Here's a few pictures...

Here are the 3 Loop-kins on the first day of school. Declan started 4th grade, Teagan is in 2nd and Maren is in Transitional Kindergarten. This will be the first time in over 9 years that I will be home alone during the day. Bliss.

 

I ordered a light for over my sink, it plugged right into the recessed can! 

 

This is the before:

 

This is the after:

 

I had high hopes of getting all of my Halloween decor put out this weekend, but didn't.  We did get some irrigation on the citrus trees we planted up the hill, but that was about it.

 

I'm still wading through my pictures on my camera and need to spend some time getting organized so I can maybe start blogging again!

 

If you came by and read this, THANKS!!

I'm excited for FALL!

Can you tell?  I told Greg I'm decorating for Halloween/Fall on September 1st.  It's by far my very most favorite time of the year!  I used to love Spring, but with allergies, we had a falling out.

So, many things have been going on, and I took a break from blogging about life to just living it.  Just a recap of the past few months:

 

~ A month of swim lessons for all Loop children.  Turns out they are all fish.  This cam just in time for....

~ A Mexican Cruise for my Mother In Law's birthday.  Fun was had by all.

~ Missing my Teagan for almost a MONTH, she rode home with Grandma to Arizona after the cruise.

~ Getting a visit from my brother and Dad, whom also delivered my Teagan back to me.

~ALL 3 Loops starting school last week!

I've got a "to do" list a half mile long, but will be back to post pictures and other tid bits of interest in a few days!

Introducing Lily White!

I mentioned our new car a few posts back, here she is.  All pretty and clean, here is Lily White!  She is a 2012 Toyota Camry SE (which means she's zippy).  She's already been to the car hospital to get a new gas tank and rocker panel (due to a road hazard puncturing her tank and cracking the rocker panel...).  This is after we picked her up and she had just been detailed.  Did I mention we live on a dirt (well, now muddy) road?  She won't look like this for long.

Christmas Happened Here too!

Here are the 3 little Loops in their Christmas jammies.  They got to open them on Christmas Eve.

I took this picture of the tree on Christmas morning, before the festivities began.  The mass of presents was overwhelming the room.  Santa sets his presents out in the open for each child to see.  So far this hasn't posed any problems, but I can see this might in the future....  Maren got the princess doll house and Teagan got the American Girl Doll.  Declan is in the clear with Lego's.

I actually took this picture of Teagan with her doll in matching dresses after the presents were all opened, so they are a little out of order.  I'm artistic like that.  In the foreground you see Declan, with his Legos and Maren is playing with her presents while wearing her new Ariel mermaid dress up. 

This is when Declan first walked into the room and saw his Lego Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl ship.  He was thrilled.  And to think he doesn't believe!

Maren got princesses for the dollhouse.  If it's princess, it's all good in her book!

Nellie (left) and Jack (right) heard that Santa has reindeer.  They had to keep an eye out in the event that Santa made the mistake of landing them in our yard.  They are both really good at chasing deer of all kinds.

Declan in in Lego fortress of happiness.

Turns out that watching for deer is exhausting.  It's always good when you have a pillow to rest your weary head upon.

After Christmas we decided to get a new car.  We'd had Tallulah the VW Passat for almost 12 years and she was getting tired.  We sold her and got a new shiney pretty zippy car.  I'll post a picture of "Lily White" tomorrow! 

Thanks for coming by!

Some Halloween, a sunset and a Birthday.

Declan was Jack Sparrow for Halloween.  It wasn't initially what he wanted to be, but once we got to Target and he saw his options, this was the best one.  I made his pirate boots out of felt.  Surprisingly enough, he was the only Jack Sparrow that I saw while Trick-or-Treating in Georgetown.  Cool make up courtesy of Greg, and I quick made the felt beard, braided with beads and stuck to child's chin with glue dots!  When I would catch a glimpse of him in the rear view mirror, it didn't even look like him!

Teagan was Super Girl.  She opted out of any make up, but rocked her cool costume with authentic red boots.  I actually thought her costume was darling.

Maren chose to be a Ladybug.  Up until the time I took this picture she was not going to wear the wings.  Then decided to put them on for the photo.  Greg drew her eyelashes on.  She was thrilled!

Here are the 3 of them.  Georgetown beware....

I painted the girls room lavender.  I made the little butterfly pictures on the shelves.  Their room still needs something else on the walls, but I haven't decided what yet.

I also upgraded Declan's bedding to more 'mature' plaid.  He liked the car bedding he's had since he was 2, but I was ready for a change.  I'm going to do something on the walls in here as well, but I'm thinking horizontal planking or something along those lines.  I'll have to think some more on that...

Greg called me out to see this beautiful sunset.  When we first moved in here, we busted our tail getting things done during day, in hopes of relaxing out on the deck before the sunset was gone.  We recently realized that we haven't sat out on the porch and watched the sunset in awhile.  I ran to get the camera, hoping to get some shots before it got too dark.

I love that I have a knack for catching a dog whizzing in many pictures.  I should go back through to see if I can do a post of all dog whiz pictures.  Won't you be on the edge of your seats waiting for that?  LOL!

Then we celebrated Greg's birthday with Lemon cake.  I tried to make the little blue candles into the shape of a "4" since I had a "5" candle.  But the kids were quick to point out that I had 55 on Greg's cake.  I love that they are old enough to start pointing out my faults.....

Been Busy Bees Over Here!

Well.  We've been sanding, drilling, prepping, painting.  All the while taking kids to soccer practice 4 nights a week and games every Saturday.  Toss a little (ha!) laundry, the occasional grocery trip, volunteering at the school (I'm the room Mom for Teagan's 1st grade class, and I run a book club in Declan's 3rd grade class) and general household chores leaves me no time for blogging.

But because I would like to see the progress we've made, here are some recent pictures of the house!

We have had the house/porch painted, new screens and shutters.  This is looking down to the house from the garage.

At the beginning of summer I bought outdoor fabric yardage to sew my own pillows for the patio furniture.  I am really good at sewing zippers in pillows now, after making at least 20 pillows.  Many, many thanks go to my Mom, who cut all the fabric into the sizes I needed for the pillow forms I bought at Ikea. 

Won't you come sit on my porch?

Remember when it looked like this????

I've also been busy decorating for Halloween.  From years past you know this is a big deal for the Loop kiddos.  I've been also going thru closets and donating unused/unneeded things.  Seems like I always have a pile waiting to be taken to Goodwill. 

 

You can see the "Loop Art Gallery" on the wall there, I took individaul pictures of the art and finally took it all down.  It was up since summer, as were the tissue pom-poms I made for Teagan's birthday party in June.....

I'll be back with more pictures when I get a chance to take them, but thanks for looking for now!

An Obvious Hiatus...

One day, once I catch my breath, I will blog again. I promise!

Just for fun!

This is what our house looked like when we first saw it. 

Teagan took this picture yesterday.

And just for reference, what the back yard/house looked like.

The Backdeck and Chickens

We (read: mostly Greg) spent the past weekend sanding, fixing and painting the back deck. Many of the balusters needed to be replaced, some of the wood was raw, other parts were either white or green.  We quit trying to figure out what the previous people were trying to do a long time ago.  It really freed up some brain space to let go of that...  Glad I remembered to get some 'before' pictures.

This back staircase goes into our masterbath.

I took this picture this morning, the mostly finished job.  Major improvement if you ask me!  Plus, you could walk out on the deck barefoot now (not that I recommend that out here....) without the risk of splinters or raised nailheads.

The entire time we were working on the deck, we had 'the gals' supervising us, openly discussing how I didn't tape the tarp far enough over and the house was going to get over sprayed (it did).  They wondered why in the world my window is open right next to where Greg was sanding?  Good point.  They wanted to know what the paint tasted like, if they fit under the furniture, if they would get painted if they stood *right* there.  You get the idea.  We did discover that we have quite a few characters on our hands. 

I know I said I wasn't going to name these chickens, but it's pretty hard not to, once you realize they have personalities.  LOL!

This is Penny, a Rhode Island Red.

Maude, a Barred Rock.  She has a thing for Greg...

Here, in the forefront is Donna, a Blue Andalusian.  Behind her is Clementine, an Easter Egger, and the Brown Leghorn is behind them.  I think I'm going to call her Harriet.

This is Blanche, a Delaware.

This is the Ancona, not yet named.  She is really skittish, thinks I'm the Devil.

Here is Ellie Mae, she's a Cochin. 

This is another Easter Egger, haven't named her yet either.

Well, thanks for coming by!

The Playset - ala'complete!

I got the wild hair to paint it like the house. 

Let's just jump right in ...

With a snake picture!  Apparently they like the nice warm weather too. 

No big deal really, except that I had *just* gone down these steps 1 minute before.  I turned around to go back up and there he was.  The close up picture is actually taken with the mac-daddy zoom on my camera.  I'm no where near this close to the snake.  See the open door to the left?  Yep, that's right where he went.  Into the garage....  I just got the willies typing that.

We had a boy turn 8.  This was at his party at Incredible John's.  The Las Vegas like Chuck E. Cheese in Roseville.  Fun was had by all!



We cleared an area in the back yard for a play set.  There had been a wooden floor with cement footings here.  Greg broke it all apart with the tractor and flattened the area. 

The play set is cool, with the exception that none of the parts were labeled.  It's okay, we just figured it out ourselves, measuring each. and. every. piece, then labeling with all of the post it notes we owned.  After about 4 hours we had to cover it all up with tarps and head in because it started to rain.

No worries though right?  Well, we didn't get back out there to work on assembly until the next weekend.  Giving some critter plenty of time to chew all the post it notes off and build a nest under the tarp.  Yep, we're giving like that.....

The instructions said this would take 2 people 10-12 hours to build.  Hahahahahahahaha.... breathe. hahahahahaha.  And we used power tools.  The idiots in the video are screwing everything with the smart little tool by hand.  The spiral slide is 2-3 more hours of nothing but pure. fun.

Glad to say that after about 1 month of working around weather, sore backs, and other activities, the play set is now complete!  I will go take a picture of it today.  We decided to put this up so that the kids had something to play on while we start to grade down hill for the garden.  See the blue tarp off the right side of the above picture?  That is the greenhouse Greg gave me for my birthday last year.  That project should go just about as well, considering those boxes have sat outside for winter rain, snow, not to mention GOATS.  They loved to run up on the box and chew on it until I almost got there, then tear off of it.  *(&^% goats.

Well, off to clean things up to take to the children's consignment store.  Wish me luck!

Chicken Math...

Lesson 1 Probability: If you get one, you will probably get more...

Lesson 2: Addition: If you add one, you will definitely add another, so no one is "lonely"

Lesson 3: Division: No matter your best intentions, you will need to divide your chickies into more individual groups than you originally anticipated, which won't work, so see Lesson #4 Multiplication

Lesson 4: Multiplication: Coops and brooders must multiply by 3, every 6 months.

Lesson 5: Algebra: X number of chickens will always produce Y number of chickens, of which Z amount will actually be claimed as "real" "countable" chickens.

Lesson 6: Calculus: If Z amount of chickens are not actual chickens, and only Y can equal Z, then R must equal two times S, which means A is less than B, ...and if A is less than B, then you still have room for more before you are considered a hoarder!!

I got that from SunnyCalifornia on Backyard Chickens. 

With that said, get ready for some total cuteness!  The following are the breeds, not their names.  I'm not sure these gal's are going to have names, trying to not make 'pets' out of them.  Just too upsetting if something happens to them....

Ancona

 Barred Rock

 Brown Leghorn

 Blue Andalusian...  jury is out, looks like a boy to me.

 Cochin (has feathered legs)

 Delaware

Dominique

Rhode Island Red 

 Ameruacana (Easter Egger) #1

 Ameruacana (Easter Egger) #2

Gotta love chicken math...