Weekend at Home

We spent the whole weekend at home.  It was nice to get some work done, even though the weather was kind of crummy.  It was windy and cold and rainy.

We finished cleaning out the trail to the pasture that we will use for the 4-wheeler and trailer.  We've been working on that for a while, so it feels really good to get done.  We got the rest of the corn dug out, spread out the chicken manure pile spread out on the pasture garden, and Josh finished doing the first tilling on all the gardens.  We did some clean-up in preparation for winter...Picking up hoses, bringing a bunch of stuff from the garage to the dump.  Josh got the cement poured in the chicken coop.  We haven't seen any actions from the rodents since then.

A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-home Mom
Last week Josh worked late a couple of nights and I "worked" late too one night canning.  Here are some pictures of what happens in the house when it's just me and the kids.  So...Dads beware if you come home early and unexpected, you may find a disaster in your home!;)

John & Lu playing

All of the toys that the kids took out.  Believe it or not, this is not all of the toys we have!

Canning Apple Sauce

Covered countertops.  I always wish I had more counter space.

Lu Lu

Olue making faces as she plays with Daddy in bed on Saturday morning.

What a cutie!

Still hamming it up, stuffing her face with "puffs" before breakfast.

Last Minute Trip

Long Weekend
Josh took most of Thursday off, so we could go to an auction sale in Richardton.  It was really nice to have him home for such a long time.  On Monday morning when John got up (asking to get out of his room-he can't opent the door yet- by saying "Momma!  Momma!  Johnny Wake!") he asked "Daddy?"  I said "Daddy had to go to work today.  Did you like having him home all weekend?"  Johnny answered in his cute little high pitched "Hhmm".  He says "no" very clearly.  But he doesn't say yes, only "sure" and "Hhmm".

Auction Sales
So we spent Thursday at the auction sale.  It had a lot of bee equipment and that was why we went (along with a truck that Josh was hoping would go for cheap).  We didn't get any bee stuff.  It went for way to spendy.  There were a lot of bee keepers there.  Josh got a few odds and end tools for his wood working shop.  I meanwhile spent most of the day in the van with the kids since it was crazy windy and we hadn't gotten rain in over a month.  If you know western ND, then you know that on dry windy days the dust blowing in your eyes is awful.  We were all covered in dust when the day was over.
Friday was another auction sale.  This time in Glen Ullin...a lot closer.  We got a lot of rain Thursday night, so conditions were completely opposite...MUDDY!  Josh drove the truck and I followed in the van, so that I could take the kids home if I needed too.  Well, I was following Josh and following him and I started to think, "Have we been on this same gravel road this whole time?  Am I going to be able to even find my way home if I need to leave early?"  Then finally he turned around and said we must a missed the turn.  So we took another road, and if you know about western ND, you know about gumbo.  It's very slippery and just about as scary as black ice.  Anyway...We finally turned around again and Josh flagged down a man who told us where the auction was (right out of town, not miles away on gravel and gumbo).  Google had the directions wrong.  We got to the auction and the yard was a mess.  Lots of mud and it was windy and cold again.  We had missed all of the small stuff and there was a ton of people there, so we left thinking Josh might go back to look at some horse drawn implements...He wants to get into draft horses.  On the way home Josh got a crazy idea for...
Last Minute Trip
We decided to go to Jake and Ruth's as soon as we got home from the auction.  So we had lunch, packed some pajamas and headed to Valley City.  Roger & Sue & Josiah had come out too.  (Jared had a banquet in Fargo the night before.)  The boys went duck hunting and we had a good time visiting.  We left the next morning...Short trip, but fun!

Jake & Josh with their ducks!

Grandpa and Olue eating puffs

Getting Crazy

Olue, Grandpa, Josiah, Addy, John

This was the best one I could get.  With kids it's hard to get good pics with everyone smiling and looking at the camera.  We have our Church Directory family pics at the end of October, so we'll see how that goes!;)

 Happy Birthday Addy
Addy's golden birthday was October 1st.  She's our God-daughter and we missed seeing her on her birthday, so we brought along her present.

Johnny had been looking at Addy's present all week, wanting to open it.  So he was very helpful, showing her how to properly open a present by throwing the wrappings on the floor!

Addy "reading" her card and hugging her new cow.

Chicken Coop
We've had lots of rodent problems this year and the chicken coop is no exception.  Chickens are very dusty and I've been seeing mouse tracks in the dust in the chicken coop all summer.  Mice don't bother me too bad, but.....it looks like we're having rodent problems in bigger matters (like rats? maybe) in the chicken coop.  Anyway, to make a long story short, once we started looking into the rodent problem, we found more problems with the coop...structure-wise, like all of the boards on the north side of the building were rotten 2 feet off the ground.  We're not sure how the building is still standing, but we worked on fixing that up this weekend.  We still have a little more fixing up to do to make the building more inhabitable for chickens and less for rodents (this includes cement and poison).  We plan to work in that this weekend.

Canning
I'm almost done canning for the year.  I still have 2 paper bags full of apples to do and some carrots in the fridge, but the end is in sight.  It doesn't seem like it when I'm in the middle of putting apples through the sauce master, making apple sauce and I look at the kitchen covered in toys with two children crying at my feet because they're hungry and Mommy just wants to "finish up quick before supper".  (That was yesterday)  We all survived and the kitchen is now picked up with the apple sauce in my canning room.

Elk Hunt

Elk Hunt
Grandpa & Grandma, & Josiah came out this weekend for Grandpa to go Elk Hunting.  He went out on Saturday morning and we thought it would take a while for him to get it, but about 45 minutes after the hunt started we got a call to come out and see his big deer!

He was so excited!  It's all he could talk about all day.  I heard the story numerous times from both him & Josh as they told us and others over the phone.

I love Josh's smile!

We all came out to see as they were starting to skin it.  At first John thought it was a horse and was pretty upset seeing a horse being skinned.  He now knows it 's a "deer" as I'm typing this.

Skinned head - yuck!

Josiah tried to pick it up.

Johnny pulling Mater out of the bushes.

Josiah, John, Grandpa

Popping Wheelies

Popping wheelies with sound effects.

Cy pulling John in the wagon.

Mom feeding Lu a snack.  The kitties waiting for crumbs.

Johnny pulling Cy in the wagon.

Johnny right after he got an "owee" on a "rock".  We weren't sure what had happened until we deciphered his story at the supper table.

Cy "chopping" the big pumpkin.  The center one on the ground was the Big Boy that we brought to the Fall Festival weighing 120 lbs!

Mom & Lu in our new fall decorations.  We had a lot of fun putting them out this year.

Garage Door
Last week one of the garage doors broke as Josh was closing it for the night.  We got a new one and Josh installed it on Friday.  He did a really good job considering that the building isn't square.

Last Farmer's Market
We had our last Farmer's Market on Friday.  We did really well with the market this year.  We're happy it's over, but looking forward to next year!

Fall Festival
Our Church has it's fall festival and dinner on Sunday.  I was in charge of the kids' carnival, bingo, and cake walk.  We all had a good time.  The food was great, games were fun, and I had all the help I needed.  I should know by now that even if nobody says they can help when I call that there is always enough help when it comes time.  (I was a little stressed last week.)
Lu's Dr. Appt
Olue had her 9 month check up last week.  She has grown very little since her 6 month appt.  14lbs 14 oz and 25 1/4 in long.  She's just averaging out to be like John since she started out ahead.  She hadn't been eating much food (pretty much just nursing ALL the time).  The Doctor gave me some tips since she doesn't like that baby cereal.  Well...since her appt she has started to eat almost everything.  She loves lots of food, just not that baby cereal.:)

New Tooth
Lu pushed her first tooth out on Monday.  She was quietly playing by herself while I was getting lunch ready.  You would think that I should know my now that a quiet child is 9 times out of 10 getting into trouble.  I found her eating little chunks of sheat rock.  As I went to scrape them out of her mouth, I felt her first front bottom tooth just sticking beyond the gum.

Both kids are up now, so I better go get some breakfast ready!!