We have been blessed to find two amazing churches. We go to both almost every week, and love them both. One is small and just starting and the other is large and has a lot of programs to offer. One of those programs is Faithworks. They go out into the community for a week doing jobs for people that need help. We nominated ourselves to have them put windows in our house. All we asked for was help with installing them. As the lead of the group came to look at our house, he asked us what our "wish list" for our house is. What did we want to get done this summer? We mentioned painting the kitchen/dining/living room a lighter color, gutters, and a bigger hot water heater. He said he'd go back to the main group and they'd discuss what they could do for us.
When he came back a couple of days later, he said that they would put the windows in and they had decided to purchase and install a hot water heater for us! I almost cried. The one that was here when we moved in was a 30 gallon one, and we could barely take a shower without running out of water.
But they didn't stop there. . .
By the time I got home from Summer School (noonish), they had already assembled our playset which was in pieces when I left. . .
It's HUGE. And AMAZING! And takes up half our backyard. . .
The kids LOVE it. Gracie is pouting because I wasn't pushing!
Yea! More swings!
They had already dug most of two pits for the Egress windows.
Three teenagers were distracting playing with the kids.
They also put two coats of a new, lighter color in our kitchen/dining/living room. It took me a while to say good-bye to my turquoise, but it makes Daddy much happier so it's worth it. I do like how bright and big the room is now.
The next day, they put the corrals in the pits and sealed them up.
This is what they look like now, waiting for the Egress windows to come in and be installed.
Do you remember this hideous bush? We asked about getting rid of the stump next to it, and trimming the bush down even more. I was given a trimmer and told that they'd prefer not to do it because of a bad experience in a previous Faithworks, so I started hacking away at it. Daddy and I took turns, until we had it as low as we could get with that tool. The guy came back and laughed. Then he got out the chainsaw! We got it as low as we could, and then three of the men took pickaxes to the roots. We didn't have enough time to finish that, but will get around to finishing taking that thing out soon. I'd much rather look out our soon-to-be new windows and see flowers than a hideous green monster!
While we were working on that, we debated if it was possible to get rid of the stump as well. We joked about making it into a carving of a bear, a totem pole, or a chair. In the end, two guys dug about 6-10 inches around it and we used a tow rope attached to a truck to pull it out of the ground. Gracie and I were doing a happy dance to have that thing out of the way!
Good-bye stump!
This is what that area now looks like. Nothing much yet, but we have big plans of have it mostly grass.
Our old hot water heater. Tiny! The plumber said it was partially broken and he could fix it or replace it. The lead said replace it, since we have three kids that will be teenagers before we know it.
Yea!
In addition to all this, they trimmed all three of our trees, repaired our fence that the "landscapers" broke while "caring" for the property when it was vacant, and removed a weird looking "tree" outside of Jerry's bedroom window. Every time I look around our property, I want to cry. In just two days they did what would have taken us at least all summer, probably longer to accomplish. I am truly humbled and grateful.
We had a huge milestone yesterday. Bee decided to cut her hair short. She had a large "knotty guy," as we call their tangles, in her hair and I told her we needed to comb it out. She instantly started to whine and I said simply, "we comb it, or we cut it." She stopped, contemplated for less than a second and said "cut it."
We went into the bathroom and did just that.
When I got the scissors out, she started to get nervous, and asked if I would just "use what Daddy uses." She means his hair clippers! I said no, girls don't wear their hair as short as Daddy and we proceeded to cut her hair to her shoulders.
She is not crying because of her haircut, she was excited about that.
Her long hair, with a big "knotty guy" in it.
I started by cutting it shoulder length and she looked in the mirror and announced "shorter!" So I tried to cut it chin length. Just as I was snipping a section she hunched her neck down to her shoulders and made me cut it too high. It ended up being about ear length, and is completely adorable.
Short hair!
SO much hair! Too bad I didn't anticipate this, we could have donated it!
We went to Milwaukee to go to a wedding a couple of weeks ago. We had so much fun, but were sad that it could only be a weekend trip, with summer school starting so quickly after the end of the school year.
When we left for the wedding, we left the kids with friends and they were all bundled like these two pictures.
Enjoying the wedding.
Not so sure he wants to get wet...
Well, maybe two hands. . .
I love this one. It shows their personalities so well.
Rolling up all the posters in my classroom to get it shut down for the summer.
Inputting almost 700 grades.
I think I earned a break, I cleaned and reorganized the whole classroom AND got all my grades in by 11 am!
You know summer is right around the corner when the ART room looks this boring.
Watching Gracie's T-ball game.
This is NOT as mean as it looks. Bee only cries about whatever she dropped when she falls down. Here, she is crying "My money! My money!" because she had a dime in the cup holder of her chair when she tipped over.
But a few moments later, Momma found her long lost dime.
Yep, that's my kid with her face in the stinky batting helmet. . .
This is his strong man face. He is grunting and trying to open the water bottle by himself.
