the roof

When we bought this house, we knew it would need a new roof. There were some pretty old and mossy shakes up there - and we found out later that there were even older asphalt shingles under the shakes!

After some wicked hail this summer, we had the insurance inspector come out and, well, inspect. We didn't get much...but the roof needed done anyway so we hired it done.

Here is are a few "before" pics. Sorry you can't see them better, but I thought I'd put them up anyway.

The front

The back

The shakes close up. These are the dryer ones. The level lower is where all the moss was.

There were like 7 guys here all tearing off yesterday. You can see the old shakes remaining - see how they're green? Yes, moss.

Terry's dad came down just for this special occasion. He used to be a roofer you know. He used to own a roofing company and Terry used to work for him! So Jerry is somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to roofing and he held these guys to their task. He even got up there and showed them what to do! Terry and Jerry are pulling out nails and staples before the tar paper goes down.

They took two truckloads like this away.

Not sure what they're talking about but you can see they're standing on the tar paper. They got most of this section done last night before they quit.

This is today, the final day. Terry is tearing off the shingles from the ridge on the back shed. These are who-knows-how-old-shingles that they decided last minute to get replaced.

And okay, here is the new roof!!! It takes some getting used to - it's so smooth and clean and nice!

Nice, right? It's called "Painted Desert" and there are reds, blue/grays and browns.

Terry and Jerry also helped with the "ridge venting," which helps the attic vent, I guess. This was an extra something that they wanted done.

And here is the front view!

So pretty. I think it goes well with the red bricks.

Time to mow the grass too

And here is the completed shed. This especially looks so much better. It's nice that they match since they're both the same bricks.

MOPS jumps

To kick off this year for MOPS we had "fun jumps" in the park, or bouncy castles, as I've always called them. I'm not sure how many ladies we had show up, but it seemed like a good turn out. It was fun! We had two jumps, the first being this Sponge Bob. Noah had a blast but it took Evie the first hour to warm up to the idea. After that she just ran after her brother and they had a great time.

Here is the second jump. It was kinda like an obstacle course ending in this slide.

Noah likes to race his sister but I don't think she cares so much

He's probably giving her some kind of instructions... He's always doing that!

jalapeno poppers

My parents arrived the day of the Harvest Festival. The following day brought the same weather though we were hoping for better. So for dinner I made Austrian cream cheese soup, which was delish. Terry was given a bucket of home grown jalapenos after the parade and took initiative of using them up. He made jalapeno poppers, or rat tails, all by himself =)

Seeded jalapenos filled with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon.

They were yummy but I forgot to take a photo after we baked them =(

harvest festival 4

This year brought our 4th experience with the Harvest Festival. It's funny b/c every year we take less and less photos. Besides getting used to things, it was a dreadful day for a parade. It was all overcast, drizzly and you could even see your breath! I was supposed to hand out water for MOPS but there was hardly anyone out and even those didn't really want any water. Hot chocolate would have gone over much better!

It was also a terrible day for Terry and the youth group to put on a fundraiser, but they did =). Terry set up these kids games and the students helped the little kids to play them, all in the drizzle and rain. Besides two or more hours of that, Terry was dunked in the speech team's water tank again this year. I didn't venture out to take photos, but he said it was much warmer in the water than when he had to climb out again!

Anyway, Terry's aunt and uncle (over my left shoulder), live on Lake Avenue, the parade route, so we have prime seats all ready for us. Evie was not into the parade for like the first half. She just wanted to sit with me. She finally got around to getting up and grabbing her own candy though.

She loved this blue sucker, though it made her look pretty sick since it was so cold.

Whaaaaaat?

static girl

Several weeks ago while my sister was here, Terry was playing with the kiddies on the tramp and she took some great shots. This was before a storm completely shredded the net.

Upside-down girl

Tall big boy

This is just the beginning of Evie static hair as Daddy lifts her up. Notice I'm in the background just watching. I quite like having the excuse of being pregnant for not jumping with them all. =)

Nice hair right?

Love it. She has such fine hair =)

I think Steph took this one through a hole already in the net. Later the hole completely tore away and Evie, so used to having the net there to catch her, rolled right off the tramp next to daddy. She's not wanted to get on since =( Guess we'll have to try again next year with a new net!

shutters

Noah has these really neat shutters covering the windows in his room. I really like them, but wanted them to match the paint a little better. While I was home once this summer, I picked up some fabric I liked on sale and have been saving it until my mom would be able to come down and help me. My parents have been here a few days so we got to work yesterday afternoon.

Here is the "before" look. The inside of the shutters were black-out curtains to darken the room. The outside of the shutters was striped red and white.

Here is my mom taking out the thumb tacks holding the fabric down.

One shutter free

Dad is enjoying the new deck chairs I got for my birthday. It was gorgeous outside.

Here is the new fabric

Mom "let me" cut the fabric to fit the shutters. Ha ha

Here she is cutting the darkening shade down a little. Next we glued the shade to the back of the new fabric and then stapled it down to the shutter. Lastly, she stapled another layer of fabric over the shade so that both sides of the shutter would have a nice pattern.

Bam! Looks great I think! Not very "masculine" but hey, I didn't want something like Cars or Spiderman =)

Now the shutters look really great while they're open as well as when they're shut.

Shut it

backyard shade...and sun

I really, really like the maple tree in our backyard.

And Snap is okay too I guess =)

entertaining herself

How nice of Evie to sit all on her own and entertain herself with books right?

And how nice of her to look at every single book and leave a huge mess =)

fix her up

The bedrooms around here have been quite bare since we moved in as we concentrated on the rest of the house. I had quite forgotten about the pottery barn bedroom accessories that a friend gave me before we even moved. Today I finally got to it. And though Evie doesn't have a twin bed like she desperately needs for the bedspread to go on, at least she has pretty curtains, hooks and some art.

I quite like the curtains

So pretty

The hooks...and a frog

The art

I likee