What you all have been anxiously awaiting...

Pictures!!
Sorry I have been so internet-absent.
Aug 27- My Kitchen. Without a wall.
We don't have grass anymore, but Great Grandma and Grandpa do! Playing in the sprinklers. Aug 25
They also let Timmy pick a "Potato" and eat it sttraight off the plant!
Taken Aug 16, 08 Above, you'll never guess what we gave Shannie for her wedding: No, not diapers, Tupperware! Below, Timmy created this masterpiece as his wedding gift.
Does your kitchen sink look anything like mine? Aug 28

The boys both want to be like dad: Piano players. Here is a pajama duet. Notice the air compressor hose, extention cord, screwdriver, and other construction tools in my living room?
The next set of pics. were all taken on Aug 31. It had rained the previous night. The boys found some puddles... Brad, Melissa, Amy, Tiff, Em & Patrick all came to help move broken-out concrete off the main level floor. As everyone was working in the very cold weather,
Look what happened: inches of hail!!
We quickly took temporary refuge in the house, cold and wet. The puddle grew...We sent everyone home, and followed soon. Tiff and Patrick made us breakfast. Yum!
later that week, we got a U-cart and poured a few footings. Amy and I are cleaning out the cart. The footings were to go under the walls that would cover my kitchen holes:

West wall going up,East side wall. These are the walls that filled in the holes at the beginning of this blog post. The golden hammer award goes to these helpers: left to right: Brad, Alan, Steve, Troy, Parker, Amy, and Rob (behind the wall). THANKS!They aren't the only helpers: Nicole, Sierra, and Emily caim and Spencer company.
We aren't slave drivers, when our helpers come over, we have fun, too.
A little time lapse: Sept 6. WOW! Look at all the walls. This was taken after church one Sunday.
This picture is taken from the southwest corner of the "Great Room" The sheeted wall in the photo is the one the guys were standing a few pics earlier.
This the the area where the Master Bath, bed, closets, and the office/nursery will be.
The room on the left is the dining room. It is taken from the kitchen.
Spencer in his church clothes.
We also celebrated both Troy's and Timmy's birthdays. Troy insisted on no fuss. So, there aren't even pictures of him on his day. But we did make a fuss over Timmy. Here he is opening a few presents
The men in our ward (congregation) organized a service project and planned a volunteer work day where we were able to install most of the floor joists for the upstairs in a single day.
Many thanks to John for spearheading and organizing it, as well as coming to work, also thanks to Howard, Marty, Paul, Stan, and many others. More golden Hammers.
Oh, yeah, I helped. I held one end of the joist in one hand while climbing a ladder with a hammer in the other hand and nails in my pocket. (I need my own tool belt.) Then I hammered the joists into the hangers. It was actually fun. I was sore the next day.
For their size, BCI jfloor joists are surprisingly strong and lightweight.
Taking a short break on Timmy's birthday.
Tim asked me to "pack him a lunchbox" on his birthday, so we did. He found an empty corn dog box, and we filled it with Granola bars, Beef jerky, apples, peanuts, Chex Mix, and Fruit roll-ups. Not our usual lunch, but it was his birthday. This was taken from the second story looking down.
Here is another friend, Brian, who came to help. We are now framing the upstairs walls. The subfloor was finished a few days after we installed the joists.
These are a little out of order. Here are the boys eating that lunch I "packed" for them.
Tim opening presents at our house


We had a special Sunday Dinner to celebrate Timmy's birthday. Here he is opening a gift from Great-Grandma.Here is his face shen he realizes his gift is a 42 piece tool set! Here are some jealous cousins watching as "Uncle Troy" opens the box. Luckily there were enough to go around and Timmy was in a sharing mood.

His favorite gift was a razor scooter. He rides it everywhere. Mom even let him ride it inside the grocery store. (Troy did not approve of riding the scooter in the grocery store, I found out later. Oops!)

He also received a singing birthday card from another set of Great Grandparents. This is a perfect card for a kid who can't read yet. Every time he would open the card, the song, "The eensy weensy spider" played. He opened and shut that card for nearly 30 minutes on the day it arrived in the mail. He never stopped smiling. Spencer and he would dance and even sing along. A few days later, when Tim finally let it out of his sight, Spencer would open it and dance and smile and sing. It was adorable. Nice card choice, Grams!
Back to the house. The boys want so much to help, but it is difficult for us to find helpful tasks for a 1 or 3 year old to perform. So, the boys spend a lot of time stacking and re-stacking scraps of wood.
Sometimes I am surprised at the sizes of some of the wood these boys can carry. They're tough!
Here comes the roof!!
Before the Trusses arrived
Here are 3 generations watching the Power company disconnect and drop the overhead power lines so the crane could come in to set the trusses on the house.
Here's the power guy in his "bucket" taking down the lines.
This is a rare occasion caught on camera: Troy with a moment of spare time. He loves to play his guitar, the broken thumb makes it a bit more difficult. But that is another story...
Here is the back section of the house with the trusses set and the sheeting on. (You can click on all these small pictures to get a close up view.)
Here is the main section of the house before the trusses were put on.
The crew we hired (yes, finally something we didn't do ourselves) put the trusses on up-side down to start, then flipped them over to get them on the top of the walls. It was really cool to watch . Inside the back section, looking up at the new ceiling
To put it all in perspective- that is Spencer standing next to the piles of trusses!
Even as I publish this post, I am still not up-to-date with the house, the entire thing is now sheeted, and has the plastic felt paper stuff nailed on, and the Christmas lights put up. I feel like I am playing a never-ending game of catch -up.

We have our priorities in order.

Happy First Birthday, Spencer!

I can hardly believe our baby is turning 1! We had a carefree day. He woke up at Grandma and Pa's house early (so I am told) and lounged in their bed until they were ready to get up. Then Grandma and Emily went to clean the church, and Pa watched the boys. I guess Timmy didn't want to share his toys with Spencer, so he found some scissors in the drawer, located Spencer's beautifully wrapped gifts. Grandma had tied a Tonka Truck on top with the ribbons. Tim began cutting ribbons until that truck came off. He gave it to Spencer so he wouldn't have to share his toy anymore. The funniest part about it was that Pa was unaware that any of it had happened until Grandma came home and asked him about the mess. It still makes me laugh when I think about it.

Here is the front and back of the invitations I made for Spencer's Party next weekend. I can't believe I had time to make them. They were fun. Timmy helped put the white glue and the dirt in the dump truck. If you know where the "job site" is, consider yourself invited. I was protecting our identity.
When we arrived at the house, the kids were in the sand box with Emily. Will all the dirt at our house, I am surprised that they still love the sand at Grandma's house. After digging in the sand and swinging on the swings, we went inside the house and ate breakfast, then Spencer opened his present (which has been loosened by his brother). It was about 6 darling summer shorts/shirt sets and one that they said was for camping this summer- it has long sleeves and pants.

"Push me higher! Underdoggie!"
You can see the truck Tim cut off the package on the counter
He really liked ripping off the paper!
He already wants to be on the move, like his brother. Whe is such a little boy!
Spencer in disguise, well, removing the disguise.
Then we went for a walk around their neighborhood. Timmy found some old roller skates in the basement and wanted to try them out. Troy also wanted to look at a house that was being built by one of Brad's friends. It was nice to see how they were framing so Troy could have a visual. (it's been almost 15 years since he last helped frame a house.)


Timmy was hilarious on the roller skates. He was very wobbly at first, but in a short while had figured out how to maneuver himself. By the time we had been at the construction site a few minutes, he was climbing up a fairly steep hill alone because he wanted to sit in the little tractor at the top of the hill. He made it to the top!

There's something you don't see everyday: a tractor driver wearing roller skates!

Three generations of boys