Daddy's Little Helper

Jon has been busy extending a wall in the bathroom. Our toilet was always so far away from the wall. It has left our house covered in a wonderful white dust from sanding the stuff. Yeah. But now it is done. This is a picture of Hannah "helping" Daddy. She is such a great help. And doesn't everyone work in their pajamas, winter boots & hat? The other day I heard banging and pounding downstairs where the kids were "playing". I went down to check it out and guess what - they built some windows for us! They took pieces of wood & trim and laid them out on the floor and then were trying to nail them together. Don't tell them this - but pounding screws against wood with a pliers will never work. We are so close to having everything done with the house. All we have left to do is clean and clean and clean and clean! It is a disaster right now. Sometimes it looks almost like a different house! One of these days - after I clean it- I will take pictures of some of the more noticeable things that we changed for you all to see.

New Countertops

In order to get our house ready to sell we have been making some improvements around the house. We decided to get new counter tops in the kitchen. As you can see below, mine were ugly, had never been attached to the cabinets and didn't come together in the middle right. So when I left home from lunch on Wednesday, this is what the kitchen looked like.

After work on Wednesday the kids and I went to Awana. These are my girls. I teach kindergarten girls. They are so sweet and quiet - usually. It was pajama night. That is my favorite night because that means the kids can go straight to bed when we get home.

This is what my kitchen looked like at about 9pm. I am still finding sawdust everywhere. My Uncle Lorin came to help Jon do the cabinets. Nobody knows home improvement like Lorin! And thank goodness he came to help! We never could have done it without him! THANK YOU LORIN!!

By about 1am we had everything back to normal. Don't those counter tops look amazing! I love them! It has completely transformed my kitchen. I only wonder, why in the world did I not do this 5 years ago? Why did I suffer with the annoying and ugly counter tops for so long. So anyone out there hating their counters - it is so worth the surprisingly small amount of money it takes to replace them - so do it!

Big News Announcement

Remember a few posts ago when I said that I couldn't find my knife...
Well, it may be somewhere in this pile - in my living room. Or else it might be in the storage shed, already packed. PACKED YOU SAY???

Yep, packed. Jon and I are currently getting our house ready to sell. We hope to have it on the market yet in February. We have been working like crazy trying to do stuff. Jon has many a nights up until 2am. What a guy, working hard like that. He is putting so much work into it! So if any wants to buy a house before we list it, let me know. So where will we live?

Here in this field. We are planning on building a house. Jon has acres coming from his parents and his mom is willing to sign us our share over now. Can you see our house nestled back in the corner along the trees there? We are currently going through tons of things such as meeting with different builders, getting estimates, visiting banks, looking at electricians, plumbers, cabinets, siding, and on and on and on and on. We are feeling a little bit overwhelmed, but it is worth it! We are super excited for this new phase in our life. Please pray that everything continues to fall into place and that we can be in our new house by next fall. We will probably have to spend some time in the parent's basement - so pray for them a lot. :)

This is a picture from the road, at about our spot, looking towards Jon's mom's house. You can barely see it, but it is there. So we will be close to her, without being too close. The spot is on Division Dr. It will be great to be on the right side of the tracks - finally! We are looking forward to being close enough to help Diane out and be there a little more. We said that we will need to make a Hummer trail from our house to hers. The kids have a little Hummer that they ride in at her house, and since they are too small for driving 4 wheelers, they need a Hummer trail! But we are looking forward to this and we appreciate all of the love and support and advice that so many are giving us. Thank you!!!

Camp Forest Springs

This past weekend our friends Matt & Carrie came to visit us. It is always a great time and we never get to get together enough. Jon misses Matt very much :) We got to go out to eat on Saturday night - without kids! My family was super enough to watch them for us. And then on Sunday, after church and then the buffet at Happy Joe's, we went up to Camp Forest Springs for the afternoon. It was fun! Here is Hannah waving to the camera.

This is Jon & Tyler at the top of the hill getting ready to go down. Tyler loved tubing, and so did Hannah. Although Hannah cried the first time. But I think that is my fault. The kids had to ride with an adult, and the first time Hannah was with me. And I think my saying over and over while going down, "oh my gosh, we're gonna die" may have influenced her experience a little bit. That was enough for me. Hannah's favorite part was going up the rope pull. She wanted to keep going up, but didn't want to go back down. I still haven't figured out how she thought could work. Of course a kid would love the rope pull. The adult laid down on the tube & held on to the rope while the kids got to lay on their back and enjoy the ride. Underneath I was trying to balance Hannah on for dear life. She didn't grasp the concept of - hold on to me. don't point at the trees.

Here is the hill from the bottom. This one was the bullet. I didn't try this one at all. Tyler wanted to so bad so he finally convinced Jon to go. I stayed down and took pictures.

We then moved to the kid hill so that they could ride by themselves. They kept walking up the down way. Hannah would eventually give up and wait for Jon to come and get her.

I realized that I never got a picture of Matt & Carrie - but in my defense the camera battery died on me. But I love this picture of them walking with Tyler. Hannah & Tyler love Matt & Carrie. They get so excited and have so much fun with them. Thank you for coming guys! And as a side note... Do NOT rent Road to Rodanthe (I think I spelled that right). It is a long, boring movie. Stick to the book! Does that redeem us at all Matt??

Jon's Birthday

Jon's 30th birthday is Thursday and he works until 10pm, so we decided to celebrate his birthday Tuesday night. We rushed home and quick make a cake. This time I was able to keep the kids away from it...but it fell off the counter and fell on the floor while it was cooling!! So it was really smashed. Oh well, it still tasted good. Here is a picture of Jon with the kids "being normal". Chloe looks like she seems to think differently though.

Below is the "angry face" picture." I think that it is funny that when Hannah makes an angry face, she has problems looking up, so has to look down at the ground. Chloe is starting to get impatient...

This is the "shy picture" As if they are shy. Chloe is getting anxious...

This is the "surprise picture" Chloe says, "forget this, I'm going for the cake"

And would it be without whipped cream. And of course you have to squirt tons of it directly into your mouth. Even Chloe loved it. If you look close, which you probably wouldn't if I didn't open my big mouth, the cake is ripped into pieces, not cut. I couldn't find my knife...which I will explain that reason in a blog soon to come. But we had a great birthday party. The kids wrapped up all kinds of household items in Christmas paper for his presents. But his favorite present...they each took a beer out of the fridge and wrapped it up for him. AAWW! I just can't believe that we are 30!!! What happens to the time?

Strawberry Jelly

We made strawberry jelly this past weekend. Hannah kept saying 'You have to have a taster mom - it's the rules."

She was also my mixer. One of these times I am going to be able to do it on my own. I swear, every single time I have to call mom to make sure I measure out the stuff right. But the last two times I've made it, it has turned out right. Not too runny and not too thick. Yeah! And there is nothing that compares to homemade strawberry jelly!

A Mover and a Shaker

Chloe has been on the move. Things are no longer safe in my house. Here she is pulling out the pots & pans. Hannah went to get her a spoon - to make music! Yeah.

The other two have no regressed back into crawling around with Chloe. It is actually quite cute.

There she goes. Can you believe that she will be eight months old this week!!! Time is flying way to fast. She can say "mamamama" - while looking at me so it counts!! But the girl still has no teeth! Tyler & Hannah both had teeth about 4-5 months, so I'm not sure what is holding her up. But she is crabby enough lately that I keep looking in her mouth and saying "There has to be a tooth coming!"

Super Bowl Party

I think that almost every year since Jon & I have been married we have had a super bowl party. Sometimes they are big and sometimes they are smaller. It's our thing! This year we just had Clayton, Mindy & Ava over. Jon works with Mindy at County Market and her daughter Ava loves to play with Tyler & Hannah. It was a great time! We ordered pizza and just relaxed and watched the game while the kids played. They were a little disappointed with the "3-d" movie preview - but in my opinion - who wasn't? Then we had a great & wild halftime...


Tyler can get kind of aggressive and was doing a little wrestling. He would actually take the girls out. Hannah is used to it, but I think it kind of scared Ava. Ava is about 3 months younger than Hannah.

During the half time show they danced, and danced, and danced. And ran, and ran, and ran. They had a wild time! I found it amazing that Chloe was able to sleep through it. You might notice that my kids are strange dressers. I swear Hannah goes through at least 5 outfits a day. During this time she is wearing a t-shirt and tights. And Tyler is in shorts. But throughout the game we were...in dresses, swimsuits, costumes, naked, tights, ALL red clothes (for the cardinals), pink clothes, jeans, capes and pajamas. It is no wonder she has so much laundry. Because it was all in a pile on the floor and I have to try and figure what is dirty and what isn't.

But in the end, they had so much fun. Hannah was so excited to play with a girl two days in a row! At point of the party, Tyler came up to me and said, "I'm not having much fun playing with just girls." I told him to remember this is how Hannah feels when she is the only girl - which is most of her life on the Poyda side of things. But it was fun and we look forward to next year already!

Birthday Party

This past Saturday we went to Aubree's 5th birthday party. It was a fun time! She had a pinata, which was a great thing. The kids loved it! Here is Tyler getting ready to hit it. He did break the string on it, and then Lorin had to hold the pinata up for the kids to hit. What a brave man!!

Here is Hannah taking a whack at it. It is actually quite amazing that none of them got hit with the bat.

CANDY! It finally broke and the kids just stood there. All of us adults were like "Go get the candy!" But it was only a split second delay because they were on it fast. It was so full of candy! Heather said at first 10 pieces (in hopes of limiting some sugar intake), Tyler counted out his 10 pieces and put it in his bag. Hannah on the other hand was shoving handfuls in her bag, claiming she can't count. In the end, I have a huge bowl full of chocolate on my kitchen table. Not so great for a diet.

Here is the fam wearing pieces of the pinata. They made great party hats! I love Chloe's face in this picture!

And here is Chloe wondering...why didn't I get to hit it?