Be mine!

As tradition would have it our brother and son, David, gave all us girls Valentines. He is such a dear! He bought all us girls flowers and a Dark Chocolate candy bar! Since he worked on the house all day on the 14th he gave us our flowers and candy yesterday. Like every year he gets comments about all the flowers when at the store while buying them. While the gifts were on the conveyor belt at the store the clerk asked if all that was because he was late! Nope, I have a mom and have 5 sisters! hehehehehe!

David with a group of extremely happy girls. I don't think they have ever had a whole bar of chocolate to themselves before! (Oh, Lydia didn't get one...the flowers were enough. Read below and you will find out why!)

Lydia was in her own little world when David gave her the pot of flowers. I don't really know how to explain it because you just would have to see her to understand. The pictures above shows a little what she looked like all evening. She was SO happy about the flowers that she HAD to carry them around ALL evening. She doted on them and kept saying, "Dadid, me." (Interpreted, "David gave them to me!"). Then this morning when she woke up she bee-lined it past all the arms that greet her in the morning and found her flowers. She walked into the kitchen clutching the pot, looking a little dazed since she had just jumped out of bed and was still half asleep. But she was happy, she had her flowers.

We all love our flowers too! Thank you David! :)

Up they go!

There is the first on! That is Taylor helping to hold it up! He doesn't like heights so that was quite a feat for him!

There he is again!

Goodness, I kept praying for them all while they were pushing, pulling and lifting those trusses into place while standing on TOP of the wall! Whew! God is good to keep them safe!

This was the last picture I took that night. It was getting dark and they were not going to work much longer. Mom and I then headed home with the kids to get a warm dinner ready for them.

Hope you enjoyed all the pictures! I'll post more soon when all the trusses are up. Have a lovely day!

Here the roof comes!

We have been so blessed by the willing help of friends! Mr. Siefker again took a day off from working on his own house to help us with the trusses. He has been a great encouragement to us this whole house building process! Mr. Goins came to help as well and of course Johan didn't want to miss out on this! We had a great "army" of men working of the trusses came! It was a joy to see!

The waiting is over and the truck is coming down the road! Can you tell we were a little excited? :)

While standing upstairs watching the goins-on I noticed that I could see everyone standing with me reflecting in the truck's window. Of course it was a fun picture to take! Then a minute later Johan, who is a photographer came up to me and mentioned that it would make a great picture! I laughed and said I already had taken one!

Benjamin and Dad.

Starts singing: "Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height, and send it soaring..." Yeah, a 2,000 lb kite! Whew!

"Look at me! I've got this end!" hehehehe!

Excited spectators! It was SO cold while sitting watching! They ended up getting into the van and shutting the door!

Mr. Goins connecting the crane to the trusses.

Hang on David! You are two stories high!

Now we know who posed for the gold man! Hahahaha! Just give Mr. Siefker an ax and paint him gold and there you have it!

This is a strange picture. It is the brace for the front of the truck to keep it balanced while lifting the bundles of trusses.

Easy does it David! Please be careful! He was! Whew!

Not so high up this time. This was over the apartment and only one story.

They were going to start on the apartments roof but the trusses upstairs were in the way. So they ended up beginning upstairs while the light lasted.

Waiting for the trusses...

...which was about 3 1/2 hours longer than they had said... That was a hard, long wait! Whew!

Here are the pictures I took to pass the time while waiting for the truck to arrive!

Grandpa finished the stairs! It's so much easier to go upstairs without having to use the ladder!

David, Dad and Mr. Siefker, waiting...

Benjamin smiling and waiting....

"This is our bedroom!" The girls enjoying the lovely day and waiting...

More smiles! More waiting...

Heather and Grandma waiting...(is that getting old? Sorry! But we waited a long time!)

God blessed us with a LOVELY day! It looked like this all day!

The girls on the stairs. Lydia really didn't like the stairs which I guess is good so she will be careful!

Passing the time climbing on one of the burn piles.

Watching out the window for the truck. Me, Benjamin, Sarah, Gracie, Taylor, David, and Johan.


Group hug anyone? hehehehe

Stairs and other things...

Are you all getting tired of the house pictures?!?!?!?!?! I do hope I am not boring you! Well, even if I am, here are some more! hehehehe! How is that for being friendly! :)

Mommy is excited!!!!! The stairs are half done!

Grandpa, mom and dad discussing things...A T-SHIRT on Daddy???? Yep, it's warming up around here, for now anyway!!

And our grandpa! :hugs:

Okay, okay, I'll post something other than house pictures since you all have been so patient!

Gracie took this of Lydia!

Does anyone know who this is? hehehehe! I don't! :)

This is how the work crew looks almost every day! WET!!!!! Grandpa, Dad, Benjamin, David (the road cone! That's for you Josh!) , and Taylor the "nut".

When it snowed we built a snow fort! They had great fun throwing snowballs...actually I think it wasn't just throwing the snowballs that was fun but hitting the enemy! lol! (The young man in yellow on the left is a neighbor, lest you wonder where we got him!)

Another tour and more pictures!

The guest room! So you all know that when (notice I said when) you come to visit, you will be sleeping in that room! It will, of course, be a little more cozy than at present! hehehehe

The girls' room!

This is the view from the upstairs family room!

The same view but with a deer in the field grazing. Taylor said they have been feeding there for the last several days.

Daddy hard at work.

I took this video last night. In one full day and 4 evenings the guys have put up all those walls! Wow!

I made....

...laundry soap! I did some research and found a recipe for homemade laundry soap and after shopping around for the ingredients I whipped together a batch. When using 1 tablespoon per batch, like the recipe said, the price per load would come out to be 3 cents rather than 25 - 50 cents for store bought brands! We thought we might as well give it a try!

The ingredients:

1/2 cup Fels-Naptha (or any other brand of bar soap) grated,

1 cup WASHING soda, (not to be confused with BAKING soda, they are NOT the same thing)

1 cup Borax laundry booster

The recipe said to use 1 tablespoon for a medium load and 2 tablespoons for a dirty load. We decided we needed a bit more so we have been using about an 1/8 of a cup.

When I began grating the Fels-Naptha soap we were surprised to see the lovely curls that dropped from the grater!

Here is the bar soap, washing soda, and Borax all mixed together. It is a little hard to make sure the there is an equal amount of bar soap and the powder but it does work!

Mom recommended I test the "amazing" laundry soap by putting Hershey's syrup, ketchup, and mustard on a clean sock and rub it into the fabric. Then, without rinsing the sock out, I threw it into the washer and waited for to the load to finish to examine the effects of the laundry soap. Now, it was a white load, so I did add a small amount of bleach to the load. When I pulled the sock out, all I saw was a little of the Hershey's syrup and just barely any ketchup and didn't see any mustard! If any of those had really spilt on our clothing we would have rinsed it out in the sink before putting it in the washer, so to see those results from stains that were rubbed and left in was quite exciting! Gracie and I just made another 2 batches this afternoon!

All the outer walls are done!!!!!

We have been blessed by incredibly hard working guys (and sometimes girls) to build our home. Friday night Dad, Taylor and Heather raised the last of the outer walls! We just have the inside walls to do upstairs. The trusses are scheduled to arrive later this month! We are really feeling blessed by how quickly this process is going. From the foundation being completed to now has been right at 2 months. I am not sure if that really is fast but since we are doing all the framing ourselves it feels fast!

The guys' work schedule:

Grandpa...... (on house) 8am -4pm, four days a week

Taylor......(on house) 8am - 4pm, and 4:30pm - 8-9:30pm, four days a week

Dad.....(at his office) 7am - 3:30pm, (on the house) 4:15pm- 8-9:30pm, five days a week

David....(his job) his times vary but he is out of the house before 7am and heads to the house when he is done and works till 8pm - 9:30pm

They all work Saturdays- 8am - 6pm as well. (At least, somtimes much later.)

Heather, Mom and I are the ones to ensure they all have nice meals to eat at noon and take them dinner at dark. Since they are working so hard every day they get very hungry and eat lots! We try to keep their meals warm between home and the house since it has been so cold out there, day and night.

I pray these guys will be greatly blessed by their willingness to work hard and long hours. It is hard on them but they keep it up! I love them all!

Taylor and Grandpa are working on the stairway today! I can't wait for those to be done since I really don't like trying to climb that ladder, especially in the ice!