Birthday volleyball was a BIG SPLASH!

Our chicken coop...

This is for you, Tracey!

Here is the ramp to chicken heaven.
Their small, outdoor pen is surrounded with chicken wire on all sides, top, and bottom. Nothing can get in this pen....I hope!

This side door is for collecting eggs. Back door is good for cleaning the coop. Just scrape with a rake straight into a wheelbarrow and put the "goods" into your garden or compost heap.
These nesting areas are easily accessed from the egg door. In the foreground is another roost.

Here are the roosts.

This lovely hen is demonstrating the nest through the egg door. (We added some foam to the nests, because the eggs were hitting the wooden floor and cracking.)

Here you see their roosts and their little door to their safe pen.

Happy Birthday, Jessica! 15 years old!

Bow Hunters

Tiller or jackhammer needed here?

Is it going to work, Tyler?

Can Mom handle this bronc?

Mom...we...don't think it's accomplishing much.

The encouragers abound...

Tyler gives it one more shot before we park the thing.

Our soil was so hard, we decided to give up on this rented tiller. It was a like wrestling match with a wild steer. Tyler finally borrowed a disk from a friendly neighbor, hooked it onto the tractor, and disked up the rock-hard soil. We have officially started our garden, but there is still more to plant.

Special Recipe Cake

for Josiah. Rebecca made this mud cake just for Josiah. He was thrilled, but did not eat it!

Jacob's bench

Again, more scraps were available, and Jacob built a mighty fine looking bench. He even stained it.

Boat makers

When the boys and Rebecca found some scrap lumber in the garage, they decided to make some boats. Of course, we had to launch them in the bathtub due to the puddles in the yard being dried up at that time. They were very pleased, to say the least!

It's rare to catch Jacob for a picture, so I threw in this one of my handsome big fella. He's bigger than I am by several inches and more than several pounds and shoe sizes!

Daddy's Boy and Mom's helper

Binky Boy

Isaac is our first child to really enjoy a binky....pacifier....soother....whatever you want to call it. We also call it the Peacemaker!

Rain, rain...

don't go away, because our children love playing in the big puddles in our backyard. We are well ahead of the usual amount of rain for this year, so they've been having a lot of fun splashing and racing their dump trucks through our mini lakes. Yes, they do get messy and soaked to the bone, but it's all worth it in the end!

Fouled up, but back in business!

This blogging thing messed up today. (Surely it wasn't me!) For some odd reason, it put me onto the old blog I had to replace, so I told it to delete that old one, but it deleted my newer one instead. Soooo....I started this one up again.
That is the reason for no archives!