around the house...

...there is a lot of dust.  The windows are dirty.  There are toys everywhere.  There is sidewalk chalk, not on the sidewalk, but on the house.  We have a stray cat that comes and eats our cat's food and likes to pee in our garage.  I told Jonah he can practice on the cat with his BB gun whenever he sees it.  We got a compost bin for Christmas.  We're figuring since we have rocks instead of dirt, we'll just make our own.  Also around the house...

Stella has been wearing her "country girl" shirt, or so she calls it.  Along with her country girl shirt, she told me she needed a braid in her hair because, "country girls wear braids."

Jonah's learning to read and write his A B C's.  I wish I could say it's an enjoyable time for him, but to be honest, I believe he'd much rather make believe his pencil was a sword or a knife.

 

Or pretend his paper is a race track for his race cars.

 

 

Each day he is getting better.  We gave him a little goal incentive.  If he learns all his letters he will get a new bike.  So far we apparently have around 15 c's in the alphabet - it seems to be his, when-in-doubt-say-c, letter. :)

 

I'm still making signs.  Tiffany and Deanna, yours are coming soon.  I promise.  Cross my heart.

 

Our living room has turned into jump central.  As soon as we get home from dropping Stella off at school, Ava will run to the couch and say "Jonah, Jooooooonah!  Jump!"  And Jonah happily obliges.

 

 

 

Jonah got a bubble wand that makes ginormous bubbles for his birthday.  Stella likes to make them and Jonah likes to pop them.  The other day Jonah came in and his hair was wet.  I asked him what he was doing and he said, "popping bubbles."  Yeah, they're big.

  

My bed has become the hot ticket for jumping and watching movies.

  

Sometimes Ava "works" around the house in her "work" goggles.  From the looks of it, it's a special kind of work.

Ava has staked her claim on the window sill.  Whenever I start making dinner, she'll run over and want to help.  Ava, listen to me, don't ever get too big to sit up there.  Okay?  Did you hear your me?

 

 

Sean started a big fire to burn up all the branches from the trees we took down last summer.  It was a hot fire.  Sean got a little too close and had some major singed eyebrows and eyelashes.

 

My dad got pretty close with the tractor and if the tractor had eyelashes and eyebrows, they would be fully gone.  Did I mention it was a hot fire?  One week later and it is STILL burning!

 

We have a few big mounds of dirt.  It's where the kids like to play.  It's dirty.

 

Maybe one day our land will be flowing with milk and honey...or maybe just grass....one day.

 

Ava can put on her own hat.  I like it when she does.

Stella likes to dress up and wear earrings.  It doesn't matter if she's just going out to play in the dirt piles, the girl needs her earrings.

After almost 10 years, I'm still madly in love with my husband. 

and also, around the house...

...there are 30 little piggies I can't get enough of.  Even when they are dirty like Jonah's.  Or have horribly long toenails like Jonah's, which according to him, he doesn't want to have cut because they are his CLAWS and help him CLIMB.