The latest shots of the farm house!!!
The summer kitchen has been dis-assembled, and the bricks are piled up neatly, ready to be re-used - there were some enormous stones pulled from the hearth that we will reuse!
The scaffolding has gone up on the front of the house and the mortar between all the bricks has been removed....they are even starting to put new mortar in on the upper right corner!
This is an improvement, right?
Right?

Grandma is here! And Grandma brought PRESENTS!!!!! Can you guess what the presents were?
Thank you Grandma, you rock.

What's the difference between living with toddlers and a giant frat party?
Hmmm, let's see, dressing up in funny outfits, check.
Gratuitous shots of drinking and revelry, check.
Waking up to find yourself wearing funny outfits, check.
And attitude, LOTS of attitude. Is there a way to write REALLY BIG CHECK???

How can they be so cute one minute, and so, well, so un-cute the next? The good news is that the rain has finally gone away and we were able to play outside for the first time in awhile and that made EVERYBODY happier. We are ready for spring, now. If spring happens to be listening.

On consecutive rainy days, one must come up with something, anything, to do with the toddlers. Baking is good. And Muma gets to eat whatever is not consumed by naptime, because, my friends, Muma makes the rules. Feast your eyes on Sun-nut butter cookies with M&Ms. And yes, I finished the last of them for breakfast this morning.
Yum.

So, which board do you think is the one we just replaced on the back porch?
Hmmmm?
Having trouble?

File this under "Sounds Like a Good Idea, but maybe NOT...."

Sure, he looks cute with a blue spoon in his mouth.....



But he has ALL SORTS of tricks up his, urmmm, "sleeve"....ewwwwww....

Girls and Muma, enjoying a little early spring weather. Everyone feels better when they get a chance to play outside!

The painters are here to fix the brilliant mistakes of the last painters (who did their evil deeds prior to our purchase of this house) who cleverly painted LATEX over OIL BASED paint. For those of you who didn't know - BAD IDEA.

All the latex peels up and falls off. Generally in really hard to reach places, because that is some sort of painterly rule, isn't it?

In a demonstration of just HOW hard these places are to reach, yes, that's our painter, and yes, he DOES have the tallest ladder money can buy. And yes, that ladder can ONLY reach the top of our house if he - ohmigod - puts the ladder on the ROOF of his van.

I'm pretty sure this isn't OSHA approved.

Hair Bows and Cowboy Boots....

Two Princesses, Aunt Amy's parlor.

So the farm came with numerous "bonus features" not unlike those extra tracks one gets on Disney DVDs, like ballroom dance lessons on Cinderella's hit classic.

Only our bonus features included a lovely 1960s trailer! And a camper! And the entire contents of the trailer! Which I won't get into here....




And now, where the trailer used to be....I give you......NOTHING BUT TREES!!!!!

Yes, that's our new culvert. Which will only make your heart swell with pride if you could see the old culvert. Which, by virtue of the fact that it was old, ugly and not functioning, I neglected to photograph. I CAN tell you that every time you drove over the old culvert, you'd experience a wee surge of adrenaline, because you were never really sure if you would be crossing the creek, or sliding directly into it.
Sweet.

The new improved entrance from the driveway to the road. Now that we have located it a few yards south of the old entrance, visibility is vastly improved, and the likelihood of being run over by a speeding pickup truck is at least slightly reduced.

So, here are the latest shots of our new, improved driveway. Of course, it was snowing while I was there and was incredibly cold, so all the pics look grey and grim and, well, chilly, for a reason!!
The shots start at the entrance and work their way toward the house.
For the next entry, I will include a few "close-ups".

A Birthday Day.
Three. Our girls are now three years old.
The morning hours were almost Christmas-like, as they got up early and full of excitement and wanted to immediately open the gifts that had been accumulating from family. There were squeals of delight and the shredding of wrapping paper and the modeling of dresses for the camera. Big C. was a good sport about most of it - helped tremendously by the fact that a few of the presents also happened to be for him.







Later in the afternoon we were joined by friends for lunch and cupcakes and, as demonstrated here, a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday to You", led by the crazy lady in the bright shirt. Ahem.

While it looks from this photo as though the meal consisted solely of M&Ms, cupcakes and chocolate, we actually DID manage to eat a few healthy things, too...like, uh, marshmallow salad and, um, ham....



Can't believe they are THREE already. Happy Birthday Cutie Pies! You are absolutely wonderful!!!

News of the Arcane.
We've been inundated with machinery of late. Excavators and bulldozers and dump trucks and, as the mother of a toddler-boy, I can tell you the difference between a backhoe, a front-end loader and an excavator without batting an eye. It's this kind of arcane knowledge that keeps my wits sharp, I'm sure.
Oh? And please don't ask me to explain the Nemo outfit. It was chilly out so little Q. decided this would be a more logical choice of apparel than, say, a cardigan.


The local pond is being dredged, which has provided us with a series of late afternoons of entertainment. The smell, not so good, but the sights are, apparently, riveting.
Also, this gives the brood the opportunity to collect stones. For their stone-and-stick collection which is slowly building up in our suburban front yard. A vision I'm sure the neighbors appreciate. Aherm.

This looks like trouble, doesn't it?



Because it IS, my friends, believe me it IS....

Moderne Art
So, Big C. calls me into his room and shows me this:


"The big one is you, Muma, and the little one is me. Do you like it?"

Yes, sweetie, it's lovely.

Baby, It's Cold Outside....