Addition @ MindSay

Update:
Well,haven't updated in a week, so here we go.....
Last Saturday the electrician came and did the wiring, plumber came on Tuesday and Wednesday and got all that done,siding people came on Monday-Thursday and had to stop to order more siding as they ran out.Here's the pics!: This is wiring in the closet.
Siding being readied to put on.
Front siding done
underside done
James watching the plumber work...
Lights work!
Laundry sink has running water! Yea!

me working at new sink...

Ta duh! They are working! now to do a weeks worth of waiting laundry!

Next will be insulation(yuck!) and then the sheet rock.That will be the slow process.Then I will paint and the floor will be last! I love it already though! Once shelves are done in closet and all painting done then my move in! Lights have to go up too after the sheet rock is done. Cool weather has finally arrived so the painting should be good and the sheet rocking... Dixie Classic fair starts in two weeks! Yea!! Tomorrow is the first day of Fall, my favorite time of year.  We have a big dead tree in our yard that has to come down this fall too. I hate losing trees. This one is a split tree with two trunks and stands near our shed so a professional has to come out and do it. There is a guy in our Sunday school class that does trees for a living so we will ask him to look at it first..

YEAH! Finally!
After being married for 27 years and for the past 15 or so years begging for it, I'm getting my Laundry/sewing/mudroom built!!!
I'm so excited! My washer and dryer have always been in my kitchen since we built the house in 1980/81. I have never liked that! Now they will be moved to my new room! We took the existing deck and are turning it into my room. It will be huge! 12'x12'! Lots of room! Sewing machine will go in there, washer, dryer and a new laundry sink! Yeah! And I have a huge walk in closet designed for the room for craft storage and such. 3 windows and a new door with a canopy roof over the doorway entrance. Before our son left for college, James took the deck railing down and sawed off the posts.This past Friday he added wood to the existing deck sides and put the floor down. This past Saturday James went under the deck and built 3 reinforcement walls with block and 4'x6'x16' beams.One on each end and one directly in the middle. Under the deck gets very shallow up near the driveway, so he was under there crawling around on his belly and back all day. I was too, helping whenever he needed it. He looked like a pig by the end of the day! LOL   All muddy and nasty!
Then Wednesday, yesterday he framed out the first wall and got it up. Today, he and his brother got the rest of  the walls  framed out. Tomorrow the roof framework goes up cause Paul can help James tomorrow all day, so James took off from work. I am taking pictures as it goes along. I wish we had done that with our house as it was being built. We built it ourselves back then only getting someone else to do fireplace,wiring and plumbing. We built our house for $22,000 back in 80-81!  That in today's numbers would probably be quadrupled!         Here's the first picture:sides added and floor down.                                                                                         This is a picture of the support beams added in. Here's two of them.
Here is the third added support beam.
Should have showed a before picture! LOL It was just a deck with a rail and now all railing is up around my deck off our bedroom. Moved the table,chairs, and umbrella to the very back deck with the grill. James will put a rail up for me around it this Spring so I can hang all my hanging baskets of flowers from it like I did on the upper deck.
This picture shows the deck off our bedroom with the new rail from the old deck!

My whicker chair pictured on the far left was chewed up by my daughter's dog! A Siberian Husky! She is still a puppy and she has shredded a lot of my things! She started chewing the siding off the house so we moved her away from the house now! My chair looks horrible doesn't it?! Bad dog.....
Another picture of our deck from below:
We bought this canopy a couple weeks ago and put it up there. it helps keep it cool and now its my favorite place to snuggle up and read a book.
Here's James adding the framework of the first wall!
and here's the first wall framed out:
 
Here's today's pictures of all the walls framed out:

another one:
 
and yet another:

Tomorrow I will post the roof pictures and whatever else they get done!
I'm so excited!

Well our plans changed up.  DeLaney threw a straight up PMSING fit over not seeing a certain film and Coltin was throwing a temper tantrum about not being able to hit the arcade AFTER the movie.  So we went to the mall theater. 

 

After those lil fits, we were good to go!  I dropped off the food I usually have left over from cooking when Randy isn't home to Father Mike, filled the van up, grabbed some cash and we got to the Mall in time to get tickets and go grab something to eat. 

 

We hit the arcade where Coltin managed to get himself 80 tickets to cash in before the movie and we walked into a VERY packed movie theater just in time to grab the last few seats for Alvin and The Chipmunks.  Coltin had already seen it with his Dad but was okay with seeing it again.  After the movie we hit the arcade again so DeLaney could finish spending her last tokens and cash in her tickets.  I cashed in mine too:P:D  You KNOW I had to get $5 bucks to play the games also didn't ya!:P

 

After the last stop at the arcade, the kdis and I wondered down to Barnes & Nobles.  I really didn't need anymore books, I have such a HUGE pile of to read books anyway.  But I look at it this way at times, my to GET list is even larger!:D  But I was a good girl, we walked out with 3 calanders.  One for each kid and another one for me.  DeLaney was "nice" enough to point out I already had a new Celtic Blessings calander what was I going to do with the new Celtic Mandala calender.  I promptly told her you can NEVER have too many calenders in the house and I could put it in my computer room.  She shut up then!  I swear she is like her Daddy more and more every day with her logical thinking!  I guess if she is the spitting image of her Daddy it is okay for her to think like him.  As long as she doesn't get to logical and to prissy she and I will get a long just fine as she gets older.  But her PMSing is going to get put to a stop FAST!  I dont' give a rats ass she hasn't started her cycle, she has the acne already (yes my baby girl has started gettin facial acne!), and the tude.  She was told point blank today after her lil fit, that there is only ONE BITCH in the family and that is ME!  I also picked up the book Little Women. 

 

My one and only New Year's Resoluation this year is for every 3 normal books (not counting smutt books-I can read an entire weeks publishing of those with out blinking in a day if you let me!) I read; I will read a "classical" book and then a "modern" book.  My sister, pointed out my libary collection of books is more along the line of a History, Anthropology, Religious, Philosphy College level collection NOT to mention soft core porn collection of the certain smutt book series I keep!  So if I want my kids to read other things, I have to show them Mommy can too.  Randy is NOT happy for every "Classical" and "Modern" Fiction or Non-Fiction book I have to read he has to do the same thing and then we swap if we choose different books!  He is saying he doesn't have time.  He is findign out that when he is home I can find him the time!:D  I can also find him time when he is on the road!  Read one or two chapters before you eat.  He eats then he sleeps, so he has to read before he eats!

 

After Barnes & Nobles and wenching a lil bit to the store manager about our store's crappy assortment of Address Books, we wondered down to Hallmark so I could pick up a new address book.  I got one.  I am not happy with it but at least Randy can figure it out if he needs to use it and I picked up extra inserts.  When you have a LARGE family with the majority of them being either R's, N's, and L's you run out of space easily!    I also wenched a bit to that store manager about their crappy assortment of address books also.  She at least explained that the majority of them went bye bye the day after Christ Mas.  Barnes & Noble's only comment was we have a HUGE selection of Journal type books! 

 

So we loaded up and started heading down the interstate to cross the river and go home.  And for some odd reason I said nope right at the first exit to So. Sioux!  I took it!  Coltin asked if we were going to stop and see Granny and I said nope that is tomorrow.  We went right by her nursing home and I pulled up right in front of the Pet /Grooming/Boarding Place!  Where DeLaney promptly reminded me of her father yet again! 

 

"MOM!  Your NOT allowed to go to any pet store or animal auction with out Daddy, because you have a bad habit of bringing home more animals!  Daddy said so!"

 

I ignored her and said if I walk out with something your Father will get over it! 

 

They had an adorable puppy selection and I was VERY tempted to get the one and only Male Sheltie they had left.  But I didn't.  See I am not a real big dog fan.  I love them but they are sooooooooooooooo much more needier then cats.  And if you leave for a weekend or a week you either A have to take them with you or B find someone to take care of them or C board them.    Plus I dont' really like small dogs.  They are so much more in need of care then bigger dogs.  I looked at the kitties they had.  They had two adorable fluffy orange tabby kittens about 6-7 months in age.  Of course DeLaney wnated one of those.  Coltin honed in on the 3 identical short haired orange tabby kittens about teh same age as our twin black kitties.  I said NO MORE CATS!  We have a female that will give us a litter or two don't worry about getting anymore cats.  Their fish selection was pretty crappy but they get cleaned out for the holidays since they are on of two pet stores in the tri state area that carry exotic fish.  Of course atticsmouse would have went for the rodent selection for her snakes:P:D  She can have them.  They carry a lot of feeder mice.  I guess a lot of folks in the area have snakes:P  Fromt here I wondered back to the front of the store where the birds where at.  DeLaney wanted me to get finches.  I hate those lil things.  Plus they drive my cats batty.  Not going to get anymore finches.  Parkettes I have two.  Don't want NO MORE! 

 

Then I honed in on the Cocketiels and Doves!  They had FANCY cocketeils!  Guess what we have in the house including a new bird cage!  I got myself a Fancy cockteil!  Yay me!  They were hand raised but like most pet stores even a smaller one they don't get to handle the birds like they should.  And our new addition to the family is really scared at the moment.  I made them clip his wings for me.  Usually I dont' clip my cockteil's wings but that is how I lost the first two!  One escaped from his cage while hanging outside and the other one escaped out the door thanks to DeLaney and Coltin's lil friends in TX!  So he was pretty pist when I got him home and pretty scared.  I took him out of his home cage, had his wings clipped, and put him in a brand new cage.  Then I introduced him to the dinning room on top of the sewing table before I clean a spot off for him in the computer room!  Shadow and Socks the two older cats could have cared less. Pisser, Brothers, and Grimm were extatic!  Another cage to climb on and bounce off of!  Sin Kitty is outside hoing around again so I can't wait to see his reactoin to another bird in the house.  Spud the dog is a jealous creature and is barking at the bird periodically!  Tweek and Tweeter the parakeets are happy over another bird in the hosue!  They are twittering a storm up and trying to get otu the side of their cage to go visit the new baby!

 

And yes, before atticsmouse can ask me, I told Randy.  My reasoning for buyin another animal is:  He is getting 150-250 dollar boots in January for work, plus I am paying a good chunk of our defeered payments on HIS truck off with his bonus in January so HIS truck is paid off on time this year!  My bird and cage is a LOT less expensive then his boots could ever be!:P:D  His comment was:

 

"So, do you have a place in the barn ready for me to sleep since you keep bringing in more animals?" 

 

Smart ass man I tell you!

 

I cooked dinner, worked on laundry ( I swear I am always working on laundry!), and the kids and I sat down and played dominoes.  They are in bed and I am rambling on and on and on again:D:P:D

Here is the new addition to our zoo!  A Great Dane puppy!  I am so excited and happy to have him!  I have always wanted a Great Dane!  As you can tell in the pictures he is a tad bit scared yet.  He went from a home of nothing but Great Dane dogs and puppies w/ an old man who in my opinion didn't take very good care of the dogs to our home full of crab ass cats, loud birds, talkitive guine pigs, and active kids!

 

The first picture is of my son and the dog on the mudporch.  The puppy is very scared and sky this morning but he is a good boy.  We are trying to pet and love on him a lot so he becomes acustom to us.

 

The second picture is just of the new puppy with my son next to him.  I am just glad he is not hidding his face anymore from us!

 

The third picture is a body shot of the new puppy.  He is 18 weeks old and already the size of small to medium sized dogs of other breeds.

 

The fourth picture is of my son and the puppy again.  I cut my son's head off in the picture because I was being attacked by my Smokey the kitty.  She is NOT happy about the new addition to the family!

 

The new puppy is a black and white mantal.  And he is just adorable.  Now I need to come up with a few name choices for him when he deciedes to come out of his "I am scared and going to be shy" stage and shows us his true personality.

     Three children were already a handful.  Trying to make ends meet on a teacher's salary was difficult, at best.  Every new baby meant a longer time being a stay-at-home Mom, because the cost of daycare for so many was beyond prohibitive,  wouldn't even be covered by the increase in monthly salary.  And yet our third had been unexpected, was so quick that we barely had time to consider whether we were ready to expand our family after college.  We still had one crawling when we found out we would be bringing home a newborn a few months later. 

     Should we stop there?  Weren't we happy with the constant activity of three?  We adults were outnumbered already!   After much consideration we decided that our family would be completed intentionally. . . that we would celebrate finding out that we were pregnant one final time.  I thoroughly enjoyed pregnancies- I wanted to relish the entire 9 months of our final family addition.    We smiled knowingly the morning in February when a pregnancy test confirmed our suspicions.   Weeks later, when I felt the first flutter of life inside me- I cried- knowing this would be the last time I experienced that "first" sensation of a new life.  The months ahead were cherished, this baby was planned, wanted, looked forward to intensely in ways we hadn't slowed down enough to experience with the others.  I hand designed the teddy bear puzzle birth announcements with a poem "put together this puzzle, the head, arms, body and feet" (each with name and birthdates of our family members) and when done our friends would discover "like this puzzle, our family's complete". 

     Today (10/3) marks the 23rd anniversary of my youngest son's birth.  He has always wrestled playfully with quantities and logic.  Last year he graduated from college with a degree in mathematics, physics and computer science.  He is researching graduate school programs now, ready to move on and face the next challenges that lie ahead.  This week he returned home to weather the storms that brewed in our lives and help us maintain our sanity.  I continue to marvel at him, and celebrate his addition to our family - to watch him grow into the man he has become..... the final addition to our family that we admire and cherish still.

 

Happy Birthday Jeremy!

 

(with his sis, dnlecrone , on a trip to Oregon)