Progress

Finally, we are seeing a little progress at the land!!!!
First you'll have to suffer through some pictures of the kids having a blast running around and exploring their new stompin' grounds.
My plan was to just swing by the land to see what had gotten done today, take a few pics and head home, but after the kids saw all of the dirt they just could not resist getting out of the van and running around for a while.
Tootie left her jacket in the car and when she got a little cold, I was too lazy to walk all the way back up to the car to get it...
...so I gave her mine to wear.
Of course they also had to climb up this big pile of dirt.
And Grant insisted on running up and down it repeatedly.
Audrey was pretty much happy just standing on the top and eating her chocolate covered granola bar. Go figure!
Grant did actually slow down for a couple of seconds so that I could try to get a good picture of him. He hasn't been very cooperative in the picture dept lately and has been lacking in face time on here so I wanted to make sure to try to get a good one :) Oh and BTW, all of these pics are SOCC (straight out of the camera). Sorry, too short of time and too lazy for editing tonight.
Next, I figured, 'Hey, why not try to get a good picture of the kids together." No such luck! Why must Audrey always scrunch her nose like that when trying to smile???
On to the progress... These next two pictures were taken from the East side of the property looking at where the back of the pole building will be.

This is from West side of the property. Someday, our house will be built in the grassy area to the left. Someday {sigh}
And finally, this is the view up towards the road.
Hope I didn't bore you too much, but for now this is the excitement in our life!

i heart faces - 'smiles'

Time again for i heart faces weekly photo challenge. This week's theme is 'smiles.' Sounds easy enough, right!? Wrong!! Trying to find a picture of one of my kids with a genuine smile (not a cheezy grin) is no easy task. I did end up finding one of my little Tootie with a pretty cute smile, played with it a bit and this is what I came up with:
So if you are having a bad week or just want to see lots and lots of happy smiling faces, head on over to www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com by clicking on the link below ;)

I think I am in LOVE!

As of late, our vacuum cleaner has been on the down hill slide. Like, spitting out big clumps of hairy dust balls kind of down hill slide. So for the past couple of months, I have been holding the lock for the canister down to keep a good seal while vacuuming. Needless to say, it hasn't been very enjoyable (like it ever is!) to vacuum the floors all hunched over. Well, a few weeks ago, I was shopping with Duke's mom and the kids and we passed by the vacuum cleaner isle. I took a couple of minutes and oogled over the Dyson's on display. You see, my plan had been to save up my rewards $$ from my credit card and wait to get 30% off a Kohls, and the buy my dream vacuum.
Today, Duke's parents stopped by for a quick visit. It was sort of on the impromptu side, which is little unusual, since they live about an hour away. I didn't think much of it and, of course, we love having their company. When they arrived, I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Oscar walked in, set something down and announced that they had brought our wedding present. Fr some reason, they have unnecessarily felt that they needed to buy us a wedding present and had been looking for some outdoor furniture now that we have a back deck to fill up but since we were a little more in need of a new vacuum, the final answer was this gorgeous piece of engineering:
I think I have fallen in love. Please excuse me while I wipe the drool and vacuum till my arm falls off!

They work hard for their money!

My children are learning, at a young age, the value of working hard for their money.
Okay, you got me. They WANTED to help me clean so I let them take over and I thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures of them work while sipping on a margarita.
Wait! Kidding again...about the margarita!
Who knew cleaning could be such fun.
I am sure it is even more enjoyable when you get to torment the cat who was perfectly content, minding her own business, while lying in a sunbeam.
I'll share another tidbit with you. Audrey looks a lot like her Mommy does while cleaning...pantsless that is!
You see, most of the time when I am cleaning, I take my pants off (I KNOW...TMI), while cleaning the tub/shower so I don't get them wet. Then I continue on my cleaning binge and forget to put my pants back on!
Hey, when I am on a roll, it is best to just let me go! That is harmless enough, right?! {Please say YES!}
Don't fret...no plans of me posting pantsless cleaning pictures of myself any time soon! Besides, Audrey pulls it off much better than I ;)

Land Update

Who knew buying property and building a storage shed could turn out to be so complicated. Not me! Maybe I am a little naive (okay, I am naive) to all that goes into getting building permits, driveway permits, etc, but after this experience I can assure you I can define exactly what constitutes a wetland and when you do and don't need a driveway permit in the township we live in.

Yes, you haven't heard about much progress on the land we purchased back in February but that is mostly because there hasn't been any real (visual) progress to speak of yet. This lack of progress has been due to a few hurdles we have encountered.

The first bump in the road we ran into was that when the county came out to inspect the location we had chosen to build our pole building. The inspector felt that the particular which we had chosen for the structure was possibly a wetland. As a result, a lady from Environmental Services came out and tested the soil for saturation and her initial findings were that that particular area was indeed a Type 1 wetland. For simplicity sake, a Type 1 wetland is basically an area that supports wetland plant growth and is wet for a short time in the spring but dries up substantially in the summer months. Yes, to be considered a wetland it doesn't even need to have water above the surface and it doesn't even have to look like a wetland. Take a look for yourself. To me, it pretty much looks like a field. Shows you what I know, huh!

It is a LONG story but basically Duke called the county and yelled at them and then I called them and smoothed things over. I got Environmental Services to agree to come back out two weeks later to recheck the soil saturation. We thought we had a good shot at it drying up enough but since we had so much snow and such a fast melt this spring, it was still saturated around 10 inches below the surface and it needed to be greater than 12 inches. The good part is that with a little research I found that with a Type 1 wetland we are able to impact the wetland up to 2000 sq feet without having to replace the wetland at a 2:1 ratio. In the end, we had to move the stakes for the shed 30 feet to the West (Duke wasn't really happy about that either but he'll have to live with it) and didn't have to pay any other fees, etc. To me, that was a pretty favorable outcome because at least they weren't saying we couldn't build at all.

We have now chosen our building contractor but are teetering between building a stick frame structure (which requires a block foundation so it is a little more expensive) and a pole barn. The contractor thinks we would be better off doing the stick frame, and that is what Duke initially wanted to build, but Duke has reservations about the cost since this is going to turn out to be one spendy shed in order to get it just the way he wants it.

On a positive note, last night we found out that we do not need to get a permit to have the driveway put in, as long as we use the approach that the township put in when they tarred the road years ago. That is a bonus because Duke has someone lined up to come out early next week to do the dirt work for the driveway and to push in and cover up and old house foundation that is in the woods (for safety reasons). I personally would have rather used the original approach that was used many many years ago, but since it had been abandoned and would need rebuilding, we are opting to use the newer one to avoid all of the red tape we would have to go through to get a second approach approved by the township.

Sorry if I am boring you with all of this land/shed mumbo-jumbo. Hopefully throughout the post you were a bit entertained with these pictures I took of Audrey when we stopped by the land a few weeks ago to just look around. Check out this deer trail that is running smack through the middle of where our shed will be. I am guessing a garden will be out of the question for me unless I put up a BIG fence. On the bright side, maybe Duke won't have to go up to the Shack anymore to deer hunt!
Speaking of wildlife, let me tell you about a funny story from this very day. When Audrey and I got to the land and were standing back by the old fence line all of a sudden taking some pictures, we heard a turkey gobble loudly and ruffle it's feathers. Audrey turned to me with a look of fright and said 'What was dat?' I smiled and told her not to worry because it was just a Turkey in the woods. She responded by running to me so I would pick her up and she exclaimed, "Mama hold me! That chicken gonna get me!" This is how she looked for pretty much the rest of our visit to the land:
God help us if we now have to fear man-eating chickens!!!

iheartfaces - 'Collage'

Ooooh-weeee! I have been waiting for this weeks challenge like a kid waiting for Christmas!! When I saw that i heart faces had scheduled the theme "Collages" for an upcoming photo challenge, I immediately knew the photos I wanted to put into a collage for my entry.

You see, my little Tootie is now nearly 2 1/2 years old and seems to be learning new talents daily. Her most recent fascination is buttoning and unbuttoning her shirt. At times she can be one stubborn little thing and insists on doing it all by herself. Since it takes her a while to complete the entire process, I figured it would be a nice opportunity to snap a few pictures of her while she was actually sitting still. As a matter of fact, she was even hamming it up a bit for me! Hopefully you'll enjoy the collage as much as I enjoyed watching it all unfold.
Now, make sure to head over to iheartfaces.blogspot.com by clicking on the button below to check out all of the other creative collages!

Tomorrow has to be a better day!

This weekend the weather was absolutely beau-ti-ful! Upper 6o's to low 70's. Superb!!! These pics were taken a few weeks back while on a trip to the park. After you read this post you will understand why I don't have more updated pics to share with you right now.
The weekend started of wonderfully. The kids and I hung out all morning on Sat while Daddy was hard at work. Then at 1 pm Grant got to help his good buddy, Peyton, celebrate his 6th Birthday. Grant had so much fun playing outside with all of the kids and then playing a little wii at the 'after party.' Thanks so much to the Krumrei's for such a fun time!
After the party, we headed home to putz around the yard and then fire up the grill for dinner. While waiting for Daddy to get home, I decided to replace the rope on Audrey's swing (it had gotten frayed from the elements).
After I cut the rope to the length I needed, Grant stole the remaining rope from me and was taunting the cat with it. Before I knew it, I heard crying from the other side of the shed. Grant came around the corner with his hands out reached and shaking.
In that short amount of time, he had tied the rope off to the spindles on the deck behind the shed, climbed over the railing and slid down 15 feet to the concrete driveway. He has what looks to be 2nd degree burns to the fingers on both hands and a sore and bruised knee. Luckily the rope held and he was strong enough to hold on instead of falling. It takes my breath away and my heart begins to race just thinking about how much worse it could have been.
He was in quite a bit of pain and I drove all over the countryside looking for burn cream that would give him some relief from the stinging. After a good nights sleep, he woke up today, we bandaged up his fingers and he felt much better.
I wish I could say that was the end of all of the pain for my little boy this weekend, but sadly it wasn't.
This afternoon, Grandma Sue and Grandpa Oscar stopped by so Duke could work on their boat motor and then our plan was to grill up some steaks for dinner. When Grandma, the kids and I went into the house to start getting dinner ready, Grant was climbing up on the stool and it tipped over, and fell on the big toe of his right foot. It immediately began bleeding through his sock and when I pulled the sock off, to my surprise, this entire big toe nail had been dislodged at the nail bed. It makes me queasy just thinking about it. Sue ran out and got Duke and we decided to bring him into the ER. After and exam and x-rays they pretty much put some Bacitracin and a band-aid over the nail and sent us on our way. I guess the nail will act as a barrier until it heals more and falls off but he's going to have to keep it bandaged for quite some time as the nail is sticking out of the back of the nail bed. Poor little Granty misunderstood the Dr. and was so worried his whole toe was going to fall of! He was such a strong and brave boy. I couldn't be more proud of how well he handled himself after being in so much pain. After all of that, tomorrow has to be a better day, right?