Homey Homes and Cat Homes

 Since David was feeling so generous at Christmas,

I was able to add a couple tables and lamps to our living room 

in addition to our new sofa and chair.

See?

I posted a picture of the new sofa and chair from the day they were delivered,

but I never got a picture posted once we added the extras.

It seems so homey now!

It only took seventeen years living in this house to furnish the living room. 

Do you think we procrastinated a bit too long

getting the job done?

With dogs, cats, kids and babies to care for and entertain,

having nice furniture never seemed very important.

I think it was pretty obvious 

from my abject lack of decorations.

Maybe I can make up for lost time by making it extra homey now.

Grace helped me with the living room decorations...

She used my lamp boxes to make a cat house.

At least the cats feel at home now!

Silly Grace!

Her middle school celebrated spirit week last week.

Here is her outfit that she wore for Decades Day.

It's great to have older kids that have already done these crazy things.

We only had to go as far as Emily's closet to find an outfit to wear.

Shed Pictures

It is finished.

David is doing the happy dance that we all feel now that this 

project is finally done.

Well, actually it isn't done.

We are waiting for the boards to dry over the summer so

we can stain both barns this fall.

Here's the inside view of the machine shed.

Pretty awesome!

 There's a lot going on around here!

 For Christmas, David promised to buy me new living room furniture.

I wasn't going to give him an opportunity to change his mind about such a generous offer.

So David and I spent the last hours of 2016 shopping for a new sofa set.

Not as fun as I thought it might be.

Way too many choices!

But eventually we settled on a set we liked.

Then it was out with the old....

And by "out with the old" we really only mean 

out-of-the-living-room-shoved-in-the-playroom-maybe-get-it-REALLY-OUT-before-next-Christmas.

And in with the new.

 It doesn't look much different than the old set...

other than it's not falling apart and missing chunks of leather on the seats.

And while we've had an "in with the new" mindset,

we went ahead and replaced bar stools too.

 Not that the old ones needed replaced.

I saw nothing wrong with the zip ties I was using to hold the legs together.

It seemed perfectly safe to me.

David, however, disagreed.

Party at the Farm

Way back on March 4th we opened the farm up to friends from church.

Everyone spent the day hiking trails, riding horses 

and playing with baby goats and baby calves.

But by far the activity that garnered the most attention 

was shooting guns.

Men and women.

Adults and kids.

Sharpshooter and first timer.

Everyone had a great time target shooting.

Our friends' kids were still talking about it 

a week later at church.

I love those days.

We don't entertain at the farm very often,

but when we do, it makes all of the work worthwhile.

 And...

 it's strange to think only four families gathered at the farm.

Yet among the four families we had a grand total of

seventeen kids.

That's a lot of hungry people!

David and I have ridden a lot this year.

That is one of the perks of an incredibly mild winter.

 

 But the beautiful weather and mild temperatures also meant 

we did not tap maple trees this year.

B

So for the second year in a row 

we have no maple syrup to sell.

Good thing we don't rely on syrup to pay the bills!

It's been a busy few months.

Just sayin'.