Yes, I'm still alive and kicking. My digital camera was broken by one of my darlings so I haven't had pictures to share in a while. :-/ But I have been taking some with Jacob's little camera and my new cell phone with camera. So as soon as I get a chance to figure it out, I'll transfer some to the computer to share.

The house is just about finished, PTL! I'm so anxious to get in there and get settled. Walls are painted, most light fixtures are in, all flooring except the carpet is in. Next week will be plumbing fixtures, tile in the master bath and the fireplace surround, electrical work, etc. My double ovens are in as of yesterday, too! :-)

And the biggest excitement for today was...

we have baby chicks from our black cochin hen!!!! Woo-hoo! There are four little cute black chicks running around now. And we have two more sitting hens still working on some eggs, too, so there will be lots of chick pictures in future blog posts. ;-)

Oh, and the gargage foundation is done and the framers will be here for it on Monday, I hope.

DH has had a horrible work schedule for the past month so he's had to miss out on some of the house-building fun/frustration. He's been working 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts, plus the 50-min. drive to work. Ugh...

Yesterday we caught a glimpse of a local hot air ballonist... our relatives are on his ground crew and we see it quite often in the area. I'll try to get a better shot of it soon...

House as it looks as of this morning. Today they put drywall in and dug the trench for the electrical service line so lots of progress happening now!

Front door going in...

We finally got a chance to drag the chicken coop to a new location in the pasture. Vince built it on skids so he could pull it with the tractor or truck.

It was a great day for flying a kite...

Here's Vince holding Emma while she sleeps at our parish soup supper the other Friday night...

Love that cream color...

Can you believe that Emma is a year old?!!! Tuesday was her birthday and she got her first piece of cake.

Siding going up!

I'm attempting to figure out how our new kitchen needs to be arranged and select a range. This is so much more overwhelming than I had imagined! I'm getting a bit too scrupulous about picking this range out, too. Decisions, decisions....

Tales from the Bonny Blue HouseCheck out this great list of St. Patrick's day literature. Many of these were new to me. Enjoy!

Windows!

Castle of the Immaculate- Sunday, March 12th Ha-ha! I love this note about large families!

Well, the rental house had carpet put down so we had to pack up LOTS of books in the bookcases and turn the house upside down to accomodate. In the meantime, I'm searching for a front door that I can get like we want it and also trying to start picking out kitchen cabinets. OVERWHELMED describes me perfectly right now.

I just had to include a link to this. This is SO funny and SO right on - I can't wait to read it!

So here's how the house is today, March 5th. Should we put the planned rails on it or just posts without railings? Let me know what you think!!!

Yesterday we planted a spring garden. Here's Vince getting it more ready for our crops. We planted onions, cabbage, broccoli, garden peas and carrots. Everyone got in on the act!

And there's Farmer Vince preparing our garden spot! You can see the house is closed in now...

It's really looking like a home now!
March 1, 2006

Well, I'm finally getting around to updating! I have lots of pictures of this past week's progress to share. Lent has begun and I just love this time of year!
These pictures were taken Feb. 27.

Note to self:
NEVER change your blog without first saving a copy of all your customizations! ARGH!

2nd floor is going up!

Above is a view from the very back. Below rt. is looking at the front from the path.

WOOHOO! (Vince's '49 Ford N Series there)

While we were watching the cement being poured last week, I suggested that maybe the kids could collect some of the materials in the area around us to make an old-fashioned broom. We've been playing Little House lately, as well as listening to Johnny Tremain audio tapes so this handicraft seemed a good thing to do while hanging out. (Excellent book on tape, btw.) Grace gathered materials a while and so did Jacob but he tired of it quickly. Here's what we had to work with when we were done. (There won't be pictures of me up here often so see it while you can.) I did a little research online tonight and this guy makes some really nice brooms. It's funny that I should find that site because I was suggesting that we could go into the broom-making business to take to craft shows and the like (jokingly). Along with the egg business that Jacob hopes to start, of course. ;-)

Jacob's "foreign" language is now goat! He likes it much better than his Basic Language Principles with Latin Background book. And how come the goats and chickens seem to have traded sheds lately???

Today was a little disappointing because not as much got done at the house as we had thought would have been done. Because the county inspector didn't arrive until 2pm, they were not able to get the first floor framed up yet. They got all the subfloor finished up on the 1st floor, and the land was graded more and they back-filled around the basement. It was a beautiful day, however. 75 degrees! The next few days will be quite shocking with temperatures crashing to the freezing mark and we may even get a little of the white stuff.

How's this for a good-looking bunch of kids?!

And since I can't resist, here's a picture of Emma today, waiting patiently as the big kids were feeding the animals...

This is the scene when we were there last, the supplies waiting for tomorrow's work...
And here's another shot of them working on the floor joists earlier this afternoon.

This was taken today! The floor joists and steel beams are in above the basement...

Look what's happening at the new house!!!! The cement was poured for the basement floor last Wed.

Here's the girls' with "my" Kirsten doll that a sweet internet friend re-strung for me. They are beaming they are so happy!

The rooster enters the scene... we finally got a rooster and it's a Polish rooster! Check out his cool feather "crown".

Here's picture of what the basement looks like at this time, waiting for concrete to be poured...

After almost 2 weeks since the house fire, we're finally back home at our rental house. All of the repairs haven't been finished yet but we can do without the upstairs space just fine. I have furniture and things piled everywhere from the carpets being cleaned by the fire restoration company. So while I dig out from this mess, I won't be updating as much as I'd like but I'll add construction pictures as I can, regardless.

The basement walls are in!

Now before you locals see it in the local papers, I wanted to tell you we had a small house fire today, upstairs. We're all safe and sound and there was little damage. There is a great deal of soot upstairs, however, where mainly Jacob's stuff resided. So we're counting our blessings that it wasn't worse but being in the middle of a small town that had a slow news day meant that two town's newspaper reporters showed up as well as an AM radio station. ;-/ It appears to have started with some kind of small appliance/radio or something, according to the fire marshall.

I'll share a little of my weekend with you. We had our church's annual children's Christmas program on Sunday afternoon, Epiphany. Vince is on nightshift so the whole day I was on my own with the kids: Mass, then Sun. school, lunch, Christmas program at 3 and then the junior youth group meeting at 5. Believe it or not, sometime between our lunch and 1:45 pm, I lost my keys. I looked for nearly an hour with the kids' helping (and grumbling). *Finally* I had to call my mom to rescue us and get us to the play on time. While she zoomed the 8 miles our way to get us, I called Fr. Ned to tell him to relay our delay to my cousin (the choir director) and to offer up a quick prayer to St. Anthony to help me find my keys. Thankfully, we were only 5 mins. late and there weren't a great deal of folks there, anyway. If my 4 hadn't been there, there would have been amost a quarter of the roles missing!

Well, it went well and was just a joy to see. A fellow in our parish is making DVDs of the performance (proceeds going to a church project) so we'll get to relive Lucas' 3-year old antics, Jacob and Grace's solos and all the giggles for years to come. Jacob was slightly nervous about singing the whole "Little Drummer Boy" song by himself but he was awesome! Afterwards we had snacks and lots of compliments and then went to my parents' house for an enjoyable quiet meal before heading home.

So then today the weather was just wonderful and I decided to enjoy it while we could. 65 degrees! We walked to McD's and then made a trip to the playground. Here's a picture of Grace holding Emma this afternoon in the yard.... Grace looks a little drunk with her eyes starting to blink!In the spirit of the Haiku-writing homeschoolers everywhere, I made up a little haiku while watching the kids play on the playground. Here goes:

Beautiful weather
Kids playing in the sandbox
God, I am grateful.

Oh, and I did finally find the keys... right beside the baby's carseat in the van...

The second day of digging

And here's near the end of the first day of digging.

It begins!

Here's Lucas on Christmas morning openning a John Deere toy tractor. Nothing better than a real "boy toy" for my little buddy. He's favorite toy of the day was a Playmobil pirate ship, however. He's absolutely thrilled with it. Argh-mattey!

Here are the Parente girls on Christmas morning (Mary, Emma and Grace). Emma's cheesy grin is just heart-warming... I love seeing those little teeth.

This is a recent picture of my oldest (Jacob) holding my youngest (Emma). Jacob looked pretty much JUST like Emma when he was her age but not quite as hefty by about 6 lbs. It's hard to believe he's already 12.

Here's a picture of the kids running down the hill from our home site to see the goats and chickens... you can really see the scenery from this photo. We'll have a great view from our back porch!