That Fire Was Too Close for Comfort!!

 We had a scare today when we looked outside and saw smoke behind the houses down the road from us.  Apparently there was a fire that started in the dead grass somehow.

 You can see the flames in this picture.  It was scary to watch the wind blow and the flames get bigger. 

Thankfully the fire stayed in the grass and didn't spread to any homes.  The fire department kept an eye on it the rest of the day.

Cultivating with Daddy

Rylan and Bowen are pretty happy with the farming life.  Whenever they get a chance they ride with Ryan in the tractor.

 Bowen usually falls asleep.  He stayed awake for this one though.

Tractor rides with Daddy are the best!

More Before and Afters - Kitchen

Ok, I thought it was time to show some of our progress on the house.  Here is a picture of the kitchen as it looked when we first saw the house.  Nice and white, eh?

Here was the shot I posted a while back after the water leak and some demo. . . 

 Here's what it looks like today . . .

Still has some more work and finishing touches, but definitely an improvement wouldn't you say? 

 It's slowly looking more and more like home!

Planting Grass

 Looking forward to seeing some green! 

Basketball Camp and Dueling Tractors

 Rylan was able to participate in a basketball camp here put on by a college basketball team.  He went with his buddy, Owen.  They learned a lot.  Rylan got an award for "most improved".

 He also got an award for 3 point shots.  He likes to stand as far as he can from the basket and throw it as hard as he can and see if he makes it.  That must be why he got that award.  

This picture was just classic so I had to post it.  It looks like those two are attacking each other on tractors but actually Ryan is pulling and Rylan is steering.  The orange tractor is ours and we brought it with us from Washington thinking it would be helpful in working on our yard.  It died before we could get much work out of it.  Thankfully a friend has loaned us the John Deere to use for the summer.  The boys were working on pulling the dead one away from our house when I snapped this pic. 

Messy Bowen

Bowen is known for being rather messy.  He can eat a granola bar and get messy.  Snapped these pics of him this week in his ultra messiness.

 In this one he was drinking an extra thick fruit smoothie and as he was trying to take a sip he got a whole face full.  Of course it got all over his shirt as well.  

 This is him after a short car ride in which his siblings were feeding him some candy.  He had a couple of pieces of chocolate and some chewy jolly ranchers.  Notice the candy stuck to his shirt and his shorts.  And you can't miss his chocolate smeared face.

He's one messy boy!

Working on the House - Some Befores and Afters

So you might have heard we haven't been able to move into our new house yet because of some work needing to be done first.  We had a "little" water leak so that is why there was drywall torn out.  We have used the opportunity to complete some of the work that we were wanting to do on the house anyway.

For example: a before shot of the master bedroom shows lovely tile and 2 columns that have no purpose that we can tell . . .

we got rid of those columns! (and the tile.)

 Here is a before of Alaina and Lila's room.  It just needed painting.

 Much brighter now!  Lila's favorite color is purple and Alaina's is aqua.

The living room before . . .

The main thing that changed in the living room is the wall between it and the kitchen was torn out.  Opens things up a lot!

Here is a before of the kitchen . . .

and an after the wall is gone. . .

 Don't worry, I will have more after pictures.  This isn't the completed project.  It looks a lot different now.  I need to go take pictures again.  I have been painting like crazy to cover up all the white.  Our flooring should start being installed soon too!   More pics to come.