Christmas Card Preview

Ryan got a wheel barrel and Cadence really liked it. She seems to like all of the non-toys that are brought into the house. The second picture is a preview from our Christmas cards - hahahaha, aren't you all so excited to see the real picture now?? I think they turned out just fine but this one is funny.

Christmas Tree

Okay - these are very random - one of the stone on our house. The stone is also on the garage side but we don't have a picture of that yet. We will be painting in the spring for warmer weather. The Thanksgiving picture was one of only a few taken - we were already on to pie. The Christmas tree is up and Cadence loves to look at it. She also likes to click it on and off with her foot (Ryan taught her that). The top picture is of her saying "cheese".

Stone

Here is the stone on the front of the house. I cannot find my pictures that have a further away view. Ryan is almost completely done with the siding. We are very glad that he is about ready to move into the inside - it is getting COLD! The holiday was a great time of relaxation and family time. I wish I could have seen my side also but that will be for Christmas!!! So excited to be able to be in Iowa for a whole 11 days!!!!!!! I am glad my brother is graduating nursing school so we can visit even longer.

A few (not so profound) things that I have learned.

I was helping Ryan work around our new house the other day - mostly cleaning up and stuff. Here are a few things that I learned or relearned:

1) it really is fun to set things on fire (it was in the burn pile so it was okay) this said I have vowed to stop making fun of my husband for his love of fire. give me a can of diesel and a lighter and I am ALMOST as bad.
2) if you crouch down by a dirt embankment and your shirt in not tucked in you WILL come home with some dirt in your pants - yes I meant IN.
3) a house is a whole lot bigger when you have to use a shop vac to clean up. this made me very thankful for push vacuums. very.
4) gloves are very essential when you are working with wood. yeah, splitters do hurt.
5) when stepping over a barbwire fence do not lose you balance and if you loose said balance do not reach a hand down to steady yourself - there is only barbed wire to hold on to. and no I was not wearing the gloves described in #4. I know that I have been taught better but somehow I just forgot while in that moment.
6) and last but not least many hands make light work and we are made to work, it makes us feel good when we eat (even if it is Har.dee's - hey we were HUNGRY!!!)and justified in our sleepiness.

Spiritual Insight

We bought recycled concrete for our lane instead of gravel - it is about half the price but you have to pull out some old contruction stuff (metal mesh, pvc pipe parts and in our case a 1/4 of a tattered pair of pants...wonder where the rest is...)

As I was scouring the piles for this refuse a thought came into my mind. It must have been from the Holy Spirit - because I am not this profound on my own. I realized that my life is much like this pile of crushed concrete. God has to sometimes break us up to make us something useful to Him, and just like the concrete I have different purposes at different times in my life. And even after I have been through a little "crushing" or the Refiner's fire if you will, He still has to go back through the pile and pull out all the "junk" that is left over (bad attitude, pride, self-love etc). Even though to most it might seem that the gravel is good to go and ready to be used - one has to go over and over the pile to make sure it is a pure and clean before it can be used for its new purpose. And I would guess that even after months or maybe years we will occasionally find a piece of dangerous debris that needs to be removed to protect our child or car tires from damage. And this to is what God does as we mature. His continual care to clean up our life and attitudes is really an act of care for ourselves and others so we further fit His purpose and don't hurt others along the way.

I love it when God reveals wonder from the mundane.

House Progress

I have yet to put up vacation pictures -- hold tight for those. But here are some pictures of our updated house!! The guys are working hard on it this weekend with the siding. Dad and mom came down and so there has been much progress with the siding with Doug, Ryan and Dad. We have also had great grandparent time, some shopping, went to church, ate a lot and just hung out!!

Catch Up

The picture with the orange sweater is from our 4th anniversary. Bonnie took a few but I by accident deleted the others while on vacation. The house pictures are from about 10 days ago - we now have shingles on the roof and cement in the garage floor and a cement front patio. I cannot find the newest pictures. The other pictures are some vacation pictures. As you can tell Cadence played hard and slept well in AZ. It was so great to see family and friends and just relax. We had a wonderful time catching up with everyone and eating at our favorite places. Cadence slept in until 10:30 AM the morning we got home. CRAZY! The picture from the back of the house doesn't have all the windows cut out yet. The windows go in tomorrow and then my dad and Ryan and his dad will be working on siding this weekend. Anyone want to help??? :) It is going up pretty fast - yesterday we had some concrete guys there, AC guys , roofers, cabinet guy and Ryan was working on some things as well. Well, I am going to see if Cadence will lay down for 2 naps today --- we will see.

Things We Do

Here are some funny things that Cadence has done lately. I am trying to teach her to feed herself. The yogurt was a Sunday - not the smartest morning to start letting a 16 month old feed herself... The others are just funny things I have caught her doing. Speaking of -- I don't see her right now so I should go look.

Happy 4th Anniversary

I tried to dig up pictures from around each anniversary. Apparently we have not been in a picture together since Cadence was born...hahahaha. It took a bit but I found one from "Pumpkin Day" that the Tammany's took for us last October in Arizona. Maybe tonight before we leave for the night that Ryan planned we will take a picture. I am very excited to go out tonight, maybe will get crazy and go get coffee after 10:00 AM :). It feels like a long time since we had a date. The four years has gone by really fast but we have already grown a lot together and as individuals. I wouldn't change the journey for anything. May God bless the next year as we grown in Him. Oh yeah, the first year was the wedding (duh), the second picture was our first anniversary trip to Boston, the third is from July of 2007 (the baby is Lauren our niece) but we apparently didn't get in a picture together in the fall..., the fourth picture is from AZ last fall.

Happy Anniversary

My parent's are celebrating their anniversary today - 36 years! Thirty-six years of joy, challenge, heartbreak, floods, triumph, tears, laughter, kids, moving, staying, farming, jobs, vacations, babies, sports, hunting seasons, planning, hospital stays, pets, toddlers, friends, teenagers, ER visits, graduations, a granddaughter and the foundation of it all is love rooted in Christ our Savior. They have been and will continue to be an example for Ryan and I as we grow in our marriage. I hope and pray they have a beautiful day and enjoy each other's company as they continue on into another year that is sure to be packed with new adventure.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I guess it has been awhile since I blogged -

An update would be that we are down with the rough-in plumbing and now the basement floor is almost ready to be put in! We are currently trying to decide what the siding will look like - hopefully, we decide soon. We are more than excited to see the framing happen - then it will look like a real house :). This picture was from when we took mom out to see the foundation and it was very cold out. I didn't have enough clothing for Cadence, yes she is wearing a sun hat and my jacket over her jacket. It has been unusually cold here for the fall, we haven't really had too much of that in between weather that is so nice in fall. And the news just talked about how record rain years in the past have had record snow fall!!! HAHAHAHA, I love snow so that is good for me - bad for building a house. Well, maybe not, I have never built a house but it just means more mud/snow/water tracked through the house. I had other things that I was going to blog about - cleaver things - but I have forgotten. I guess I should keep a notebook with me - or just blog more often.

Pumkin Farm

Cadence really liked to run around at the pumkin farm. It was fun to watch her actually like the kiddie fun parts. The other picture is of her and her best friend, Piper.

First of Many Fall Posts

Fall is my favorite - well, really I like the change is seasons. We had a fall family fun day with our church for the youth pastor who is moving to Africa with his family to do missions work. We too full advantage of the photo opportunities. There will be more to come - like on of us riding a horse and one with her getting her face painted. But those are on a friend's camera. Since you can tell from the first picture she is not so thrilled to be sitting in the face chair alone!! :) Pictures 2-4 illustrate how a toddler thinks you should approach a kid - first you point and yell, then you get closer, lower and yell louder while pointing then you finally get up the nerve to touch, of course while still yelling. Come to think of it - I am not even sure that she actually touched this little kid she might have stopped an inch short of it. But one thing is for sure, goats take much abuse.

Visiting Dad

Picture Catch Up

Here are a few pictures from the last week. Also there are pictures of our house that was started today!! The foundation was dug out (is that correct grammar...???) and the driveway was put in place. I am sure there will be more pictures to come!!