Merry Christmas from the Lands!!

What a whirlwind Christmas season. We enjoyed having our families here and the girls had many gift opening opportunities. Here are some pics from all the visits. I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas and that this new year brings great joy. For Poppy and Penny and Whit, Chris, Katelyn and Brooklyn, we are not leaving you out but I think all the pictures were taken with your cameras cause we did not have any. Please send some for me to post!!

Santa brought some new fish for the fish tank and Daddy has been catching them for the freezer. The one below is a 28" Red Fish (The limit and probably the biggest Red fish Mark has ever caught) Merry Christmas Mark!!

Santa brought the girls a fairy village and a My Little Pony village (not pictured but THANK YOU Grandpa Larry and Grandma Helen) The girls have taken over the dining room table with it and sit and play with it for hours. That would be the reason for the wordy blog this morning!

Nana and Grand Nana came for a visit and brought new sweat shirts with the girl's names monogrammed on them and singing Rudolph and Santa. Rudolph made a great bed companion for Ella. Its nose lit up every time you pushed its ear.

So that is it for now. If I get more pictures I will post those as well. Our girls were very blessed this year by all who gave gifts and we were equally so for all of you who care so much. Thank you and God bless.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope all had a happy Thanksgiving. We could not have asked for a better one. We were so busy we did not take many pictures but here is what we got. We went to Ballinger where my dad lives and Mark did some hunting. He got 2 does. I'll spare you the gory pictures though. The girls enjoyed playing with their cousin Katelyn and seeing Poppy's horses. Then we went to Ft. Worth and were pleasantly surprised by snow on Thanksgiving day. It did not stick but Ava and Ella got to play in it for a little while. The last picture is of the girls before church one morning and I think the look precious in their pink!!

Halloween

Happy Halloween!

We've had a busy day. Both girls had parties at their schools and then we went to Trick or Trunk at our church. Trick or Trunk is where we line cars up in the parking lot and everyone decorates like we would decorate our porches. Then the kids go down the line doing their trick or treating. Here are some pictures of the girls and some of the cars. Ava was Peter Pan and Ella was Tinkerbelle. I think a fun time was had by all. We also went to a pumpkin patch and to Ava's fall festival at her school last weekend. And finally, we had a pretty cool full moon and it made a really spooky picture. I thought it was appropriate to add.

Ava's 6th B-Day

It was a low-key evening at home with the nuclear family. Ava has been looking forward to her birthday for quite a while (since the last one, I think). Everything she sees on TV is something she wants for her birthday. I suppose that will start again tomorrow.

We had a nice dinner with cake and presents.

The checkers were a big hit. Ava is quite a competitor--and she wasn't too happy that daddy didn't let her win (I guess she comes by the competitiveness honestly :-).

She loved all of her gifts. We set them all aside to play with one per evening for the next week or so.

Our Construction Project

Ava Looses a Tooth

Ava lost her first baby tooth tonight. It is possibly the world's smallest tooth, but she is very proud and excited. It fell out naturally (without thread or doorknob assistance) while she was taking a bedtime sip of water. She obviously didn't stay in bed after that.


PS For any of ya'll wondering, our kids do wear clothes sometimes. Mainly when they go out in public. But once they get home we can't seem to keep them on. We've kinda given up so needless to say, when we need to catch a priceless moment, it usually means sens the shirt.

Just a Quick Update

School is making all of us tired. I think Mark and I are having to adjust more than Ava. Ella is really starting to blossom since Ava is not around and I am really enjoying our conversations on the way to preschool. Here are some pics of Ava getting on the bus. That was a big deal for me. And the completed garage. We just have lanscaping to do. And finally, some of the girls just playing around.

Almost complete

This is Mark writing again. Our carpenters finished up today. The stairs were the last item to complete. Today, the roofers started. They will finish tomorrow. Just electrical and dirt work left to complete the project. We will need to work on finishing out the upstairs later as time and money permits.


The garage doors were put on Saturday and the painting of the houe and garage was completed on Sunday. The blue film on the garage doors is protective. The doors will be white.

Last but not least are the fish that I caught on Sunday. I went off shore with my neibor and his boss. We had a great trip and I put most of the fish in the boat. In addition to the fish below, I caught a 29" redfish that we released. I could have tagged it, but it looked kind of funky--like it had had a few run-ins with sharks, etc. The red snapper in the picture are all in the 5-7 lb. range the redfish is 24". I can't wait to go back!

First Day of School

Well, Ava started Kindergarten today. I thought I would be sad but so far I am ok. I think the morning was to crazy for me to think long enough to get sad. Anyway, here are the pictures from this morning. Ava was so busy looking around that she wouldn't look at the camera and smile. Of course, I wanted the pictures to be perfect and wanted to fuss about it but then had to remember that it was her day, not mine. I hope ya'll enjoy. I'll let you know what she says when I pick her up this afternoon.

We are getting there

Sorry that I haven't put up any posts lately (this is Mark writing), but I have been working hard to get things in order around here. We were sweating about Hurricane Dean, but it looks like we will dodge this one. Good thing too, because the garage would fall down without two sides upstairs and no doors and windows! I trimmed trees two weekends in a row both for asthetics and to keep the trees from being top heavy, with saturated ground, and possibly falling over in a high wind. After the tree work I got conscripted to work on the garage (the contractor wants more money, so I offered my time). I have been putting on the hurricane straps and clips for the last four or five evenings. I basically plan to work every free moment around the house until we start to see light at the end of the tunnel. I started building steps to the porch (we are going to demo out the brick steps). I got the posts set and the boards cut. I have a couple more hours of work on the first set of steps. Two more sets to go! The back stairs (our normal entry facing the garage) will be a small deck with a roof and handrail. I have designed this, but haven't purchased the materials yet.

The garage is taking shape. The carpenters estimate four more days until they are finished. They will complete the framing, construct the stairs (opposite side of the garage) and put up the siding. The contractors will then roof the garage and paint the garage and house. They still need to put in all the doors and windows and do all the electrical work. After all this, they will bring in dirt and caliche for the parking area. Then we will have lots more fun trying to get everything up to Stephenie's specifications. That could take a lot of time...and money!

We will keep you posted. Our to-do list is long, so we should have something to post pretty frequently...weather and money permitting.

House siding finished--framing begins

A new crew started on the siding on Monday. They seem much more professional. The lead man is actually a carpenter (I am not sure what the other guys were). They are the ones who will also do the framing on the garage.

By Tuesday, the siding was almost done. Most of the lumber showed up today. The house is looking great!

The house looks finished from the back. Just some trim to finish tomorrow before framing starts.

The guys laid out the ground floor framing today after finishing the house details. We are happy with the results so far.

The framing was in full gear today (Thursday) The center garage door is huge! We can have a nice big boat in there (you can tell that it is Mark writing this :-).

We hope that the garage doesn't dwarf the house. However, I am very happy with the amount of floor space that we will have in the garage. The footprint is about the same as the ground floor of our house! Steph and I talked about landscaping today. We will have a lot of work to do just to prepare the grounds before planting anything. It should be worth the work in the end.

Tyvek to Concrete

The house guys got the OSB and Tyvek on Wednesday. The concrete guys worked on making revisions required by our new engineer. He appears to know more about how to build a windstorm rated building than the last guy. The previous engineer only seemed to know one way to do things.

The house is looking cleaner, but he yard is getting worse and worse.

The rain held off here long enough to allow the concrete guys to get their work done.

The picture above is where the stairs will go.

We have some work to do on the yard. They drove right up to the house with the cement mixer. We are in construction mode, so we will deal with the damage later...