Lately I've had to remind myself to pull the camera out and take pictures of our family every once in a while. These last few weekends and evenings have been so full of outside project work that we haven't had a chance to do anything fun. The coop was done enough to bring the chickens home but we have more chicken run to add as well as nesting boxes inside the coop. Justin has been working on those items every spare moment he has, and the next project to start immediately after this one is the clear out the area where we are going to put the playground (we bought a nice playground about 4 years ago and put part of it up at my parents' house).
In the meantime, I'll just update about the kids. Brighton is doing great in school and really enjoys his teacher. I'm making more of an effort to find other boys his age so he can have more social experience with friends since Adaira has been his only friend for so long. I've noticed he's a little bit awkward socially around other kids until he has time to warm up to them. There is a family in our ward that has a daughter Adaira's age and a son just older than Brighton so we've had them over to play a few times. Brighton enjoys the responsibility of checking on his chickens every day even though he can't quite handle changing the water or filling up the food yet (the feed bag is 50lbs!).
Adaira enjoys her play dates and during our down time she loves to color (she's really good!). She is ALL girl and loves to change her clothes several times a day, wear dresses, get into my makeup, have her nails painted, etc. The only thing she doesn't like is for me to do her hair...go figure. I burned her with the curling iron once (very mildly) over a year ago and she's been untrusting ever since. She gets bored with the amount of time it takes for me to do her hair, but she sure is a beautiful girl, and ever more so when she's all done up. For some reason she is obsessed with kissing (if you haven't noticed already from some of her comments on my sidebar). She HATES it when she sees Justin and I kiss and she doesn't like to see it on TV either. She does, however, love to make her dolls kiss all the time...
Dale started walking about a month ago (yeah I'm a little late reporting on that) and he toddles all around the house. He LOVES splashing in the toilet any chance he gets, so I regularly have to go around making sure all the toilet lids are shut (we have door handles instead of knobs and he has already figured out how to open the doors!). He also enjoys slowly going head first into the tub in the kids' bathroom (when it's empty!). I find him playing in there about 4-5 times a week. He's been more fussy and high maintenance for about the last month and I can't put my finger on why. He doesn't have any new teeth breaking in and isn't sick so who knows! All I know is that every day between the hours of 3-6pm he is a whining, crying, "hold me all the time mommy" kind of kid. Sure makes waiting to have another baby easy since I have a huge 25lb kid of my waist half the day. The good news is that he still naps twice a day for 1.5-2.5 hours, which gives me some freedom! He's the only one I've taken pictures of this last week so here they are:
Justin continues to enjoy his job and I continue to enjoy mine. I got motivated this last week to put some family pictures on the wall (yes, the house is almost 18 months old and I'm just barely getting to it). Picture below. I wish I would have done it sooner because I just love looking at them! This is the wall right next to the doors that exit to our back patio. The thermostat is installed in a really random place and makes the entire wall really awkward for any larger pictures, so I've decided it's going to be my picture collage wall.
Justin's Rant: When we purchased this property there were several large Palo Verde (PV) trees on it. These things are like weeds. I cut down two very large trees to make room for our home. One was in the front yard and one was right were our master bedroom is now. I cut both of these thorny trees down and painfully hauled them to the dump. I cut into the stumps and poured several rounds of root killer on them. Then suckers would start growing out from the outer ring of the stumps. I cut them down then put charcoal on them to try to burn them down. (This worked great for my cottonwoods after root killer - it smoldered to about 12 inches underground). While dried PV wood burns good, the stumps don't. No amount of gasoline or coals were making much of a dent in these things. Finally I had the excavator pull out both stumps when our basement was dug. You think this would be the end of it, but nope. The one in the front yard kept springing up again and again so I borrowed a backhoe and dug up every last root I could find. I seemed to have conquered that one.
The one that was where our bedroom is now still haunts me. I had cut down the suckers several times and the dead sticks were lying around the stump. They were between 3-5 feet each with many nasty thorns on each one. It was late at night and I think I was trying to light the coals or gasoline on the stump and somehow fell flat on my back onto these dead branches. Searing pain shot through my back and I didn't want to move because it would shoot some thorns farther in my skin. I managed to get up and swear that was the last time this tree would hurt me. Then I built my house over that tree. I call this a victory too, but if it breaks through the concrete and sprouts up through my carpet by my bed - I am more than ready for round two.
I still firmly believed that hell is landscaped (or xeriscaped for the water conscious) with the Palo Verde tree. Anytime I see these sprouting up I don't cut them off but head for my shovel to dig up. It is crazy but the small sprouts have roots as long as the tree is tall. A two foot tree sprout will usually go two feet deep. Working on the chicken run I also learned that they look like little bean sprouts when they first break through the soil with two leaves opposite each other. Soon after though they start showing the trademark little leaves and then is the time to pull them right out. I should take pictures of one that is growing through the concrete by the sheds but I have given these dumb trees more time than they are worth.
Yesterday I was cutting down limbs from my neighbor's PV that hang over the chicken run to prevent pods and limbs from landing on the plastic mesh we are putting up. I got stuck with thorns several times. One was in my arm and I found it sticking out (3/8 inch) while showering. The thing with PV thorns is that the tips always break off and they irritate the puncture until they are pulled out. Today in church I found myself digging out these thorn tips, luckily I brought my pocket knife. It brings back such fond memories of the stupid Arizona state tree - the Palo Verde.
In the meantime, I'll just update about the kids. Brighton is doing great in school and really enjoys his teacher. I'm making more of an effort to find other boys his age so he can have more social experience with friends since Adaira has been his only friend for so long. I've noticed he's a little bit awkward socially around other kids until he has time to warm up to them. There is a family in our ward that has a daughter Adaira's age and a son just older than Brighton so we've had them over to play a few times. Brighton enjoys the responsibility of checking on his chickens every day even though he can't quite handle changing the water or filling up the food yet (the feed bag is 50lbs!).
Adaira enjoys her play dates and during our down time she loves to color (she's really good!). She is ALL girl and loves to change her clothes several times a day, wear dresses, get into my makeup, have her nails painted, etc. The only thing she doesn't like is for me to do her hair...go figure. I burned her with the curling iron once (very mildly) over a year ago and she's been untrusting ever since. She gets bored with the amount of time it takes for me to do her hair, but she sure is a beautiful girl, and ever more so when she's all done up. For some reason she is obsessed with kissing (if you haven't noticed already from some of her comments on my sidebar). She HATES it when she sees Justin and I kiss and she doesn't like to see it on TV either. She does, however, love to make her dolls kiss all the time...
Dale started walking about a month ago (yeah I'm a little late reporting on that) and he toddles all around the house. He LOVES splashing in the toilet any chance he gets, so I regularly have to go around making sure all the toilet lids are shut (we have door handles instead of knobs and he has already figured out how to open the doors!). He also enjoys slowly going head first into the tub in the kids' bathroom (when it's empty!). I find him playing in there about 4-5 times a week. He's been more fussy and high maintenance for about the last month and I can't put my finger on why. He doesn't have any new teeth breaking in and isn't sick so who knows! All I know is that every day between the hours of 3-6pm he is a whining, crying, "hold me all the time mommy" kind of kid. Sure makes waiting to have another baby easy since I have a huge 25lb kid of my waist half the day. The good news is that he still naps twice a day for 1.5-2.5 hours, which gives me some freedom! He's the only one I've taken pictures of this last week so here they are:
Justin continues to enjoy his job and I continue to enjoy mine. I got motivated this last week to put some family pictures on the wall (yes, the house is almost 18 months old and I'm just barely getting to it). Picture below. I wish I would have done it sooner because I just love looking at them! This is the wall right next to the doors that exit to our back patio. The thermostat is installed in a really random place and makes the entire wall really awkward for any larger pictures, so I've decided it's going to be my picture collage wall.
Justin's Rant: When we purchased this property there were several large Palo Verde (PV) trees on it. These things are like weeds. I cut down two very large trees to make room for our home. One was in the front yard and one was right were our master bedroom is now. I cut both of these thorny trees down and painfully hauled them to the dump. I cut into the stumps and poured several rounds of root killer on them. Then suckers would start growing out from the outer ring of the stumps. I cut them down then put charcoal on them to try to burn them down. (This worked great for my cottonwoods after root killer - it smoldered to about 12 inches underground). While dried PV wood burns good, the stumps don't. No amount of gasoline or coals were making much of a dent in these things. Finally I had the excavator pull out both stumps when our basement was dug. You think this would be the end of it, but nope. The one in the front yard kept springing up again and again so I borrowed a backhoe and dug up every last root I could find. I seemed to have conquered that one.
The one that was where our bedroom is now still haunts me. I had cut down the suckers several times and the dead sticks were lying around the stump. They were between 3-5 feet each with many nasty thorns on each one. It was late at night and I think I was trying to light the coals or gasoline on the stump and somehow fell flat on my back onto these dead branches. Searing pain shot through my back and I didn't want to move because it would shoot some thorns farther in my skin. I managed to get up and swear that was the last time this tree would hurt me. Then I built my house over that tree. I call this a victory too, but if it breaks through the concrete and sprouts up through my carpet by my bed - I am more than ready for round two.
I still firmly believed that hell is landscaped (or xeriscaped for the water conscious) with the Palo Verde tree. Anytime I see these sprouting up I don't cut them off but head for my shovel to dig up. It is crazy but the small sprouts have roots as long as the tree is tall. A two foot tree sprout will usually go two feet deep. Working on the chicken run I also learned that they look like little bean sprouts when they first break through the soil with two leaves opposite each other. Soon after though they start showing the trademark little leaves and then is the time to pull them right out. I should take pictures of one that is growing through the concrete by the sheds but I have given these dumb trees more time than they are worth.
Yesterday I was cutting down limbs from my neighbor's PV that hang over the chicken run to prevent pods and limbs from landing on the plastic mesh we are putting up. I got stuck with thorns several times. One was in my arm and I found it sticking out (3/8 inch) while showering. The thing with PV thorns is that the tips always break off and they irritate the puncture until they are pulled out. Today in church I found myself digging out these thorn tips, luckily I brought my pocket knife. It brings back such fond memories of the stupid Arizona state tree - the Palo Verde.
Comments
Where are the pictures I took just after Dale was born? You should put a couple of those up. :-)