Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Before and Afters





Margie, these are for you. :) The top two are after the washer was pulled away and the guys discovering just how much of the floor (and wall) was soaked. It was a blessing having Chet around as he is very handy at this stuff and had the time for it. He did a great job laying the new floor down and creating a nice transition between the wood and tile. Best of all we kept the entire fix under $100! Very happy with the finished result. Thanks Chet!!
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Ditch Surfing

The snow has just melted and the water is still ice cold, kids are so smart.

Monday, April 13, 2009

The Weekend That Would Never End

It all started last Wednesday when my brother (Chet) and girlfriend (Kim) came for a visit. The plan was for them to drive up together, spend the weekend with us and Kim fly out on Monday from Bemidji while Chet stayed on. He just recently got back from deployment with the National Gaurd, so he doesn't have any immediate commitments to make it home to. We were happy for the visit and the project that he was going to start. Bunkbeds!!! With #3 on the way we decided it would be good to have some. So he, having quite a bit of carpentry experience offered to work on them. Before work started though we played. Friday we went to TRF to the indoor waterpark for the day. It's not real big, but big enough for the kids. Anson discovered that he LOVES water slides and spend 2 hrs running up the stairs, going down the slide, swimming out of the pool...and repeat. I was exhausted just watching so Paige and I went and rode the Lazy River. It was a fun day though and the guys were all ready to get started on the beds the next day. While the guys got started with that on Saturday, us girls decided to have some fun. Kim wanted to say she visited Canada, so plans were made to go to Rainy River and take a couple pictures. This, my friends, is where the trouble started. The Canadians customs looked at her drivers lisence a couple times, ran it, and asked us to come inside. Of course Paige kept asking what we were doing and we had no clue what was wrong. They made us wait a half hour then finally asked what we were doing in Canada. I told them my friend wanted to come and I had to check something out at the furniture store. To which the kind lady smirked and said, "it's been closed for 2 years". (oops) Then she asked Kim if she'd ever been in court, had a warrant out for her arrest or lost her license. The answer was no. Yes, she ALMOST lost it, but didn't, and since the lady didn't ask if she ALMOST lost it, we didnt' volunteer that information. Finally after staring us down for awhile hoping we would change our story (I think) she asked how long we would be there and what we really were wanting to do in Canada. By then we just wanted to go home! So I showed Kim the great town of Rainy, we made it to sweet Baudette without incident and bought our Canadian suvineers there. Whew...part 2 of story. Do I still have you? Bunk beds. They were progressing quite nicely when we got home. Anson was having a great time with the guys and Kim got put to work right away. I went in the house to start some laundry and then came out to join them. After hanging out for about 45 minutes I went back inside and found the washer overflowing with water and the floor drenched. Something malfunctioned (I think). So bunk beds were put on hold and floor was torn up to find the wood and wall soaked. Sigh...good thing Chet isn't in a hurry to get home. Now he's replacing the floor, half of wall, and refusing to touch the washing machine. I don't blame him.




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Tuesday, April 7, 2009



We were able to go for our first bike ride today, talk about some excited kids! We somewhat misjudged the temperature and on the way home Paige asked, "mom, when we get home can we have hot chlocat (hot chocolate)?" Someday after our walk, maybe we'll be able to trade in hot cocoa and marshmallows for lemonade and popsicles!
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Monday, April 6, 2009

Waiting for Spring

Apparently we aren't the only ones anxious for spring to arrive. Jerem, Anson, and our neighbor took a drive Saturday night and found this. The first picture is the first field they came to, with about 12 deer. Jerem said the second field had over 1oo, at least. All out there looking for food. Pretty cool to see so many in one spot, where do they all go come November? We've had a couple days of sunshine and decent temps, so we're definitely getting some melting up here. Anson declared today that he was "super hot" with only a jacket on, wishful thinking on his part!


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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

An Interview With My Children

This is a cute idea. Copy this note, ask your kid the questions and write them down exactly how they respond. The first response is from Anson the second is from Paige. (Anson is 5, Paige will be 4 this summer)

1. What is something mom always says to you?
A:“go outside”
P: “clean my room”

2. What makes mom happy?
A:"when we clean our rooms"
P: “when you make supper”

3. What makes mom sad?
A: "fighting with each other"
P: “I don’t know”

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
A:"when you tickle me"
P:“you talk silly”

5. What was your mom like as a child?
A: "that’s a hard question"
P: “I don’t know”

6. How old is your mom?
A: "15..is that it? Are you 15?"
P: (holds up 7 fingers)

7. How tall is your mom?
A:"190"
P:(jumps really high)

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
A:"throw snowballs at eachother"
P: “making your bed”

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
A:"clean our rooms"
P: “wash the dishes and clean your room”

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
A: "that’s harder"
P: “it mean on the bible” (no clue)

11. What is your mom really good at?
A:"driving the car" (he must not realize my track record with the ditch)
P: “washing dishes”

12. What is your mom not very good at?
A: "you are good at everything"
P: “I don’t know”

13. What does your mom do for her job?
A:"wash the dishes"
P:“clean anson’s room” (notice the room cleaning theme?)

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
A:"salad"
P: “salad” (hmmm…I think I’ve had a lot of that the last couple months)

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
A:"playing with eachother"
P: “I don’t know”

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
A: "what?(I explained it then he said) dash"
P: “you’d be a cool cool one”

17. What do you and your mom do together?
A: "go outside and throw snowballs"
P:“wash the dishes and help you make supper”

18. How are you and your mom the same?
A:"I don‘t know"
P: “when you curl my hairs we are the same”

19. How are you and your mom different?
A: "like how tall we are"
P: “we have different shirts on”

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
A: "that um…when I go to bed, you tell me"
P: “cause you just say it all the time”

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
A:"your grandpas"
P: “no, do my favorite…my favorite place to go is town”

22. What did you think about these questions?
A:"they were fun"
P: “they were nice”

April Snow



So, yesterday it snowed...again. Yay. Can you hear my enthusiasm? Today the kids and I went out to try and build a snowman, but the snow was too dry, so we went for a walk instead. Anson quickly discovered the snowballs already formed by passing snow plows and a snow ball fight followed. I think we'll all have bruises tomorrow from the hard packed chucks! After we came home I decided to give them a nutritious snack like any good mom would. Wait, did I say nutritious? That must be my pregnant brain shorting out again. Lets just say my kids are lucky to have a mom that's giving in to her sweet tooth right now, cause that cup of hot cocoa and piece of chocolate cake tasted awfully good!
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