Kids' Thanksgiving Program

This a a post primarily for the grandparents, as our kids had their Thanksgiving program at school last week. 

The girls were up first and of course everyone had to get their waving out of the way first. 

Next it was AJ's turn.

Good Morning, Ladies

I was greeted with a spectacular sunrise the other morning as I went out to let the ladies out for the day.

Our Beautiful Kids

Here are some of the individual shots we had made of our kids in our 2013 family photo shoot:

A.J. - age 11

Not many boys can rock pink quite as well as A.J. can.

Essie - age 8

Every year we let our kids select a location/pose for their individual photos.  Essie always has a cute idea for hers.

Chloe - age 8

Couldn't help but notice the similar pose Chloe struck, unprompted, that resembled one from our first family photo shoot four years ago.

We have got some crazy, fun kids.

Some New Family Photos

Last month we had some new family photos taken by our friend AJ of Wells Photography.  We had them taken right here in our little town of Wilmore.  We'll post some more of the kids later, but here are some of our group photos:

Chicken Update

Our ladies are still hard at work.  The leaves are piling up in the garden and the ladies have digging and scratching and making beautiful compost.

Today's harvest of chicken eggs.  I've been keeping the lights on in the chicken coop a few extra hours to help maintain production.  It's a controversial move among homesteaders but its what I've decided to do for this year at least as my ladies are an integral part of this urban homestead.  My Americana is now laying regularly and today's blue egg was the largest one so far.  She has also become much more friendly and is one of the first hens to great me each time I walk out the door. 

Twin Antics

Crazy how twins are so in sync! 

You should see them play rock, paper, scissors--tie...tie...tie

Go CATS

A friend gave Matt & I tickets to see our beloved Wildcats last week. It was fun to watch all the new freshman and see our local boy, Jarrod Polson, get some playing time as well. Jarrod's sister and mother work at the summer daycamp our kids attend and Jarrod stopped by one day last summer and played some b-ball with the kids. Its funny that when we see Jarrod on TV, our kids often say, "There's Miss Ashley's brother!"  Pretty sure we are the only house in Kentucky where Jarrod's sister is more famous than Jarrod.

Our seats were good, considering every other time we've gone, we've been in line with the rafters.

Selfie during halftime so the lighting was all wrong

Andrew Harrison with the ball

Jarrod has the ball.

Had to take a video of the cheerleaders for our girls.  They just started taking gymnastic lessons and are constantly doing cartwheels and flips.

The UK cheerleaders are ranked #1 as well.

The Shed Project

Sorry for the lapse in posts.  Its been a busy couple of weeks.  The shed project has been several months in the making.  It started back in June when our next door neighbors got evicted (again, unfortunately, not the first time). I struck up a conversation with the landlord and told him the shed out back was rotting and he said he'd get it torn down.  After I looked it over, I realized, though the bottom edges and front were rotten, the main structure seemed decent.  Matt has been looking for a shed to do his woodworking in, but a new shed is not in the budget.  My family was here visiting about the same time and bored brother-in-laws like a project.

First the boys had to unearth the shed and remove the vegetation.

The men folk formulating a plan

The kids getting to work removing the junk left in the shed

The Peanut Gallery assembling to give directions

Cutting holes in the floor to access the skids

My Dad's surgeon would have blown a gasket if he'd seen him "supervising".

The Peanut gallery expands in size

My brother-in-law was more than ready to use his suburban to drag the shed across the yard.

We first dragged it forward and then rearranged the chains to drag it into place.

Getting it lined up on blocks

Fast forward to November & we finally got some time to work on fixing up the shed.

We had to first remove the lower 2 feet of rotten boards

We set the girls to removing about a thousand nails

The front of the shed was pretty much rotten so we removed all of it. Here I'm showing the girls how grunting helps you rip press board off of sheds.

Chloe still working on those nails

Then she decided that since Mom tore off a piece with her bare hands, she could too.

After not making much progress, she called for some reinforcements.

Twin power!

Apparently whenever power tools are involved, you draw a crowd.

So we put them to work

The boys giving it a try

The girls loved using the chalk line

Matt's Uncle Ron was in town for a few days & lended a much needed hand

The men ended up working into the night

Another work day-the kids lent a hand painting.

New press board going up!

Doors being put together

Sanding a bit off the bottom to make new doors fit old shed

Floor reinforced

And a shelf along the back wall to hold my gardening supplies

*UPDATE-my sister Kelly keenly questioned the addition of the shelf for garden supplies when this was supposed to be Matt's woodworking shed.  In the end, we realized that Matt needs more space for his projects and I just need somewhere to store gardening and farming supplies.  Granted this shed is farther away from the garden but we aren't moving it again so I'll just have to walk a few more steps each day. 

No siding yet but hopefully by spring!