Progress

Fall is flying by.  I can't quite believe that we're practically halfway through October.  We haven't done a whole lot... mostly just checked on the house and finished up canning things.  I'm not a great conversationalist anyway and now all I really have to talk about is house stuff, so... my apologies in advance.    

Perrin is my most willing helper and he very much liked turning the applesauce crank.  😊

Most afternoons I'll take kids out to the woods to see what's going on when they get home from school.

The older two often have homework they'd rather do, so it's usually me and these three.  

The porch forms didn't go as deep as the basement walls so there were some fun little 'rooms' to explore.  

After apple sauce we canned apple slices.  They think the peeler/corer/slicer is the best thing ever.  😊

 The basement walls got poured!  Woohoo! Finally.  We missed it, of course.  I had driven out to see if anything was happening right before we needed to pick up kids from school and nothing was going on.  And then we saw on the game cam that the concrete trucks showed up 15 minutes after I left.   

 

"This is my bed!" 

This is the best playground ever, basically.

 

 

I decided I needed to check some things off the to-do-someday list and also get this workshop/storage room a little more organized, so Perrin 'helped' me refinish these chairs.  I am so bad at poly!  But, I don't think the imperfections are super obvious.  Also, they will probably need refinishing again after the kids get through with them.  

 

The forms started to slowly come off and we could climb through the egress window into the basement for the first time!  So exciting. 

  Perrin came to a few garage sales with me and we found treasures... old tennis racquet (for decor), hangers that fit our steamer trunk for dress up clothes, and EarthShaker the worlds noisiest toy monster truck. 😜 

Emmy got glasses!  They suit her. :)  

I have no idea... my kids are weird.  😋

 

Miri is taking piano lessons now and if she doesn't progress very fast... this is probably why.  Insisting she practice with the room lights off and Perrin 'helping' sing along.  

The library hosted Doll Day and the younger two girls wanted to go. They decorated hats.

Got hair tinsel. 

Ate cookies.

And posed with their dolls.  

I was sent out to sweep footings... there was a lot of debris, and concrete slopped onto the footing tile that I cleared off so it would be ready for sealer, more pea gravel and back filling.  It was hot and my helper was more interested in playing inside the basement... 

Cadence left this message for the plumbers and the geothermal guys: The floor is lava!  

The only picture I took from the Koch Wiener Roast. Fire.   😋

The kids and I went to meet little baby Colette one afternoon.  I'm not a baby person, but I can't get over how tiny she is.... probably because she was a full two pounds smaller than my smallest baby. 😆 Perrin didn't want to hold 'baby Co-yet' but he likes to look at her.  

Then we went to the field to find Grandpa in the combine.  Cecily studiously worked on homework and Cadence and Miri climbed all over the van.

The beans were too dry so they were only going to do two more rounds that afternoon.  The kids got to ride, I did not. mur.

So then we all headed back to the farm for supper, rides on 'Grandma's' new toy (courtesy of Grandpa), and more apple picking and grape picking. 

The kids and I were out at the house the day the foundation guys were finishing up.  They sprayed the outside with sealer (which of course someone had to stick their fingers in 😖).  Conrad and Ron were there discussing pouring the floor.  General consensus by people who know what they're looking at is that though the foundation crew guys were slow as molasses, and were most probably smoking illicit substances on the job site, and just generally kind of sketch, they did a really, really good job.

Mister Buster was actually helpful getting grapes off the stems to make jam.  Although, the piano tuner was here tuning the piano and he would.not.stop.talking. Loudly. About grapes. 😜 

They put down more pea gravel inside.

And back filled around most of the house!  I don't miss the deep trenches, but now the kids can walk straight up to edge of a 9 foot deep hole.  And I am old and it makes me nervous.   

The sand is so fun.  

These kids get so dirty... and I know I should be praying for rain, but it's so much easier to dust kids off than clean off mud and wet sand....  

I made grape pie for our neighbor lady.  She gave me the recipe a few years ago, and I tried it once but didn't think to take her some.  Mr. helper boy was generous with the streusel.  

Perrin and I spent a morning setting up charge accounts at three different lumber yards and the biggest balance beam ever was delivered.  

So helpful, but will not go to bed at a decent hour... he insisted on helping decorate Cecily's birthday cake.

Very few people will recognize or appreciate what this is supposed to be, unless they are also fans of the Zelda games like Cecily is.  Haha.  I had issues with cake, frosting, etc. so it's kind of a hot mess also. 😝 Why do I not plan better? 

She was pleased though, and her fellow Zelda fan friends thought it was cool, so I guess it wasn't a terrible effort. 

I woke Perrin up early to go watch the concrete trucks come pour the basement floor.

I think it's fun that we get to work with family, friends, and church people.  :)

Also, I like watching people do things that they are really, really good at.  

Perrin likes climbing dirt piles in his P.J.s.  

Cecily wanted Eli's after school for her birthday, and then we all went out to see the new floor.  

How is she 14??  Somehow it seems so much older than 13... 

She still asks for things like stuffed animal dragons with dragon eggs and baby dragons though, so she's not all grown up yet. 😊

My dad did not farm next to any pumpkin fields this year, so we asked a friend from church if we could pilfer from their pumpkin field.  They farm on a fairly busy road so it felt very funny walking out and grabbing two pumpkins while people drove by... 

Matt and the boys spent a Sunday afternoon with us.

They found the first large spider in the basement.  woot.

And dug holes to china, or something.

We finally got some rain, which cooled things off a bit.  And made the sand wet, and the clay muddy.  

As per usual, the day I didn't take anybody out to the woods they set the beam and laid the sill plate.  Conrad, Dan, and Asa were making good progress on the floor joists the next time we visited. 😋

Did you know that pumpkin seeds can sprout inside a pumpkin, complete with cotyledons? ha.  It smelled fine and looked fine so I roasted and pureed it and it tastes fine so... must have been the warm, warm fall weather.  

I let them climb down the rickety ladder and explore.  

Most of us went to the farm for September-October birthdays.  We ate cake.

And made apple cider. 

I forgot that it would get cold when the sun went down so my kids were all in shorts and nobody brought jackets.  

Turning the crank is more difficult than it looks.

Perrin loooooovvves apple cider.

I feel like I get a lot of questions about picking things out, and if it's fun.... so far most of the questions we've gotten are about what grade of sub-floor we want, do we want 2x8,10,or 12 garage trusses so....my answer is usually I don't know and I let Bob and Conrad figure it out. 😏 Making decisions is easy! 

Speaking of subfloor, we've got one!  And the 10 foot drop to the basement floor is even more nerve-wracking.

Cadence thought it was pretty great that Gage let her snap a chalk line, but they were also pretty excited and wild and getting in the way and sticking their hands in glue so we didn't stay very long. (It will be a miracle if they don't ban the kids from the job site...) 

We also needed to go home to get ready for the homecoming parade. 

It was exciting. "Mom. Look! It's a battle vehicle! Look, Mom, Mom, Look!!  It's a battle vehicle! Do you see the battle vehicle, Mom?!  Look at that battle vehicle coming!"  hehe.  

So the 'simple' trim style that I was thinking I wanted is apparently pretty difficult to get to look right and takes a lot of time.  And lots of time means it costs more, even though it looks plain and uncomplicated. Anyway, Conrad went with me to visit a house where he's done some work to look at other old house trim options. I was drooling. The whole house is cool and I've admired it (and their quanset shed) from the road many times.  Conrad also checked out their attic to see how the kicked eaves were framed... 😁 So you know I love old house things; they had three different trim styles going on.  I've never seen the top right trim before and it was on the main floor.  The top left is more common, and it just feels a smidge too Victorian to me.  Bottom left matches the exterior window trims because it was an enclosed porch, and bottom right is where I think we will compromise.  They may have also talked me into plinth blocks... 😜 Like I said, I have very little to converse about unless you want to talk old houses and new houses.

I guess I could talk about potty training, but ugh.  Someone will stay mostly dry, but causes the toilet to need constant cleaning, and has yet to poop in said toilet.  Long. Slow. Slog.

 

Tonight we trekked over to Gridley for the annual Schlipf wiener roast.  The kids started eating apples as soon as we got there and I'm not sure any of them ate much else. 

How many kids can you fit in a hollow catalpa tree? Also, how is it still alive, because I used to go inside that same crack.

So.  Now I am caught up.  Blessings.