Our LOVELY weekend!

We were extremely blessed with a visit from Auntie Kim and Cousin Micah! They arrived at grandpa and grandma's at 1am Friday morning. Later that morning we bundled up (it has been so cold here with snow, hail and rain) and headed to the new house to show Auntie Kim and Micah around. We followed a dumptruck full of gravel on the way to the house. It was full of our porch! That's right! The porch is now filled with gravel ready for the floor to be poured. It was fun to see part of the porch driving down the road!

See? There is the "porch"!

There is Auntie Kim! Everyone got many hugs!

Lydia shows Auntie her hat.

David had "Charlie" there to scoop the gravel into the porch. Ben was thrilled to be able to ride in it and later drive it!

Grandpa put up the stairs to the attic that day as well! It is lovely to be able to walk up the stairs rather than the ladder, yeah Grandpa.

View from the attic!

Ben wishing he could drive "Charlie" all day long.

The guys were working hard to put the electrical box in.

Micah was there to help, too. Working with friends always makes work so much more enjoyable!

Micah's new "gun"! He had been "shooting" Ben with it earlier!

After church I took some pictures of Grandma, Auntie Kim, Grandpa, and Micah.

The handsome men!

Father and daughter.

It was so sad to have to say good-bye but we are ever thankful for them! We can't wait for their next visit!

Roofing!

The kids watching the roofers from the attic window.

Working on grandpa and grandma's house. They hand nailed the whole thing!


Taylor was a great help to them all day and really enjoyed watching and learning about roofing.

After the roofing was finished Benjamin volunteered to vacuum the mud and water from the stairs and floor. That was a big job!

The back is done!

So is the front!!!! Yeah! Now the floors will get dry! No more dodging drips in our bedrooms and kitchen. No more tip-toeing through the puddles in the family room and dining room for fear of getting soaked! It's going to be more like home now...soon..!

Many blessings to your day!

Cinnamon Rolls Recipe!

Per request, here is the recipe I use for Cinnamon Rolls:

Shirley's Rolls

(Shirley is my grandma and this is the recipe she has used to make literally thousands of rolls and cinnamon rolls over the years)

Heat just to a boil:

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup white sugar

2 cups milk

Remove from heat and let cool to almost room temperature, then add:

1 package or 2 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast

Stir and let sit for a few minutes.

For the dry ingredients mix together 4 cups flour (we use white flour for this recipe but whole wheat or half wheat/white is good too)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the dry ingredients with the milk/sugar/shortening and then let rise for two hours or till doubled (this dough is very soft but that is okay. Don't add too much flour when kneading or it makes it too heavy). Then knead. Roll the dough out and spread softened butter on it, generously! I use an extra salt shaker to shake the cinnamon on with and it works great! My family likes lots so I put lots of cinnamon on for them. Then I spread plenty of brown sugar on the top! The next step is rolling it up then I use... :ahem: .... floss to cut the rolls. It works GREAT! A knife just tends to smash the rolls. Let rise till doubled again and then bake in a 400 degree oven. I have a hard time baking these evenly so I bake them for 7 minutes then 8 more minutes with foil gently laid over them. That way they get done through without burning the tops!

I hope this long post doesn't scare you away from making them! We also make dinner rolls with this bread recipe and they are wonderful, too!

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Rolls

Heather asked Dad what he wanted to eat for Easter. This was his reply:

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"Cinnamon rolls for breakfast, cinnamon rolls for lunch, and cinnamon rolls for dinner, oh, and maybe cinnamon rolls for dessert too!"

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I think he made his point well!

Update!

All the sheeting is done! The dormers are done! The framing almost done!

The fellas who are putting on the roofing are coming tomorrow (Monday). They said it should take them two days to finish the roof! It will be something permanent to see!

A view from the back of the house.

Johan and Taylor on the bundles of roofing shingles and dad in the dormer window.

See?!?!?!?! The dormers are done except for the sheeting on the roof.

Closer up.

The front view. Look at those clouds! They had just been DUMPING their heavy load on the water logged earth!

Taylor's Surgery

Monday, Taylor once again had surgery on his arm. I know some of you don’t know the reason why he has had 4 surgeries on his left arm, so I’ll give you a “short” account of the problem.

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When Taylor was just a young wiper-snapper at the age of 7 he was playing tag at church, tripped and fell into a post and broke his arm. After a frustrating ER experience we discovered he had a cyst in his left humerus bone that had hollowed out about a third of his bone. Naturally, since the bone was so weak he broke it a couple of other times so consequently the Dr. referred us to Shriners. Since then he has had 4 surgeries and many other check ups. After his last procedure in 2002 we continued to watch it to see if the bone marrow that is taken from his hip and injected into the cyst would begin to grow and fill the cyst area. Well, it didn’t, but we opted out of more surgeries until now since it has been so long and has not healed.

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Monday, mom started her day at 2:40am to get to Salem to pick up Mrs. A, who was so gracious to offer to go with them, and then get to Portland before 6am. The biggest thing about the surgeries for Taylor is the fact that he can’t eat from 2am that morning till after procedure is done. For a growing boy that can be pure torture! They did say he could have clear liquids such as juice. Basically, they sat and waited most of the morning, had 3 different nurses check his vitals, and answered the same questions several times. The people at Shriners are exceptionally nice, so it was a pleasant day.

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Taylor had to take a shower with special soap and the nurse was kind enough to give him scrubs to put on instead of the revealing gown, since he still had 1 ½ hrs to wait. Well, when the orderly, a little tiny gal, came in with the gurney to take him to surgery, she looked several times around the room, not seeing her patient. She thought he was one of them!! Then, she gave him one of those “special” gowns to put on. About 10 min. later he came out of the bathroom looking rather catty wampus. The gown had snaps all over the place and he couldn’t figure out how to put the thing on!! Like a guy, he didn’t ask directions!

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Taylor didn’t get prepped for surgery till about 11:30am. He came out of surgery about an hour later. Like normal, it took him a while to wake up and when he did he was feeling okay and ready to eat! But this time, since people were praying for this, he wasn’t TOO hungry but that doesn’t mean he didn’t eat a lot! They didn’t get out of Shriners till 5 pm and then there was the 1 hour and 45 minute drive home. Needless to say it was a very long day for all three of them.

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Taylor is hurting today. This last surgery they went in through his muscle, which we think is causing most of the pain. The other three he hardly felt anything after but this time it was done in a different spot. Poor guy. He has either been lying down on the couch or sleeping all day.

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We are still praying that this procedure will be effective and the bone marrow will grow and fill in his hollow bone. It hasn’t been a huge issue to deal with this the last 7 1/2 years but it would be good to be able to not worry about him breaking his arm.

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Thank you all for your prayers! They were and are much appreciated!

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(Thank you Mrs. Anderson for taking the picture!)

A girl, her doll and a nightgown

I meant to get these pictures on here sooner but for some reason I wasn't able to upload them. So here they are!

In my spare time (yes, spare time, such as school, sitting with grandma and phone calls) I made this nightgown, and another like it, by hand. It is really a pleasure to be creating something while I have sit down time.

"Are you pointing that camera at me again?"

*sigh* "When is daddy coming home...?"

"Look at my new doll, Mammy!"

"See? She can sit up all by herself!"

"Oh dear, I must cover up my toes to keep them warm!"

"There!"

"Oh no! Now I'm stuck!"

"There! All better!"

Attic, roof and heights....

...oh MY!

The attic,

The roof,

and the heights...

*gulp* I am taking the picture of Gracie while standing in the attic. Goodness, it's WAY up there! I tried not to get too close to the edge...are you surprised?

The view from the driveway! Again! It's getting there! We are eagerly looking forward to getting the windows in place and the roof on. It will be nice for the guys to work out of the weather for a while.

Thanks for looking and hope you are enjoying your day!