the wall and my existing make-shift “storage area”.  Turns out that we were 2 inches short because Farmer Neal forgot that the size he measured it needed to be the size he made it!  His boards were already cut but at 2 inches longer than we needed.  Well, he wanted to keep that 2 inches so I had more room.  Great plan if it were to fit.  So I basically threw a big fit (seriously, it wasn’t pretty) because I was going to lose that metal shelf and started to take apart the corner of the room that I hadn’t intended to tear apart.  It was terrible really, but the good thing was that the metal shelf came off the other part of the shelf and there was enough time to do some fancy figuring and put it on the other wall.  

This made me very happy and I felt really bad for throwing that fit before.   But before that surprise shelf went up … this one did. 

Ta-da!  Nice right?  I love it.  Farmer Neal refers to it as “skill-saw furniture” and is not proud of it in the least but heck, it totally works for me!  

Did I mention kids helped?  That little boy mostly jumped up and down on the containers of papers and that little girl rearranged thread … but they had fun. 

After the shelves were up I started to get busy organizing.  Do you think it needed it? 

Believe me when I say that it got much worse than this before it was done. 

But now … look at my space …

Could it be prettier?  Oh my goodness I am happy about this.  And of course now all I want to do it get in that beautiful space and create something fantastic!  However, since I spent ALL day in there the rest of the house is chaos at its finest and I did mention it was after 2:30am (now 3am) right?   Pretty sure I will dream about that gloriously organized room tonight … you know after those dishes are done.

***

Last week on the 30th of December we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.  So hard to believe that it has already been 5 years.  For the record, it has been a pretty fantastic 5 years.  We went to dinner with friends while Grandma Mary & Grandpa Tom watched the littles.  It was a great evening.  Before we left for the afternoon as I was making pizza’s the heating element in the oven went out … or broke in two, whichever is the best way to describe it.  The element didn’t come quickly so for a few days we relied on our wood stove to help with the cooking. 

Thankfully we had some soups in the freezer that we could just heat up.  However, I did make a couple batches of tortillas which turned out pretty great, cooked up some yummy grilled cheese & browned up a pound of hamburger.  

I gotta admit that it was sort of fun using the wood stove as a cook stove while it lasted. 

Since the oven was out of commission I figured it was a good time to give it a good cleaning.  “Clean the oven” has been scribbled on the chalkboard for at least 6 weeks … it was time.  Plus, it was terribly dirty.   I only share the horrible before shots so that you can enjoy the beautiful after ones. 

Farmer Neal was able to get the right element and we were back in business this morning  with oatmeal cooking for breakfast. 

***

We spent New Years Eve at home doing what we normally do.  The weather has been fantastic for being outside so Farmer Neal spent most of they day outside working on this and that.  We did get a little snow that was perfect for building a snowman.  Daddy got right on that while our little non-napping girl watched. 

***

 Our New Years Day was mostly spent looking at this. 

Farmer Neal found a puzzle upstairs … one of our “gifts” when we moved to the farm.  It was pretty fun working on it, even with a missing piece when all was said and done. 

Speaking of puzzles … Miss Evelyn’s new favorite activity is puzzles. 

She’ll still pick chatting with Daddy over working on one … and over looking at me for a picture, but she loves them.

***

The rest of our week has been pretty uneventful … just life as we know it. 

Which suits us just fine.   

but it was $1 and much sturdier than my current one.   In addition to those late 1980′s geese, there was a terrible odor whenever I used it. 

Something had to go.  Bye-Bye geese. 

Much much better!  Well I think so anyway.  :)

He was simply too adorable to be left un-photographed.

Merry Christmas!

Hope that your day is filled with joy & love.