Busy Week

It was a busy week.  Started things off picking up my grandfather "Pops" and Mom at the Nashville airport.  They moved him into his apartment at Hickory Woods here in Murray yesterday. We were back to school with a couple of half days this week and we nursed a sick puppy.  Between life and the construction we stayed pretty busy.  Work continues on the retaining wall.  We anticipate their finishing the brick work next week.  Its been crazy hot here so they've been working a 6 am- noon work schedule this week to cope with the heat.  Seems like you should be able to get a lot done if you go to bed at 1am and get up at 6 am.  Unfortunately lack of sleep seems to make the brain ineffective- I am operating like someone with Alzheimer's this week, or maybe ADD.... The point- I'm not firing on all cylinders.  Late library materials- $2 FINE YIKES, multiple trips to the grocery because I didn't get it all on the first run, and two meals begun that I still didn't have all the ingredients to cook (I will enjoy having them half prepped next week though), and lots of jobs half done around here!  I am looking forward to not hearing a mortar mixer at daybreak tomorrow.  Maybe we can sleep in a little.  With a little rest hopefully next week I will have a little more sense.

Week Two

Tim held down the fort this week here as I had to travel to Florida for my grandmother's funeral.  Construction continued and I arrived home just in time to see the new concrete poured.

Site is prepped for concrete

More cool equipment- a concrete pump truck

the pour

Notice the two supervising from the window

The boys are loving having all this going on- its created several "forts" in the yard

Fun with concrete

Work begins on the retaining wall- raising the top 1 ft

Block work for the new stairs

Major Yard Work

We are lowering our patio and replacing foundation drains around our house.  Yes, our house is not yet 4 years old.  We try not to focus on that.  However, if you are building a house- get it right the first time is my advice.  It is not what we'd like to be doing with our vacation month, but it needed to be done.  Thought we'd share some pics.  While Tim and I are weighing the decisions, the kids think its just really cool to have large equipment working in the yard.

BEFORE:

DAY 1:

DAY 2:

Its now ready for all the new piping, concrete, extended retaining wall, and new yard.  Carter is having a ball playing in the dirt.  I am already anxious to get it all put back together.

Our crew on Easter Sunday.  They are getting so big!  

We are waterlogged and flooded in Western Kentucky but so far we haven't had any major damage from the storms at our house.  MSU was closed today, a rare occurrence.  Another round is expected tonight.  I am hoping this pattern ends before our week of camping at LBL in May.

They are DONE!!!

The kids composed entries for their books while in Germany.  They picked the photos and chose the titles.  We tried to keep them up to date and had them nearly done when we came home.  Notice I said "nearly".  Over the last few weeks I have been tweaking them to make sure I catch all our mistakes and then I ordered them...or tried to.  Apparently when you make a book over a period of 5 months things change.  So...I have new software and their books are totally redone yet contain the same commentary and photos (join me as a I moan).  I have lost more hours of sleep than I care to mention, but they are done.  Those of you who are local can see them at the coffee house event this year.  Those who aren't and who'd like to take a peek online can do so by contacting me for an invitation to view the books on blurb.com.  Because these are composed of the kids' personal writings I have decided not to make them open to the public at large.  Send me an email or comment here and I'll get you a link to each of their books and you can see what they thought of life in Germany!

Mental Note

Shopping for bras on behalf of one's 93 year old mother-in-law is difficult.  Taking your 6 and 8 year old boys with you makes it virtually impossible.  I just bought every one in the store in her style and size and left asap.

Teaching All Four

I was warned: "This will be a really hard year" the folks who sell me most of my materials said.  Today was the first day of teaching all four kids full time school.  Wow.  It was an 8 1/2 hour school day.  One has to understand for us this literally means Mom is teaching for 8 1/2 hours- no busy work, no breaks, just one or more kid(s) after another working with me at the school table.  Thankfully Laurel pitched in and fixed lunch and helped Katey with her math lesson.  Lets just say we have some bugs to work out and we have to find more efficient ways to get things done.   Tomorrow we do it all again and we haven't even started the daily hour of read alouds (literature written in or about the time period we are studying) planned in our curriculum.  YIKES.  I am off to bed so we can try starting a little earlier tomorrow.