Pigs, Paint and Pretty Cabinets

In the brief moments before I go pass out in bed from exhaustion, I wanted to post some more updates!

First, the day has finally come to take our pig to the slaughter.  For the last two weeks he's been escaping from his pen, ever on the search for more food.  We decided it was time.  Originally we were planning on having a gigantic Christmas party where we roasted him out on a spit and had everyone we know come and share in the feast, but apparently we forgot how much we have going on right now and decided it would be best for everyone's sanity if we just took him in somewhere and then picked him up ready for the freezer.

So, here's a before shot of the day we got him:

 Tyler and Mario.  Their family wanted to go in on it with us to get the "farm" experience since their yard is too small.  :)  

Shortly after this day Cade decided he was a vegetarian.  He did not want to eventually eat this cute little guy.  

And then that cute little guy got really big and loud and stinky in 6 months.

It took just under an hour to get him into the trailer.  We thought he would be easily coaxed in with a bucket of food...

Then he got smart.  

We tried tying things around him, we tried wrapping him in a tarp, we tried bribing him with carrots and apples.  The only thing that eventually worked was trapping him in a cow panel (fencing) and scooting him to the trailer and chasing him in.  If only someone was there to video it all.

So, we're all pretty happy now.  And we'll have some awesome ham for Christmas dinner.  

Now, more house updates.  As of now, all of the rooms except the kids' bathroom are painted.  We still have some work to do in there, so I've moved on to painting door frames.  I attempted the base boards for about a minute and a half and decided my 36 week pregnant body can't handle that.  

On Monday we got our kitchen cabinets in and it's looking great!  We still have the crown molding to go on the top and the countertops to come in hopefully next week sometime, but I'm THRILLED with how it's coming along!

Here are a few shots of the living room:

I'm doing a board and batten look on the bottom half, so that's why it doesn't look finished yet.  We'll hopefully be starting on the floor tomorrow!  

PAINT!

Finally!  We've been able to start painting the house.  I say "finally" like we've been waiting an eternity.  It's only been 3 weeks I think since we bought it, but I haven't been able to help at all and finally have a chance to get to work on something in the house.

First I took the kids to pick out colors for their rooms.  Of course, the girls got pink.  Chantilly Lace to be exact.  Cade picked green.  Since he is color deficient (color blind - he sees colors differently than the rest of us), I let him pick out every single green sample card he liked, then I narrowed it down to the top 4 I'd be OK with, then let him pick out the final color.  He went with Safari Green.  Mainly because he knew with a name like that, it must be perfect for an animal-themed room.

My AWESOME grandma flew out for two days to help me get started.

She did all the trim to save me from having to bend over and climb so much.  She also kept me company, helped round up children and babysat while Tyler and I ran to Lowe's and Home Depot several times without having to load up the van full of children.

I just love Eliza's picture smile.  :)

We wrote their names on the floor so that one day far, far, far into the future if carpet needs to be ripped out and replaced, we can see them and smile.

This is how the kids looked most of the week.  Actually, she looks pretty good in this picture.  Their faces were covered in a combination of dirt, juice and other sticky messes that I'm unsure of how they came about.  Not to mention snot (and dirt) running out of noses, plus a nice scrape on the face from one tumble too many down the oh-so-awesome concrete ramp we have out the front door.

 So thank you, Mems for coming out and helping SO MUCH. Love you!

Remember that black entryway?  And the nice '70s wood paneling?  Here we are all primered and ready for paint!  Isn't it amazing?!  Actually, I do have all this painted now, but I haven't taken my camera back up to the house for some pictures.  Soon, I promise.

So, for two days I had some help painting from my grandma and was able to get the kids' rooms done.  Then, the last 4 days I've been able to do the master bedroom and bathroom, the hallway, the kitchen and dining room and the living room.  I'm pretty thrilled considering I'm 7 and a half months pregnant.

OH!  I almost forgot.  In all the excitement, Cade has been working on a few of his loose teeth and we finally got one out!  Thank goodness for Aunt Lorrie the dental hygienist who enjoys doing that kind of thing.

New House Update

I know you're all dying to know how the house is coming along.  We were able to close 2 weeks earlier than expected and so work has begun!

We are so blessed to have such awesome friends and family who have come up to help a ton.  I kind of feel useless because I can't do anything right now in the house, but we should be painting sometime this week, and then I can actually contribute something.

Here are some shots of the house after demolition and before primer.

Standing at the front door looking in.  Where the paneling is is where the kitchen is.

Standing by the fireplace looking back at the front door.

One of the bedrooms

Master bedroom looking in from hallway

Standing in master bedroom, looking at bathroom, closet, door to hallway

Looking back down the hallway

A few trees down in the backyard just around the house.  We have to clear out a bunch to get gutters up.

A few more trees down.  :)

Kids entertaining themselves in the front yard.  They don't usually play on the dumpster. 

Now for some after shots:

The same red bedroom pictured above, only this time with Kilz from ceiling to floor.

Master bedroom

Master room again looking at closet and door to hall

Looking down the hall to the bedrooms.  What a difference it makes to get rid of all that red!

I know Tyler appreciates me posting this, but I just want to say how lucky I am to have such a hard-working husband.  After using the paint sprayer it looked like he was wearing white mascara.  Not to mention all the paint everywhere else.

But, seriously, he has been stopping at the house every night until 10 or 11 to work on it and all day both Saturdays since we bought it.  I can't believe how much work is done.  Thank you so much to everyone who has come to help.  Especially my father-in-law who has been driving up and staying in his camper to help my wonderful husband get our house ready for us.  I really married into a fantastic family!

More to come soon!

Halloween

Here's a quick run-down of our Halloween festivities.

First, we picked out a pumpkin and did some school-related activities with it.  Then it was time to carve.  All the kids picked their own tool to help them get the goo out.

Including ladles 

and a garlic press.

Ali has always enjoyed this part.  She just digs right in there while Cade asks, "Is there any way I can help do that without getting dirty?"  He has issues with texture.  Sorry, bud.  Sometimes we just have to get down and dirty.

Unfortunately I didn't take a single picture of the finished pumpkin.  What kind of crazy mom am I?  One that is pregnant and missing some brain cells I guess.

Then it was time to dress up and go trick or treating.  We had a little lion, an Indian (with real feathers from our turkey) and a princess.

She LOVED wearing the hood on this costume.  That made me happy.  :)

Yes, Mom.  This was my Halloween costume from about 20 years ago.  Don't look closely at it, because it's pretty worn in some places, but Ali was thrilled to wear it!

Can you see the eyelashes on this girl?  I know I'm a little biased, but I think we have a future knock-out for a daughter.

Here's Cade displaying his awesome bow and arrow skills.  Without the arrow.  Because I told him that was not a good idea.  He is good at shooting them, though.

I didn't get any pictures of all the cousins together because my battery on my camera died right after I took the kids' pictures.  And my back-up was dead, too.  Again, I'll blame it on pregnancy.

Halves

Did you know that right now, my children are all half of each other's ages?  How cool is that?!  And it will never happen again!

6...........................3.......................1.5

Our soon to be new house!

So - here it is!  Any volunteers to come help us make this liveable?  :-)

Ever Feel Busy?

But feel like nothing has really happened?  Yeah, that's been about the last month.  We've had plenty happen, maybe I'm just too tired by the end of the day to post pictures about it.  But, here we are again - mostly for family so they can see our family's goings-on.

First, we had a wounded goat.  We're not sure how it happened, but it did and good thing Dr. Tyler and his trusty assistant Collin were there to patch up a cut on her leg.

Then, we started school.  Eliza is getting quite efficient at coloring and will be all set for Nursery on Sunday (she's 18 months already?!).  Now, hopefully we can get her to keep it on the paper.

My dad was able to fly in for a quick weekend visit while he was on some business and the kids loved making up their own verses to silly songs.

Then the lady we were borrowing goats from wanted them back.  We've had them since May and learned a lot.  Everyone had gotten pretty attached to those gals, so we were sad to see them go.

But then, good news.  The next day the lady called us back and offered Lola to us to keep (the white one that looks like a camel without a hump).  She is our main milker (gives us up to a gallon a day), so we were quite thrilled!

Just a few weeks ago we got to play in the snow.  Yes.  The snow.  In Georgia.  

In our house, actually.  For school we were learning about polar bears and I remembered that I had saved some snow from December when we had that strange stuff falling down here.  I figured that it was the perfect day to pull that out.  The kids LOVED it.  They gathered all their arctic and polar animals and played in the snow with them until it all melted.  Which actually took a lot longer than I expected.  About 3 and a half hours, actually.  Their hands were quite cold when they were done, but they were happy.  And so was I.

These next pictures are the kids with their breakfast.  I have to brag on them a little.  Every morning they come in at exactly 6:50 and catch me reading my book.  So they bring in their own, we read until about 7:30, then get up, dressed, make beds and then they make breakfast while I get my makeup and hair done.  Usually they are very nice and tidy about breakfast, but on this particular morning I don't know what happened.  I couldn't quite capture the chaos that was the table, but here they are with their bowls.

Everyone's bowls were full to the brim and there was cereal all over the table.  It was great.  I love these kids.

And, last but not least I'm sure my family would like to see my growing belly, so here it is.  This was at 23 weeks (last week).

Big as it may be, I think this is the smallest pregnancy I've had.  I started showing QUICKLY.  Like, no one was surprised when we announced I was pregnant.  No joke, most people said, "Yeah, I figured."  But then 2 weeks ago at church someone asked how far along I was and she said, "Oh!  You're so small!"  That's when I realized that I have never EVER heard those words during any of my pregnancies.  Everything is still going well and I'm feeling great.  I'm getting growing and stretching pains now that baby is growing faster and it's getting uncomfortable to bend over to get things, but otherwise I can't complain.

So, to wrap it all up, here's Eliza to say:

Well, nothing I guess.  She's too pooped.