Little Booger

Lydia earned her red hair this week. On Saturday we found her in the Greenhouse, she said she was "helping Mommy" she had taken it upon herself to fill a bowl will all the little green tomatoes she could get her hands on. I think she decimated a good portion of our expected crop. We got mad at her and told her to get out of the greenhouse. Later we were chopping and stacking firewood. Suddenly we realized Lydia was not in sight anymore. A quick search around the house revealed her picking the last pedal off Mommy's flowers on the deck. Lydia decided to pick every last pedal and put them in her shirt like a kangaroo pouch.

Lisa and I looked at each other and it took us a moment to mentally tell ourselves it was not worth getting angry over.

We took our frustration and put it to work making this new burn barrel. The bigger holes are Mommy's .45, the smaller holes were made by Daddy's .40. Proper ventilation holes help the fire burn hotter and faster. 

   

And yes, we burn much of our trash. We are just trying to be "Green". The way we figure it, if all this climate change talk is true, we will help things right along and warm Alaska up a little bit.

I took an overnight trip to Seward this last week for work and checked up on a friend's sailboat in the Harbor.

Na Na Na Boo Boo

 

Not much changes around here. This is Calvin's "Fencing" pose. Only took us 5 kids to figure out that babies do this naturally. If you turn his head to the other side, he changes his pose to the other direction.

 

Elizabeth and Lydia playing dress up.  

Mommy has a new cuddle bug.  

 

Not much to say about Porter, he is turning into a brute. He already can beat up Lydia and Henry. Soon he will be challenging Elizabeth. This kid never stops eating and feels no pain. Porter's favorite game is "Na Na Na Boo Boo" and he runs around saying it until someone gets fed up and chases him.  

Henry got a new suit and wore it to church today. (Mommy found it for $9 at a thrift store)

 

Not much going on here. I spent most the week out of town in Delta Junction and Glennallen. The kids just played the days away. We took another chunk out of the firewood pile cutting and splitting about 2 cords.  Henry and Elizabeth have started their Mission funds and deposit every loose coin they come across. They have figured it out, they plan to be on missions around the same time. 

Sad to think Summer is Half Over

It's sad to think Summer is half over. But that's OK we are making the most of a beautiful summer.
Yes we are kind of red-necks but heck, why not cut the bottom off a 55 gallon drum and use it as a fire ring. Kids said they wanted to roast marshmallows and make s'mores, so an hour later the coals were prefect for s'mores.

Henry and Elizabeth wanted to camp outside so the first night I spent the night in the tent next to them. The second night they camped outside alone.

Getting messy is half the fun of eating s'mores!

Baby Calvin, some days he looks like Mommy, some days like Daddy, others we just don't know. He is just starting to track people with his eyes and look towards noisy brothers and sisters.

Daddy got 3 semi-truck loads of Birch logs at a cost of $3900. This should be enough to heat our home for about 3 years.  It may seem like a lot of wood, but in reality that is only $1300 a year for heat and hot water for 2 family's (our home and the mother-in-law apartment above the garage) and a 5000 square foot home/garage/basement.

Now I just need to get it cut, split, and stacked.  Some of those logs are 30 inches in diameter!

That is about 2.5 cords split and stacked this weekend, only 27.5 cords to go.

Mommy's red-neck green house is growing well. We recently started eating fresh tomatoes!

That is it for this week. See you next week.

Back to Work

Daddy had to go back to work this week. Oddly in the last 6 days he accumulated over 60 hours of overtime. The overtime will help pay the medical bills for the new baby. He also had a close call today, when a guy decided that red and blue flashing lights on the side of the highway must be a target to hit rather than avoid. Fortunately no one was hurt. The Toyota truck hit the patrol vehicle damaging the driver's side and rear axle. J was in the driver's seat and saw the pending collision in his side mirror and had just enough time to tense up and say a few choice words. Fortunately "Chevron" was not in the vehicle but was home still recovering from his broken foot and on "light duty" status. The negligent driver was cited for failing to yield to emergency vehicles and causing a collision. As a result, J then had to ferry some work vehicles around and drive 450 miles in order to get a new patrol vehicle and drive it home.

Calvin seems to be growing so fast.  For 4th of July we went to the ward picnic and then to the river bed for a muddy swim. The next day we went to Mirror Lake and played in the sun until everyone was sunburned.

I just started harvesting Tomatoes from our green house. We ate them so quickly I forgot to take pictures. I will add photos next week.

Love you all, See you next week.