funny boy

Noah has been saying some pretty funny things lately.

I posted this on facebook, but will here as well so we're sure to remember...

We've been talking to Noah a lot lately about good manners. He's still not got the true meaning down, but we say things like, "it's not good manners to yell at the table...or be silly. It's good manners to cover your mouth when you cough and to say excuse me." So when we were eating lunch at Runza after church with Nathan and Ana before they headed back home, we told Noah to use his good manners. He said, "Good manners are in my head." That sounded good enough for us, as we nodded. Then he put on his thoughtful face and said, "I have bad manners in my bottom." We all burst out laughing but I don't think he realized what was funny b/c a little while later he also said he had bad manners in his feet.

Another funny story... Noah is always sad to see daddy go to work in the morning. He sorta follows him out the door but waits there to watch him go. As Terry is getting in his Blazer, Noah has been telling him things like, "Be good daddy. Don't do anything bad. Don't steal anything." Today he also said, "Don't go too fast." I had a good laugh even though I was in a bad Monday mood.

On another note, Noah is silly b/c he has never wanted to participate in playing any video games. He just wants to watch us play MarioKart or Smash Brothers or whatever it is he wants to "play." He said he's not a big enough boy. Today we insisted that he learn b/c daddy says he's big enough now. He did try but is so easily frustrated. I came down from making a MOPS breakfast to see him stuck at a fence on MarioKart. Poor boy. So daddy came to help him. Daddy steered the car and Noah was the acceleration. It worked pretty good.

the start of something big

My brother and his wife were here this weekend. It was really great! Nathan is a youth pastor in SD and Ana is his super sweet newly-barista wife. We met them in Lincoln on Thursday for a Dare to Share luncheon conference thing. Ana and I couldn't go in but had awesome Chipotle for lunch. Then we drove home and enjoyed showing them our new house for the first time.

Saturday, Terry and Nathan spent the afternoon working on installing a chain link fence in our backyard while Ana and I made pizza. Our back yard is quite large and it's a little bit of a bummer to put a fence up, but we really need one - for the dog mostly, and to not have to worry about the kiddies.

So Terry borrowed an auger from a friend which made the post hole digging much easier.

Nathan did the grunt work with the post hole digger. He said his hands were hurting him today

Noah played with Terry's dad's 100-foot tape measure and Evie fought him for it.

Ana and I offered moral support and played with the dogs. That's Brodie, their Golden-doodle. He's in need of a fur-cut ;)

He is a great dog

I really enjoy the look of the sun through the leaves. So pretty

Brodie and Snap made up this game where Snap would pretend that he cared about Brodie's frisbee and guard it from him (Snap's foot is on it). Snap thinks he's bigger than he is and Brodie is too laid back to fight for the alpha dog position.

Ana was throwing the frisbee and Noah was measuring the lawn...or something.

Here the boys are almost done for the day. This is the corner of the bball hoop, where a gate will be.

We could use a wheel barrow, yeah?

Level it out T-dawg

Not bad for their first time right?

fall days

Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy hanging our clothes outside, mostly. It gives me something to do outside (since the kids like me to be out there while they are) and it saves on our electric bill!

But these last several mornings and nights have been pretty chilly. I even had to put an extra blanket on all of our beds today. I still haven't turned on the heat, but that step is not far behind. Guess that's why we've been winterizing the house. Storm windows on the upstairs will go up soon.

Anyway, all of this just reminded me that the days of hanging up clothes outside are almost at an end. Back to waiting all day for them to dry... and for coats and socks and shoes and a cold, cold car ride everywhere you go.

23 or 24 or 25 weeks?

We had a mommy/baby check up today. Though the website says I'm at 23 weeks, the doc says 24 weeks and 5 days, so almost 25 weeks. Whatever. This is how big I/we am/are... Unfortunately, it's only 4 pounds away from what I weighed when Evie was born. Oh well!

Everything looked really good at the appointment so we're thankful for that. This pregnancy has been going fast and smoother than with either of the other two. Only if that will hold true after the baby comes! Three is certainly going to be an adjustment!

The website says the baby is the size of a large mango, just over a pound in weight and about 11 inches in length!

gutters

Almost a week after the roof was complete, we got the gutters installed. Previously, there had only been gutters on the south part of the house. But since we've had issues with flooding in the dungeon, we thought having gutters around the whole house would help. So here they are.

Looking south from our front step. You can also see the two vents that Terry and Jerry put on this side of the house.

Downspout

Back gutters

Today our fence arrived!

Too bad they didn't install it too =) Terry has some more work to do!

Cross County

Terry runs with the Cross Country team. He does this to help them (as a driver of the kids), to interact with kids and slim his waistline. Haha.

Thursday was the team's home meet and since I was at work, Terry took the kids all by himself. What a good daddy and youth pastor.

Here is Noah entertaining himself

He also pushed Evie down a small hill - not fast enough to be in danger of crashing thankfully =) And man, does this photo make her look big. She is such a big girl. She really needs a big girl bed...

more work

After the roof was complete, Terry and his dad did a few more repairs to the house.

When we got heavy rains this summer, the front picture window would leak, inside. It wasn't due to the gutters... We found out that it was due to a rotten board behind the gutters. The roofers replaced that board. But they also noticed that the soffet was somewhat rotten as well, especially above our front door. So they took that out, replaced and painted it. We will be doing all new soffets at some point. They also put in four new vents in the soffets on the south part of the fence since the attic has very poor ventilation.

But look what they found under the soffet!

Yeah, that's a HUGE wasp nest. They took it out, and thankfully, there were no wasps in it.

Furthermore, there is no partitioning wall between the attic and the garage. So, in the winter, all the cold air goes straight up into the attic and increases the gas bill. The plan is to wall this area off with insulation and drywall. So Terry climbed up there and put up some boards.

Good job Terry (and Jerry of course!)

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!