Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Upstairs

I finally finished the upstairs of our house.  Here's the bathroom.  No, it doesn't have two showers.  The space beside the shower is dead space that I'm using as storage, so that's why there's another shower curtain covering it.



Christian's room is finally put together too.  I've been hunting for a desk of some sort so that in a few months we can set up a corner for "school".  I'm going to start teaching him the "basics", and we're also going to start having craft time every day.  Perhaps that will help him develop his "creative side" more quickly.  He loves working on things, and what little child doesn't like playing with paper, scissors, and markers???  Christian is so proud of his room.  Whenever we have company, the first thing he wants to do is show everyone his room.  :)



























And here's Audra's room.  One side of the room is hers, that is.  The other side is "mama's corner".  I managed to get all my totes of fabric into the huge closet so that my sewing table is clear for other projects as well.  I love this spot in the house! 









































What's Been Happening

   Well, its been awhile since my last post.  It was such a hassle going down to the internet every week and trying to deal with two little ones, so I just gave up.  We got internet at the house due to Andy's church work, so I'm back up and running again. 
   We've been staying very busy.  We've started having families from the church over, trying to get to know them.  They love getting together, though they really don't do much of that sort of thing here.  We plan to change that.  :)  One family with 6 children came over last Friday night and we played games around the table til 1:00am!  We had a blast and was able to really get to know them.  We had another single lady close to my age over last night.  She has a smaller size harp and wants me to teach her how to play it.  She lives only a couple blocks from us so I'm hoping we can get together more. 
    I stepped out our back door late the other evening and was welcomed by this spectacular sight!  I've seen a lot of sunsets from all over the world...the most amazing one was above Alaska when we flew over the top of the world.  The sun set to the horizon, but then came right back up again.  It was the weirdest thing I ever saw!  But I've never seen something like this.  I was spell bound!  One nice thing about living in flat land, is the sky is ever so big, and you see so much more of the sun rises and sunsets than you would in the mountains.  The sky looked like it was literally on fire...as if the heavens were filled with a beautiful display of celestial fireworks!   I was reminded of the majesty and power of God, our Creator! 
   I don't have a lot of time right now to write a long post, but I'll try to get more on here within the next few days.  Now that we have internet, it'll be a whole lot easier to keep my blog updated. 
   Here are some recent pictures. 
Bundled up and ready for the snow!
Audra with Mamaw
Christian licking the beaters



My latest project, a bumper for Audra's crib

Christian playing with his barn


Christian stated that he "Loved Sugar!"  His face says it all. :)

I love Audra's rosy cheeks! 


Dressed in her Sunday best!  



Saturday, January 5, 2013

The Kids

   The kids are getting used to their new home.  Christian loves having a huge room, big enough for his bed, a rocker, his bouncy horse, a huge toy box/book shelf and lots of room for play on the floor.  The house is an older one and the upstairs rooms don't have air vents in them.  So we run heaters at night to keep the kids warm.  There are lots of big windows though and its amazing how they reflect the suns rays and keep the rooms warm during the day.  At times, its almost hot up there!  The folks who built these old houses knew what they were doing! 
   Christian started his coughing again a couple weeks ago, then started running a fever.  I took him to the doctor for an antibiotic and found he had bronchitis again.  No surprise...he gets it all the time.  But after a round of antibiotics, and he was still badly coughing, wouldn't eat, and just wasn't himself, I began to really worry.  I did some research online and found the reason for it even before I took him to the doc again.  Then Audra came down with the symptoms the Sunday before New Years.  Yeah, my kids always get sick on the weekends or on the holidays!  Christian on Christmas, and Audra on New Years.  I brought in the New Year holding a very feverish baby in my arms while the town was setting off fireworks outside.  We managed to keep the kids out of the ER and took them to the doc on Wed, the 1st.  I was right.  Both tested positive for RSV, and Christian had an ear infection and Audra had two!  Christian's was also turning into pneumonia!  It made for a long two weeks!  I got next to no sleep for getting up every two hours checking foreheads, giving meds, rocking and comforting, sitting Audra up and helping her cough up mucus, and keeping her breathing clearly.  Christian's first antibiotic wasn't strong enough to knock out the infection, so it just got worst.  He's doing much better now, and is beginning to eat some.  He doesn't have any extra weight to spare!  Audra still had a cough and a lot of mucus, but the meds are finally taking affect.  They had us worried to say the least. 

She's really growing.

She chews on everything!  She's got two teeth now. 

Playing his harmonica. 

Smiley as ever!

And OH, she LOVES to eat!!!

Christian riding Scout.  Scout is broken, but you just don't get rid of a beloved pet, now do you?

She's finally growing some hair!  YIPPEEE!


Audra's already earned the nick name "Big Eyes" up here.  She lives up to it too.  I think they get bigger every day!

I love her fuzzy hair!

Playing with daddy

She loves getting her picture taken, too. 


Trying to crawl

We were on the bed watching a cartoon when Audra crawled over to Christian and started climbing into his lap. 


She laid her head down and Christian absentmindedly began patting her back. 

She wanted him to hold her so badly

Christian's Christmas present!  The Aunts really scored one with this train!!!  Thanks so much!!!

The Blizzard

   A week after we got here, we were hit with a blizzard.  It was the worst one they'd seen in several years.  Welcome to the North!!!  The snowplows were out in droves, but the town finally called them in because they couldn't keep up with the falling snow.  They'd plow one street and 10 min later, it'd be covered in snow and ice again.  The town shut down for a day, and that's saying a lot for folks up here!  It snowed for about two days and nights.  After the first day though, people were getting out in it, icy roads and all!  And they don't drive slow up here either!  These little cars were driving in the stuff with no problem at all!  After the first day of snow, the school buses were running their routes again as well and life went on as normal.  I wanted to hit the Christmas sales, so Andy agreed to watch the kids for a day and let me get out by myself.  It took me at least a half hour to un-bury the car and scrape the ice from behind the tires just so I could move it.  Then, after skiing backwards out our driveway, I felt like a pro!  :)  The roads were still a mess, but I had a day to myself.  A bunch of snow wasn't going to stand in my way!  :)  Besides, I might as well learn how to drive in the stuff. 
   The blizzard dumped almost two feet on us!  Goodbye sandals!  Yes, I broke down and bought some high boots.  :)

Out our back door.  I could hardly get the door open for the snow piled against it.  The picture doesn't do it justice. 



Our Garage

View of the back of our house

Our driveway

View out a side window of the house.

Andy clearing our sidewalk.  You can see how deep it is against his legs. 

Out our front door.

More snow.
The day I went shopping.
Digging my car loose. 
Snow piled everywhere in town.
It was piled so high where they had cleared the roads, that they were loading snow into dump trucks with bull dozers to be hauled away.
It was piled as higher than the trucks!
In town.
Lots of snow!
Beautiful!