House Painting

This week our goal was to get the High Street Rental house painted. However, the fates seemed to conspire against us and made it a very difficult task to accomplish. As of this moment, it is almost done. Fortunately, the majority of the work, and the most time consuming part is done. All that's left is to paint the trim.

Here is the house before we started to work on it. It is metal siding, and kind of a cute house. Up close you can see how flakey the pain was though. I wanted to paint it yellow. I wanted a cheery yellow. My mom said the yellows I chose would be waaaay too bright on a house. Fortunately, my cousin Liz (actually, her wonderful husband) just painted her house a lovely shade of yellow. So I copied her and went to Sherwin Williams and got a "Banana Creme" paint chip and took it to Lowe's, where they color matched it. We went with their Duramax paint, which is a primer/paint combo. Oh, and we went with the satin finish.

Tuesday, while the little girls were in preschool, Dad and I went out to scrub and pressure wash the house. It poured rain all day. It didn't matter much to us, we were washing the house, but the thunder and lightning gave us pause. Here is Dad, pressure washing the siding on the roof. You can't tell that its raining, but it is! I learned that I am way to pregnant and out of shape to be spending a morning with a scrub brush cleaning paint off a house!

Dad went back on Wednesday to start taping edges and removing windows. Since it is my rental house, I thought I ought to be helpful. I came, but had to bring all the kids because mom was gone. Here is what Dad had accomplished. It's looking a bit icky now!

Yeah, the kids were ZERO help! Look how sweaty they are too, and they are just sitting there. It was nasty hot and humid. After being no help and lots of complaining, I took the kids home. Then it rained. It rained all day on Thursday too, so nothing got done. Friday we had the water main break issue, and Dad had to work, so I got to hang out at home, waiting for the plumber, and we didn't deal with the house at all.

Finally, Saturday was a beautiful day! It was cooler, it was less muggy, it was great! Except mom was in Branson all day. So Dad went out by himself to paint. He called to say 5 gallons wasn't enough paint. So the kids and I went to Lowe's for more. We dropped it off and I tried to be of assistance. The 4 children tried as well. Dad showed them a spot to paint and they went at it with their brushes. Callie and Marian lost interest first. They discovered the scaffolding!

Joshua had a great time with the paining. He really, really wanted to paint. He loved this mini roller brush and he did a pretty good job. Then he too discovered the scaffolding.

Yeah, believe it or not, Delaney can climb up and down this all by herself! They thought they were pretty cool kids! And doesn't the side of the house look great?!

After enough trouble, I took the kids home, settled Delaney for a nap and got ANOTHER 2 gallons of paint for Dad. Mom was home about 3pm and Joshua and I went back out to paint a little trim before Dad was done. I decided to keep the trim white, and the blue shutters, because the roof and porch are a dark blue. Anyway, Joshua "helped" me paint the garage posts and I got the big front window frame painted. Wow! It looks sharp!

And here we have the nearly-done work. I think it looks great! I may not get another picture in of the completely finished product, but this is good enough! I still have to paint the door frame, about 10 more windows, the porch posts and 2 more door frames. I hope that's all! I've tired myself out now and I think I need a nap.

Aaaack!!!!!

This is what the back yard looked like this morning. Quiet, serene, green..... Somehow, my ever-wise father made the distressing discovery that there was a water pipe leak in all this pristine serenity. Apparently it was quite squishy when he walked out to the garden. I'm sure I would not have thought anything of it, since it HAS been raining daily all week.

I was informed at 8am today that if I wanted a shower, it had to be now, because the water was going to be shut off for an unknown period of time. So I hurried. Then I filled the tub with water for toilet flushing. Mom had filled a few pitchers for drinking as well. We got the water shut off and a call into the plumber. Then we waited.

There is a marvelous plumber here. He rescheduled his afternoon so he could come here and fix it for us. Thank goodness!

This was the yard around 3pm today. Bruce, the marvelous man in the tractor said yep, there is a leak, and he dug a bit to find the pipe. That gray circular thing there is the well. No city water for us! Nope, nothing but Arkansas' finest well water comes into this house. The leak was in that line from the pump to the house.

Bruce is the best. Here he hopped out and grabbed a huge worm for the kids. Unfortunately, he handed it to the one who actually is a bit squeamish. Marian or Callie would have been thrilled, but Joshua was not. Anyway, we'd hoped to just patch the pipe, but Bruce said it had already been patched.... with a radiator hose. So the whole thing needed to be dug up and replaced. Fun for all but the pocket-book!

Bruce was wonderful. He maneuvered his tractor around and kept an eye out on the kids, who dashed all over, getting in the way and checking out everything. And the dug dirt line got bigger and longer and deeper.

Finally the ditch reached the house line. Whew! Then it was on to removing old pipe and replacing it. He did that really fast too.

And this is what the children did while Bruce was working. I told them to stay out of the ditch, but Bruce said it was okay, so they had a fantastic time rooting around in there.

Here we have Dad and Bruce, working on the new pipes. The kids helped dump dirt back in after the pipe was down. Then Bruce and the tractor filled in the rest.

Here is what the back yard looked like at dinnertime tonight. I think it will get a bit smoother before its all done, but the grass will still have to regrow. On the plus side, we were only without water from about 9-5 today! Whoo-hoo! And it was such an exciting adventure. It also got the kids out and having a good time for the afternoon. Yay for Bruce!

More with the Chickens!

I seem to be much busier than I expected to be this summer. I didn't mean to not blog till now, I've just been busy! I am planning a lovely series of snapshots of the progress to getting the rental house painted. Unfortunately, it has rained all week, and there has been no painting. Did I mention the thunder and lightning that comes with the rain? Yep, we've been getting the whole package, all week. I think its grumbled and rained every day this week. Wish us luck on the house painting tomorrow....

In the mean time, here is my new favorite picture of all the children!

They love the chickens. We've had to define what "chasing" constitutes because Marian claims she is not "chasing" them, while the evidence would imply otherwise. She managed to grab 2 of the poor things this day and made her siblings very happy.

The kids got a refresher course on the proper way to hold and pet the chickens. They really do a good job with them, but Callie tends to pull tail feathers while she's in hot pursuit. Not a good thing.

Delaney makes me laugh. She was so excited to pet the chicken. I wasn't sure she would, because she's so scared of most animals. These are really good chickens. Callie kept grabbing the red one's beak, and the bird didn't do a thing. They do not peck or scratch. They just suffer quietly. They'll be glad to see us go, I expect!

Thoughts and Pix

The thoughts and pictures here have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. If you are only interested in cute snapshots of the kids, you may want to scroll right past my ramblings to the pictures.

I have had a fun time enjoying the different atmosphere in laid-back Arkansas, as opposed to the nuttiness which is DC. One of the surprising things I have discovered is a neat little radio station that has some great political stuff on it. One of the things they discussed this week was Liberty vs Equality. It was an amazing light bulb moment for me. They mentioned that people tend to think one or the other of those 2 things is the most important. And while they can mutually coexist for a while, eventually Equality will infringe upon Liberty, or Liberty will infringe on Equality. So, which camp do you fit in? Is Equality more important than Liberty? Or is Liberty more important than Equality. I'm more firmly in the Liberty camp myself. I agree that we are all equal, to a certain extent. However, if I work hard, I want what i have earned. If you are a slacker, you do not deserve a part of what I worked hard for. My feelings of Equality do not extend that far. I do not believe that the government needs to enforce Equality. I think it needs to back off and let us have Liberty.

To be honest, I think this makes less sense now that I've written it and none of you have heard the talk that got me thinking about this, so I apologise if it is not clear. But that's okay. I just wanted to spew out this thought that has been rolling around my head all week. And now I am done!

And on to the pictures of some fun stuff from the week.......

The kids have had a blast playing outside. Somehow we ended up with algae and tadpoles in the fountain again. However, after last years Great Tadpole Rescue, the adults were not going to do a repeat, but the kids were quite actively attempting one on their own. unfortunately, their rescue attempts mostly included scooping water (with the occasional tadpole) and dumping it in the grass or on the driveway. That is cousin Sarah there in the life jacket. Don't ask me, I have no idea!

It started to rain and what did the children want to do? Play in it!! Delaney was such a hoot, running around in the rain.

And they did not let a little downpour interfere with the serious work of "saving" the tadpoles. I don't know if you can see the rain, but it was really coming down. I had to strip down 5 kids when they came in- everyone was drenched, and happy!

We went to the library program on Saturday. It was a cute sing-a-long and it was well done. The girls had a good time. Callie was so cute, getting into the movements and shaking her thing. She and Delaney were picked to come up and help out with the hula. They got to wear grass skirts and flower necklaces. Callie tried to do the movements, but Delaney just stood there- which is a lot more than I expected from either of them.

Saturday afternoon we went to the lake. The weather wasn't too cooperative, but the kids could care less. Delaney had a marvelous time, walking in up to her chin and back out. She dunked herself once, going under and floundering till I scooped her up. I thought she would cry, but she looked at me, big grin and said "I did it!"

We brought a bunch of floats and they liked that. Grandpa was the most fun, but after a while, I think they wore him out!

And here is Joshua, hamming it up for me! He had a good time and we made sure he was sprayed thoroughly with sunscreen. Last time he burned and peeled. No one got any red at all this time- yay!

Animal Crazy.... and just plain crazy!

Marian's very favorite thing about being here is all the animals. She is truly crazy about animals. she loves them... all of them. Not just the cute and cuddly ones either. She likes the reptiles and other funky things just as much. Well, almost. She told me today that kittens are her favorite animal, and lizards are her second favorite. She likes to hold the chickens because they are soft like a kitten though. Conversations with her are always interesting! Today she had the best day ever because it involved her most favorite animals!

We went to her friend Eva's house, and Eva has 2 kittens. I admit, they might be the cutest kittens I have ever seen, and Marian spent about 3 hours just holding and playing with them. She was so happy. The kittens seemed content to be mauled with love as well, so it was a mutual adoration.

Once we got home from Eva's house, Marian didn't quite make it into the house. She saw her nemesis, the lizard! She has been trying to catch this guy (or his friend) for a while now, and today she was finally successful.

But wait! It gets even better!

She found a frog as well! I love this kid. She is so great. She catches her little animals and is so careful about letting them go when she's done playing with them. So the lizard and frog were released back into the wild and Marian was thrilled with her day.

Until now, this had been her favorite moment. While they were canoeing last week, she got to see a lot of animals, but this butterfly was the only one she got a close-up of. Pretty cool, hey?!

And now we move from the animal craziness and into the general category of it......

This was the floor in my room all last week. Joshua slept on the twin bed you can see on the left. I slept on the futon bed that you can barely see in the top right corner. Delaney was ensconced in the corner you can't see, in her porta-crib, and these 3 girls sacked out on the floor. That is Callie, Marian, and cousin Katie. Most nights they went to bed pretty well, but there were one or two that made me about lose my mind (and my tempter!).

Joshua is crazy about Legos. He brought a couple here with us and has had fun with them. I never would have thought of combining Indiana Jones with SpongeBob, but Joshua seems to be having fun.

This is the "Awwww" moment for the day. My baby brother is now a Dad and this is his 5 week old baby. So cute. The kids all loved her and were very sweet and gentle. Callie was so pleased to get to hold her.

Uncle Monkey is crazy! And the kids are more than crazy for Uncle Monkey! I'm so glad I got to see almost all my siblings this past week. Everyone has left but Deborah and her 2 minions, so its not too dull yet, but the house is definitely quieter! 12 adults, 12 kids squished into the house was a lot, but it wasn't too bad. And it was a lot of fun!