Tree house is FINISHED!!

Here are the finished pictures!!!!

Building a Tree House....Part One

We have talked for quite some time about building the kids a "tree house" in the back yard. We had a large tree in the middle of our back yard that died and Todd cut it down to about 6 feet to build a tree house on top of it. On Friday we hooked up a trailer and headed to Lowe's to buy supplies. We worked our tails off all day Saturday and Sunday builing the "fort" it has now become. I think our family could live in it. Todd's dad spent Saturday (9-9) with us and his mom and dad both came down on Sunday to help. We truely could not have done it with out their help. We needed Dan there! I spent ALL day today painting and we will have it 100% finished tomorrow, but I want to share the pictures I took over the weekend. (There is alot!!)

This is what we started with. A dead, cut off tree.... (See Addyson holding the cat that wondered into our yard and adopted us for 3 days. She had a collar and must of returned home, but got lots of TLC from Addyson.)

A meeting of the minds... LOL
Grandear teaching the boys how to measure and use a square for straight lines. They wanted to use the saw, maybe next year. (I learned though!!)


The floor is finished!!!!!
Addyson doing what she does best....
Our first wall was up!
2nd wall, roof and the slide! Gotta have the slide to get down in one piece (for me!)
Building the 3rd wall..

Todd ON TOP of the roof like 14 feet above the ground. I did NOT like him being up there! The roof is green by the way, you can't see it, but it matches the slide!

And we have walls!

Still on the roof. I swear he was up there for an hour!!

See the GREEN roof!!
I learned to use the saw, and actually enjoyed it!

This is the "trap" door for the boys to climb through the tree and into the fort. We got the door installed today. It is AWESOME, as Addyson said!

Taken from the ground. We really built it high!

See what I mean, he is STILL on the roof!!!!

Finished pictures tomorrow!! It is amazing with the paint. (For those that have asked...we do NOT hire out! LOL)

Hard day of work!

As most know, we live across the street from the school that Todd is the principal at. They just completed major construction and added a new cafteteria, offices, and 15 classrooms. When they did the construction, they took out the old playground and the new one was just put in. My boys, all 3 of them, have worked super hard these last 2 days putting up the landscape timbers and leveling the 311TONS (not exageratting) of pea gravel that was delivered. It was delivered on 12 SEMI trucks. Here are a few pictures!

This is the first of the 12 semi trucks! I was standing in our front yard in my PJ's to take the picture! LOL

Here is a picture of the new playground! (Did I mention it is across the street!!)
There has to be perks if dad is the principal...right! Kamron jumping into the mounds of gravel.
And then there is Tyler. The first day of work was actually more PLAY! Their clothes will NEVER be clean. The rocks were wet and cool and they ROLLED in them! LOL
Ty jumping into the rock!
LOVE this picture! It really shows you how big and how much rock was in EACH of those 12 SEMI trucks! Taken from our front door. Look at the kids excitement running over to it.
See the pink tiny speck...that is Addyson!
Addyson dressed herself this morning...nuff said!
And the mounds of rock have been leveled! Todd and the boys worked HARD ALL DAY!!!
Here is the "crew" working. Man it was hot today too!
LOVE the next 2 pictures! They were exhausted!!! LOL
Kamron posed for this (well, so did Todd , LOL) but it shows how tired they were!
Next project...........TREE house in the back yard! Stay tuned for pictures!!!

Pictures!!

I wanted to share the slide show of all the pictures that Faith took of the family. We were so pleased with all of the pictures!!!!!

http://www.faithessary.com/Clients/301Newberry/

Oh my.. Our little Addyson

Addyson, our spunky 5 year old going on 21 year old, had me laughing most of the day. To give you a little back ground... last week when Tyler went down to the front of church during the invitation after being saved on Wednesday, Addyson had a fit. A HUGE fit at the front of the church while everyone was congratulating Tyler. She wanted to know why everyone was telling Tyler they were proud of HIM and not HER. She pouted, kicked amd I came extremely close to leaving Tyler's side to take her out of church to spank her. I didn't, and kept my cool until we got home at least! After sitting on her bed for a VERY long while and getting a spanking she decided she was proud of Tyler too and she even moved his picture on the refrigerator to the top and put her's on the bottom. (Her way of being proud) Today she told me that tomorrow, after Tyler gets BABAITIZED, she wants to get BABAITIZED too. The way she said it had us rolling!!

I was sewing today in my sewing room, aka dining room, and Addyson looked out the windows and saw that all the baby birds were gone out of the nest. I told her that they grew up and flew away. These are horrible birds (swallows) and everytime we knock down their nest, they have expertly rebuilt it and layed eggs before we even realize it. Well today Addyson informed me that there was a new mommy bird in the nest and she was going to POOP out some more eggs. I tried to tell her that birds do not POOP out eggs, but she was pretty insistant that they do. I was not in the mood to discuss bird reproduction, so I let it go!

Later in the day while I was fixing Cheesecake for after lunch tomorrow, Addyson was helping. She rarely gets to really help in the kitchen since the boys are at a great age to help and love it (most of the time). I was reading the instructions for the cheesecake and realized that I only had one pkg of cream cheese and the recipe called for two. Todd volunteered to go to the store and get another one and Addyson told us that he didn't need to go, we just needed to cut the one we had into TWO! I tried to tell her that it wouldn't be the same but she reassured me that it would. We didn't argue and Todd went to the store for another package of cream cheese!

The cheerleading uniform that Addyson is wearing I bought from the high school cheerleaders a few weeks ago! They were selling old uniforms and I altered it to fit Addyson. It was a size 7 so I took seams apart and cut a bit off, but I am so excited that it turned out so well!

We are HOME!!

It is nice to be home! We left Monday morning and went to Roswell N.M. and camped at Bottomless lakes state park. We were plesently suprised at how nice it was and how much fun we had! We could of all done without the flies and mosquitos (that they sprayed for this morning before we packed up to come home!!), but other than that it was a blast. The kids swam daily in the CLEAR lake water trying to catch fishes in their hands and built sand castles in the sandy beach. We rented paddleboats and explored the lake. It is salt water and is 90 feet deep. They have life guards on duty and there were many times that we were the ONLY ones in the lake. I guess being there during the week days has it's advantage. We spent many hours at the playground that was covered from the sun. We did tour Roswell one day and even went through the Alien/UFO museum. That was a waste of time, but the kids got a kick out of it! While we were away Faith posted some of our family pictures on her blog. Check them out! She did an awesome job and I can not wait to see the rest!






On Wednesday we drove into Roswell and spent the afternoon with a friend of mine from Slaton and her 2 kids (Her husband was playing golf!). Jodi and I have been friends since we were old enough to ride bikes and terrorize the neighborhood. We have not seen each other since our High School reunion but in 3 hours we caught up on old times. My kids asked me today when we were going back to play with Colton and Abby. Thanks Jodi for a very fun afternoon!! We all had a great time!

Busy and Blessed Week!

The most important thing and deserves to be mentioned first is that this past Wednesday, July 9th, Tyler became a Christian and asked Jesus to live in his heart. We are so happy and proud of him. When he made the decision, it was high speed to get him to our pastor to talk to him. He has decided he wants to be baptized next Sunday the 20th and all the grandparents will be there. Pray for Kamron that he does not feel pressure since Tyler has made the decision. I want him to feel the conviction that Tyler did and to come to me like Tyler did! My mom bought both boys the Boy's Bible and it is incredible. It is ALL boy and they love it! They read it all during church today and I am so thankful they have it! Thank you Memaw and PaPa!


Around the house this week we got new windows!! Our windows were HORRIBLE!!! The were 50 years old with the house and were NASTY! You couldn't clean them, you could not see out of them, anyway, our new one's are amazing! I wanted to take a picture while they were installing them to show the difference, but I did not want to freak out the really nice Mennonite man and his son. We also got our carpets clean. I almost feel like we have a new house, almost!


The last thing this week is Addyson is training wheel FREE!! She turned 5 in May and has been ready for a while, she just needed the confidence. Now we have bicycle dilemmas. She has a 16 inch bike she got for Christmas last year. With training wheels it is fine, but without them, it is way to big. She learned to ride on her 10 inch bike and when you see the video, you can tell how little it is. Thankfully her best friend, Riley, lent her his 12 inch bike and she rides it well! She has issues that it is blue and not pink, but it is better than her being on her "little" bike.
(I can not get my video to process! UGH~ I will try later to show you Addyson on 2 wheels!)

We have had a great week and are planning on taking a little camping trip for a few days. Take a look at Faith's blog Monday or Tuesday. She took our family pictures this week and she said she will put our sneak peaks up and you can view them there. I am so excited to see them. She is such a talented photographer!

Fun, Food, Family and Fireworks on the Fourth!

This year on the 4th, Todd's parents came and joined us for the Muleshoe festivities. The Chamber puts on a parade and this year we got to participate in the parade. Earlier this year Todd was named Man of the year. The family rode in a beautiful new pickup from our local Ford house. Todd's dad drove and his mom rode in the front as well. The kids threw candy and had a blast. It was a neat experience for the kids.

That evening we cooked a wonderful meal. Grandparents are good people to try new recipes on! We had ribs, potatoes, corn (on the grill), Jalapeno poppers, baked beans and rolls. The desserts were amazing as well! Todd loves to cook outside using his dutch oven's. This year he prepared Peach Cobbler and these amazing apples wrapped in pie crust. I have to share the pictures of those, because they were just as pretty as they were good! And I made homemade ice cream for the first time ever. I do not think any of us will eat for a few days!
Here is Todd preparing the desserts! I was in the back ground making the Jalapeno poppers, coughing, choking and hacking the entire time! Those suckers were HOT!!!

Here is the apple's before they were cooked. Inside the cored and pealed apples was brown sugar, Cinnamon and butter then wrapped in pie crust! YUM!
This is the before picture of the Peach cobbler. It is a can of peaches with its juice (not pie filling) with a box of yellow cake mix sprinkled on top, then topped with pats of butter!
This is what they looked like while they were cooking! I am so glad Todd's mom took pictures!
And one hour later we have:

IT WAS SO YUMMY, esp with my homemade ice cream on top!!!!

While we were cooking, Addyson had Grandear babysitting Jennifer so she could play. I am sure in this picture she is giving him all the instructions on how exactly to take care of her baby!
And here is the final picture of the peach cobbler! OF the 14 pounds I had previously lost, I really do not want to get on the scale at all this week!
We ended the evening playing a new card game called Sequence. The kids loved it! And watching fireworks. We all slept until 9:30 or 10:00 including Nana!!

Swiming, Swiming and more Swiming!

The kids have become little fishes! They had swimming lessons at the Texas Tech Exercise Science Building for the past 2 weeks and loved it. The teacher/life guards were AWESOME! We will definately be going back again next year! They even made all the "little" kids jump off the diving board. It was a great experience and I feel pretty confident that I will not have to jump into the pool in my clothes this year to save Addyson like last year!



Today we went to Rhonda's house to swim. My Sunday school teacher and friend opens her pool up on Tuesday's for us to bring our kids over. They were there with their friends and had a blast!

Ruidoso Vacation

We recently went to Ruidoso N.M. for a weekend getaway. It was so pretty and I love the smell of the mountain air. We traveled and camped with the Student Service Coordinator at Todd's school and her husband. We hiked, shopped and played lots of cards. It was a wonderful weekend. We hope to camp with the Trusssel's again! Here are a few pictures