Good morning...

It's been a while since I've blogged. Life is full (and busy). We are enjoying the budding spring and are happy that winter is over! However the budding part of spring has several of us sniffling and sneezing... I guess it's a small price to pay though, right?

Matt has been off for several days so he and Caleb and Sam have been finishing up some projects around the house. They made screens for all of our screenless windows! I'm so excited to be able to open the windows and enjoy the spring breezes without the bugs and cats coming inside! They also are working on a gate for the fence and they've worked some on cleaning out and rearranging the workshop -- that is a huge job!

Nehemiah is growing up so fast. I always forget how fast newborns turn into infants and then into babies and are just a step away from toddlers. Too fast.
Molly took some cute pictures of Nehemiah last night, I'll try to get them blogged today.

I've been working on updating Wonder Unders the past few days. I'm about done. I want to move all the products from Lewis Family Mercantile over to WU and just work with one business site from now on. That's a slow process but hopefully I'll get it done this week. The business keeps me busy... as soon as I get to a 'finished' place more orders come in. That's good, right?

We are having drain field problems so that's what we'll be doing this weekend. Thankfully I'm the water and sandwich gal and won't be really involved with the stinky parts of the job! LOL

The Beaver Saga, Part 2

After doing some research yesterday (and discovering beaver can be rabid and they carry several parasites that transfer to humans that can be really nasty) we decided to call Environmental Health. They sent someone to pick up the beaver to check for rabies.

We should know something Wednesday. The agent said it was a 'low risk contact' so we really aren't expecting rabies to come back as positive but it was prudent to find out for sure.

Poor fellas... didn't get to skin the beaver...

BEAVER in our yard last night!!!

a Beaver. big furry animal, big orange teeth, long flat tail--- a beaver!!

IN our Yard!!!Our yard is entirely fenced! Three sides with dog fence and one side with field fencing.A beaver in our yard! The dogs killed her. Sorry Mrs. Beaver. She got a couple of them though... one got it in the nose and one got it in the leg. Beaver have sharp teeth. I don't think the dogs knew what to do with her. They've never seen a beaver before.

I've never seen a beaver up close before.

Why, oh why was there a beaver in my back yard? Where did she come from?

The boys saved her body because they want to skin her. I told them I didn't care as long as I didn't have to smell anything Am I a good homeschooling mommy or what?Is there any reason they shouldn't skin the beaver? Any health concerns or anything? Anybody know?

Wanna see a pic of the dead beaver? I don't want to gross anyone out... she has orange teeth. Like UT orange... very wierd. Elijah said they are orange because she doesn't brush them!

Molly has some better pics. I'll get them from her camera in a few minutes!

Running Away... part 2

I just have to say...I love living in Florida! It was in the low 70s today. I love it. I wasn't built for cold weather...

Elijah, sweet boy, always finds flowers for his Mama!
Molly and Ike had a footrace in the SAND... Yes, they have re-done our favorite park and now it is in SAND. Brandy, Stop Laughing!!!

See how windy it was? Very windy...
Molly, sweet child that she is, fixed everyone's lunch while Caleb... well... looks like he's *reading*.... again...

ooohhh... the zip line... much more fun with your big brother pushes you so hard you so flying off the other end and land in SAND...
The slide... need I say more?

Look Nana! See how high I am. Next time you come you can climb up here with me :) And, Yes, they were both yelling 'as you wiiiiiish' as they rolled down the hill! LOL
And a great time was had by all...

THE END

Our "Running Away" Day in pictures

and, of course, dialog... you know me...

Okay, so we headed down the road toward Ocheessee Landing (there's a park there but when we got there I discovered the park is in SAND... and you know how I feel about SAND so we just kept going down the road).
We drove down to the actual landing (boat landing area) and walked up and down the ... 'shoreline'... river side? What would that be? The children found lots of rocks and shells and assorted unidentifiable metal bits. Great fun, no?
And we talked to two men there and the told the children stories of the Great Floods of 93 and 94 (or was it 92 and 93?) and showed them a catfish and what catfish filets look like. Oh and they pointed out a Live Oak that is reportedly over 400 years old and is the oldest Live Oak in Florida. Of course I had the camera the van and forgot to take any pics of part one of our adventure.

Then we headed the other way down Ocheessee Landing Road and drove over to Ocheessee Pond. I did take pics there... so here ya go!

And I took some photos of the children too. It's a very scenic area... even if it is a boat dock ;)

Then we drove back to our house to check on The Smell. It was almost gone but not quite so Molly and I packed a picnic and we headed to the park in Sneads. I remembered that I had told my new friend Traci (she lives in Sneads) that the next time we went to the park I would call her. She, bless her heart, is always up for spontaneous fun so she gathered up her crew and met us there. She and I had so much fun gabbing that I forgot to take any pics of our children playing together. I did take some pics of our children before she got there and I'll put them in the next post :)

burned eggs STINK

Whew... it stinks in my house this morning...
Sam was baking eggshells last night and when they were done he just left them in the oven to cool. Caleb, of course, didn't know that and preheated the oven to 450 this morning. Everyone was walking around trying to figure out what stinks so bad... BINGO.
Gross. Ugh. Yuck. and Nasty! Burned eggs stink SO Bad! ---
Tried opening the windows but it's 46 here... too chilly and it just blew the stink everywhere. Any ideas how we can un-stink our house? HELP!

Okay...
I'm Running Away.

The stench is just awful.

Awful.

We're running away.

I don't know where we are going.

We are just leaving.

Turned the heat off.

Killed the fire.

Opened the windows.

Turned on the ceiling fans.

Surely...SURELY when we come home it won't stink in here. Surely. Right? Right?!

I think we are going to ride around.

Go get a Coke.

When it warms up we may go to the park.

Yes, that's a good idea. It's 56 already and it's supposed to be 71. Yes, we'll go to the park. I can knit. They can run. Yes. That's my plan.

Friends are a Blessing!

Last Thursday night we were blessed to have the opportunity to host our friends, the Graves from Tampa, for a quick overnight visit. It seems that none of the photos Molly took turned out so you will have to use your imagination! LOL The Graves are good friends with a family in our area, the Lains, so we invited the Lains to supper too! Graves + Lains + Lewis' = 28 people and a lot of chili, a lot of brownies, a lot of visiting and a Lot of Fun!

Thank you Lord for bringing wonderful new friends into our life!!

"You can never have too many people that love you"

Wise words from my Mama. A long time ago. They've been echoing in my head for years.

We made a trip to TN on Wednesday night and stayed through Sunday morning. We had a nice uneventful trip up and a long uneventful trip back home.

We had a chance to visit most all of our relatives. We are so blessed. We have so many people that love us... so many people that we love. Thank you Lord for our family. Help us to be a blessing to them too!

I have tons of pics... I'll upload some soon!

Busy, busy, busy

Yes, that's our life recently. Seems like it's been so very busy. Busy is good, right? The whole 'idle hands' thing? LOL

We are heading to my hometown this Wed - Sun for a family reunion. The children are especially excited because my mother just got a Jersey and they get to help milk her!

I'm working on a quilt so that is my big project for today. I also need to give the boys a haircut. Molly and the big boys are doing our packing today.

I don't have anything else exciting to add... just wanted to drop a quick Update note.

More later... I'm sure!

We are not builders...

which would explain why it took us all day to partially build a small corner shelf in the kitchen yesterday... whew.

We are back on the Huge Kitchen Project (that had kinda slipped to the end on the 'to do' list) and we worked all day yesterday on this little corner shelf. It's gonna be cute when it's all done!

What? Oh... pictures? You want to see pictures? ...grin... okay Sure. Remind me to do that.

Really. I will. I will. You know I love photos anyway! I'll do that this evening. Off to get everything and everyone ready for church.