our little lincoln log

swinging

It's been a hot summer. At least July and August were - 90s and 100s most of the time. This week we are having much more fall-ish weather - 70s. It's been just beautiful. So the kids are enjoying playing outside a lot more than they had previously. I had to grab the camera to capture all three of them swinging.

Samuel is finally big and strong enough (he's 7 months already!) to really enjoy it. And he does.

I like his feet.

Evie wants to swing all day.

Then the kids' play branched out a bit.

I'd never actually climbed up to the top of the slide before. I went down it too. The kids enjoy climbing up inside the slide without their shoes on. Noah climbs up the outside too.

Noah watched me from above while I went down.

Cheese.

Damons

Terry has been to Macau, China four times. The first was the summer after high school and the last while he was at Moody for his undergrad internship - he has both TESOL and International Ministries degrees. The missionaries he worked with are Bruce and Mary and they were supported by our home church. Bruce and Terry's dad are actually the same age and attended the same Sunday school classes while they were young.

Terry got pretty close with Bruce and Mary during all of his trips. The last time we saw them was in 2005 when we still lived on the ranch, Noah was a baby, Terry was working for the Workshop, I was in nursing school and they were on furlough. They are currently on furlough again and were able to visit us here at the start of their 2 month road trip. It was really good to see them.

Mary so enjoyed our kids, especially Samuel.

She so enjoyed him. But, I mean, how could you not?!

pretty

I have no idea where Noah got his recent idea of making Evie "pretty" but he's working it.

Noah did that to Evie all by himself...

look-a-likes II and XC

This is Terry's 4th year pastoring the youth here and his 5th year running with the Cross Country team. He initially did it to meet some of the kids since we came in the summer when youth group is smaller. And, you know, b/c of excess poundage. He's done the best this year at consistently running with them in the summer. School is started now but these photos were from when he was running at 7am. He's soaked either way.

Noah took these photos of Terry and Samuel. I was shocked to see how even their mannerisms are so similar. Daddy is sucking on a straw all hunched over...

...Samuel is sucking on his toy all hunched over. They even have the same expression!

poor princess

I'm not sure who was responsible: Evie or Noah. She was not a happy princess.

happiest penguin/boy ever

You have to watch this video. My sister Stephanie posted it b/c it reminded her of Noah. She is absolutely right.

family weekend

Terry family visited us this last weekend of August!!! They had not been to here in seemingly forever: Shari and Jesse hadn't come since Grace was in utero the day we moved into this house, May 28, 2010. And Terry's parents since Samuel was born almost 7 months ago.

There was purpose to the visit besides hanging out though. Shari recently became a Norwex consultant and I wanted to host a show. I attended a show she hosted in June and was pretty blown away at the products - microfiber embedded with silver that self-sanitize. Awesomeness. Check out the site.

Here are the cousins hanging out. They were digging the pink ball. Samuel was making these very manlike gruntings while he grabbed for it. Grace has such a high girly girl voice. They have matching expressions, "Huh? What chew want?"

Lazy Sunday afternoon play time.

Pink ball!

Cute little squish. Except she's way squishier than Evie was. Squish squared.

Nom nom nom

Noah the photographer

One guaranteed way to keep Noah occupied is to give him a camera. These are photos that Noah took of all of us last weekend.

Terry completely detailed the Blazer. It was the first time he had cleaned it since he's owned it - over a year. Now he wants to sell it. Also, he's modeling his first piece of Nebraska apparel - the hat, a free garage sale find.

Gotta have self portraits every once in a while right?

This is what Samuel looks like a lot of the time. He's not to fond of his high chair at this point. And he's not too fond of being anywhere mommy or daddy isn't.

Evie lunch face.

And this is mommy's unfortunate lunch face. I'm not vain. I threw this up there even though I look like a complete dork. I think it's funny. Though, since Noah took this, I probably look like this a lot of the time. Uh oh.

And I actually really like this one of Evie.

I like this photo that Noah took in the car. You can see him in the rear view mirror.

bed time

Noah and Evie love Samuel. Every time I go to get Samuel up from a nap or put him down, they both insist on kissing and hugging him. A few nights ago at bedtime while Terry was reading their Bible, I stuck Samuel up with Noah in his bunk bed, much to their mutual pleasure.

Check out the hand holding.

flop

I grabbed the camera just in time to catch this moment of Snap loving on Samuel. Snap didn't have to plop down there. And no one planted him there. He chose to flop there. Samuel was enjoying grabbing his fur, which is in dire need of a trim.

Snap is a good dog. He's no Hachi, but still (we watched Hachi: A Dog's Tale last weekend. terry posted on facebook, "well, the movie Hachi just ripped our hearts out, jammed them through a strainer and boiled them in our own tears. Maybe in a few days til we recover from that one.")

the headless hunt

Noah has completely lost his head. And this isn't the first time...

look-a-likes

A friend pointed out how much Samuel and Terry resemble each other in these two photos. I thought she was right on!

terry's find

Terry recently invested time at a Saturday estate auction and scored himself a pretty good deal - a recliner. It's in good shape too. He was so proud of himself. And we are enjoying putting our feet up. I know those grand-dads will really enjoy our new addition as well.

laundry room before-and-afters

I have been accused of being addicted to painting - and to paint chips...and the fumes. Really though, I think I'm just addicted to before-and-after photos. I love it. Plus, you know, it's fun to change something and be pleased with how it turned out.

I had already transformed the dungeon into a fun school room last month and all that was left wanting was the laundry room. I wasn't too concerned about it but I had all this leftover paint. And since I wanted to put it away (from the floor and my mind), I decided to just git-r-dun. Plus, we had some fun - we painted our names on the concrete floor.

This is the view of the laundry room before from the hall. I didn't mind the yellow cabinets only they were pretty dirty, in need of new life, revitalization, transformation. You get the idea. And the white walls were blah.

This is an after photo, but from farther back so you can see how the room matches the rest of the dungeon, or as Noah says we can now call it: The Fungeon.

The after view from the door. We will be replacing that light but I couldn't wait to do this blog!

Back wall before:

Back wall after. I had painted the entire wall orange to begin with but with the combined brightness of the cupboards, it was seriously burning my eyes. So I added the white stripes. Now it's fit for a carnival, which is what laundry is anyway.

Corner and coat rack before:

After. I won't point out my mistake on this wall but you probably see it. I am bummed but will cover it with some snow pants. This is a leftover color, Butterup, from our other house - the big room. I completely used up the paint so yay!

There was another photo that I took of the wall with the door but it won't work. But it was a light, bright green - the same from Noah's old room. I used almost all of that paint up as well!

And here is the view of those cabinets before! Notice the nice particle/cardboard stuff below the cabinets.

After! This is what I like the most. Very bright and cheery. Like everyone has been saying, this is going to make laundry fun now...

Oh, and I painted inside the cabinets as well b/c they needed it. Like my overflowing laundry shoot? Yeah, couldn't do any of it this week since this room was incapacitated. Guess what I'll be doing next week?

all fours

Samuel was given some diapers that felt as if they were made of cardboard and worked about as good as cardboard too. But they were free so I wanted to use them up. He had just gone through like the 3rd outfit on this day and since it was almost time for bed and I was tired of changing him I just let him lounge in his diaper. Cute skinny little guy.

He has started pulling his behind up, getting up on all fours. He does much better on a mattress but still, he's learning! See how his bottom is off the ground?

Omaha Zoo 2011

On Monday, August 8, Terry and I left Samuel with our replacement gramma, Miss Kathy, and took the big kids to the Omaha Zoo. We had been planning and looking forward to this trip for a long time. But when we stopped in York for a bathroom break, the van started acting up. We stopped at a dealership repair shop and the dude didn't think it was anything severe. So we kept going. The van did fine on the interstate, but when we were stopped it would idle low and sometimes make a clunking sound. We prayed and made it to Omaha at noon.

First off the kids played on the lions.

Then they touched the revolving earth fountain.

We went straight for the aquarium. Glad we did since it was air conditioned (though the weather was nice). Penguins!

Good ol' penguins. They didn't look sad to be in the zoo, like the big cats. Well, all the other animals looked sad, actually. But it was still good to see all the animals we only usually see on tv.

The penguins were great. They were looking at Noah and Evie.

Then we went to the large tank where you could walk through a tunnel and see all around you - sharks, rays, fishies. When we first asked Noah what he wanted to see at the zoo, he said a shark. Check!

Next we went to the Cat House. Here is my favorite kitty - A Bengal Tiger. He was licking it's paw and it's tongue was as big as Terry's foot. Or bigger. Just gorgeous. I'm gonna have a big kitty in the new earth I think ;)

We saw the lions twice and they hadn't moved at all. Lazy big cats!

Think he liked his "toy?" Zebra paper over a cardboard cylinder?

Puma. Or mountain lion.

At 230, we went to the seal training show. The pool was half drained for some reason so they couldn't jump on the edge of it like they usually. They were still fun. They didn't mind being in the zoo either, it seemed.

Then we went to the Gorilla House. Twice. They were pretty entertaining. That's a mama gorilla with its back to Evie.

Proud daddy Silverback. He was a big dude. Scary.

There was one baby gorilla. Noah took this picture.

Another mama was chillin on top of the bubble window. We got to go under her and have some eye contact. She was playing with some pants.

The Silverback was trying to intimidate the largest of the Mormon guys group that was watching. He slammed his chest against the glass and pounded it with his fist.

We played on the gorilla statues for a bit at the end of the day.

Daddy's friend

I love this picture of us

Typical Evie face. "Eeeeee."

We had a good time but the kids were way tired. Still, we made it to Lincoln for our hotel and dinner at Ruby Tuesday. Terry took the kids swimming at the hotel and then we left the next morning for some fun in Kearney. It would have been more fun if the van hadn't been acting up and we hadn't got stuck in traffic twice on the interstate but the kids did get to play at the sprinkler park. Our van is still in the shop at this writing... They don't know what's wrong with it!