Will Work for Food

Good ol' Layne.  He's always busy with some project of his.  And most of the time he ropes Todd into working along with him.  (Todd secretly loves it though.)  I like to make him something special when he gets something accomplished off of the never-ending to-do list.

This time he chose to build the dog & cat condo.  It is starting to get chilly outside and since I refuse to have a house dog and he officially kicked the cat out last spring (won't go into why) he figured he'd better keep them comfy cozy this winter.

You can see the insulation here between the walls.  You can also see the 'sleeping area' and the 'front porch' area where they eat their food.

Top door is for Cat and bottom is for Jimmer.

And here is the final product. 

Wall to wall carpet inside the bedrooms and door flaps on both the inside and outside doors so no yucky wind, snow, or rain can ruin these two's night sleep.

Can you see Cat looking out?  There is a ledge where she can jump up to so she can walk in.  Before that was installed I thought she was going to have to just take a running leap and pray she hit the hole.  But Layne had the plans in his head and he built her a ledge to leap on.

Here is the front door open so you can see in their food area. 

Another project he decided to do this week was build the mantel in the living room. 
One year ago this week we started to move in this house.  It is really nice to see the fireplace area finished.  (I didn't mind that it took that long.  I was happy that so much got done out in the yard this spring & summer.)

Now I need to dig in some totes downstairs and get it decorated.

He did an awesome job.  Thanks Layne!

So this leads me to today's thank you lunch.

Around August I decided that I needed to try my hand at making my own tortillas.  Now that is all my family wants to eat.  Flour or corn, they don't care.  They just love them and eat them all when I make them.  Then when Holly (my sister in law) came to visit she showed me how to make the yummiest refried beans EVER and I will never eat those out of a can again.  Some things just taste better homemade, and more often than not, more healthy too.

So when I want to say thank you (or just when a taco or a burrito sounds good) I like to grill a steak and serve our favorite Mexican lunch.

After a few times rolling my own I bought a tortilla press because it is way easier and way way faster.

Throw them on a hot, dry griddle and in a few minutes life is great.

I can't wait to see what is next on the to-do list.  I did see a lot of dry wall being hauled to the basement this morning.....hummm 

Eat something healthy & yummy today!

(and share what it was in case I want some too)

In a Nutshell

Today I sat down and decided that enough was enough, I was going to figure out an awesome way to get pics off the camera and on the computer.

Click, click, click

I figured it out.  Now I'm loving this way even more than my old computer.  I knew there had to be a better way.  It is pretty sad that I've put it off since June.

Okay, lets get crackin.  This could take a little while.

Back in July Josie turned 16 years old!

She has been so so so busy.

Lets just say that we are both thrilled that she is driving now.

The day before school started the kids (minus Todd because he's a party pooper) and I decided to go spend the afternoon on the beach at Indian Lake.  It was nice because a lot of the other schools had started the day before so we were there pretty much alone.  Well, kind of.

While we were there some friends of ours showed up on their jet-ski and Josh took the kids around the lake for a fun ride.

Then a little while later we were sitting there I started to notice this man out in the water about 75 yards from the shore and about 200 yards down the beach.  He was walking very slowly and had headphones (the big ones from the 70's) on.  At some points he was up to his chin in the water but at one point he was up to his elbows and I could finally see what he was doing.  He was going along waving a metal detector.  It was a little freaky until I knew what he was going on. 

Here he is up to his shoulders.  I hope this isn't his major source of income because

1.  it is cold outside now

2.  i never did see him diving under the water for anything so i'm guessing there wasn't much to find

3.  he's got to have some majorly pruned skin

Then we went home and had a cookout and backyard baseball game to finish off summer vacation.

As promised nearly two years ago, we got a dog.

His name is Jimmer.  He was born on July 4, 2011.

He is an Australian Shepherd.

(our cat hates him..he just wants to play..she is 12 years old and she REALLY doesn't want to play)

About a week after school started Robert, Karen & Holly came to visit.

I'm so bugged that for whatever reason, I have no pictures of them here.  I know Holly got a bunch so I'll see if she can help me out with that.  We had fun though.  The boys went fishing with Grandpa Bob and they got to go to a football game and watch Josie in the marching band.  We had such a great time. 

Come back again soon!!

We have awesome neighbors and they all have great fishing ponds that the kids fish & swim in.  A few people have asked us if we are putting in a pond.  Um, no.  We have five that we can pick from every day.  (Just so you know, we do love our neighbors for more than their ponds.)

Then Judd had his 7th birthday in September.  My, does time fly.

He had a hard time waiting for his birthday this year.  Mitch must be rubbing off on him.

He got two of his favorite things.  A Curious George cake and golf clubs.  He loves to golf.

Here are a few more random pictures.

This is obviously what the boys do while Layne and I are at early meetings on Sunday.  I'm not sure what playing with the camera has to do with "be ready for church when I get back" but I'm sure they have a very good reason.  Because of this, we do have a picture of Justin with teeth.

Because now he doesn't have as many.

A few family members have asked what the house looks like in the summer.

I didn't get picks of the back yard.  The garden & fruit orchard didn't do too bad after we got the fence up around them.  We have so many deer (one reason why we got Jimmer) that come up to the house.  Friday night there were about 14 of them in the back yard eating grass, and a couple nights ago Josie & I had to stop on the driveway to let a beautiful buck run across.  They are pretty but not a gardener's best friend.

Here's Jimmer.  Our trusty guard dog that gets into his dog house when the deer and coyotes come around at night.  Oh well, the kids & Layne love him, and I hate to say it, but he is pretty cute.