Flowers to brighten your day

I had a particularly rough week/weekend last week because I wasn't feeling well, but I was very surprised when I received these in the mail! Karl sent them to me to cheer me up, and I thought I'd share them with all of you so they could cheer you up too =)

Grandma's Birthday!

Loving thoughts of Grandma, today, as it would

have been her 78th birthday. Young, still, in my book!

Ben gets bored

I was looking through some pictures from this past Christmas, and ran across this one of Elisabeth and Aunt Janell. I thought the rest of you might like to see it too.

Mom gets bored

Daniel and I recently found this picture on Mom's computer. I think the old people are starting to get to her.

Ben's Birthday Has Finally Arrived For You!!!

Our not-so-young but nevertheless illustrious "Man In the Know" Benjamin James Barnhart has turned 33 years of age. He celebrated his birthday by ordering Chinese take-out and watching a good movie with close friends (and next-door neighbors) Matt and Leah. 

In honor of this momentous occasion, we would like to reminisce and recount some fond memories of Ben's fruitful life. Post any and all memories to the comment board. Thank you, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

NOTE: Candles in the picture have been known to switch with other candles when nobody is viewing the blog. This explains any discrepancies that may be noticed when viewing the above photograph.

MISSING!

Twas the night after Christmas,
No mice, no not nary,

And a good night to play
Telephone Pictionary!

We phrased, and drew, and laughed
quite a bit,

Til Sherlock claimed some, leaving the
rest of us to just sit.

Twas a lovely evening on London St.,
With food, and drink, and game,

But then, alas, the hour grew late,
And the rest went home, just the same.

Straight to bed, the Mommy went,
For tired and weary was she,

"I'll tidy the rest of this in the morn,
before off to work I be."

Picking up, here and there,
Putting things away,

The drawings lay there in a pile,
And I thought I heard them say,

"One of us is missing!" So I counted
to see if true,

And sure enough, one was gone,
And it's got me wondering who?

Who confiscated a page of drawings,
And what might your plan be?

Methinks we ought to watch the Blog,
To see what we might again see!

Tile complete

After a long day, the tiling is finished. The finish coat on the ceiling got sanded also. I'm almost done skim coating the walls to get rid of the texture from the sponge painting.

So I was making a coffee cake...

...and as I was cracking an egg, I had a flashback. I remembered when I was pretty young (it seems like we were still living in Terre Haute but I can't remember for certain) and I was sitting at the kitchen table. Mom was cooking something that used eggs, and somehow we started talking about what eggs were. She explained that eggs were actually the way chickens had babies. She said that if a hen hatched an egg by sitting on it and keeping it warm, a little chick would develop from the egg. I think she kept talking about how the yolk was actually the part that fed the chick while it grew, but I didn't really hear that part. All I could think about was how many little yellow chicks I had unknowingly murdered, and how this terribly cruel practice was so widely accepted! These poor little chicks never got a chance to grow up and have wonderful chicken lives. I imagined all the hens, sitting in their nests with their heavy hearts, thinking of all their children they would never get to meet. Needless to say, I may have been overly sensitve to the situation. When mom realized I was upset, she quickly pointed out that she didn't believe the eggs we were eating were actually fertilized, so they wouldn't have turned into a chick whether we ate them or not. I have no idea if this was true (I should look that up) but it certainly went a long way in calming my guilt-ridden heart for all the eggs I'd eaten in my life.

I'm not sure what I thought was so fantastic about being a chicken, or if I realized that most chickens are eaten at some point anyway. Apparently I realize it now though, because I was able to crack all four eggs and whisk them without a bit of guilt.

Bathroom Status Update

Day 2: Tub successfully fitted into the bathroom and Hardiboard up! No major setbacks yet. Also no showers. Andy might be sleeping in the bathtub tonight.

The beginnings of a new bathroom

The tub and tile were removed tonight. Janell did a great job carrying that cast iron tub out on her back.

Snow, Shovels and Girls (and Peter, too)

Here are a few photos of our "early" snow on Friday, along with the girls enjoying the first "real" snow of the season. Please keep in mind that on Thursday, we could still see the greenish grass in our lawn, and as of today, we've about 2 feet (of snow, that is) on the ground. So these are just preliminary photos of the fun yet to come this winter!


And, here's the most recent photo of Peter, too. He just doesn't get to go out and play in the snow, yet.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Show us your snow! It's a winter wonderland in the UP and plenty more of the white stuff to come.

Honk if you love snow.

A Thanksgiving full of games

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday this year. I know my Thanksgiving was filled with abundant food and lots of laughter, thanks to the game that Janell shared with us. It's called telephone pictionary and it goes something like this:

1. Every player takes a piece of paper and writes a sentence at the top. Then every player passes the sheet to their left
2. The next person reads the sentence to themselves and draws a picture of the sentence below
3. Then every player folds over their piece of paper so only their drawing is visible and passes
4. The next receiving person examines the picture and writes a sentence describing it below the picture
5. Then every player folds over their piece of paper so only their sentence is visible and passes it to their left
6. Continue until you get your paper back

As you can imagine, hilarity ensued. Here are some of the funnier progressions:

Although it is too late for me.....

As the winter months are upon us and with that the season of Christmas and with that my right hand's nubs' bar-mitzvah, I would like to draw any and all interested parties' attention to this article I happened to stumble upon which defends my actions with a said snowblower on December the 22, 2008.







Click Here If You Are Super Interested In This Interesting Link

A Day in the Park

The girls spent an enjoyable afternoon playing at the park across the street from our house today. I'm glad we went after lunch, since after nap-time, the rain was pouring down! It may have been our last opportunity to spend there this year...and the girls were thrilled! So, here are a few photos of your favorite girls....(Peter was sleeping in his pack and didn't want to get out and play)...

ASPCA Notification

It has come to the attention of the ASPCA that Ozzie is no longer safe at 1865 Brighton Circle. An Animal Rescue Crew is on its way to safely retrieve and redistribute Ozzie to a home in which he will not be eaten.




UPDATE: It has come to the attention of the ASPCA that the pictured dog is not Ozzie. Well, of course not. The pictured dog was named Bubbles and was the prior canine occupant of 1865 Brighton Circle. The ASPCA is attempting to help Ozzie avoid the cruel and delicious treatment meted out to Bubbles. Poor, brave Bubbles.

Hancock Halloween

For Halloween, (or Hallaloonya, as Ella calls it) the girls dressed up as princesses (don't have any photos right now, I'll have to get some from Cameron & Olivia's grandma) and Peter wore his baseball outfit (quite fitting during the World Series). I dressed up as a very busy mom. Sorry to say, no photos of that. Steve dressed up as a honey extractor and my kitchen made itself up as a honey house. See photos below.

The kitchen disguised as a honey house. Please note, the cupboards and oven are non-functional in this photo (we got to order pizza for lunch).

Steve is uncapping one of the last frames of honey (many, many hours after the project began). The knife is heated so it easily slices through the beeswax (minding one's own, of course) and allows the honey to be extracted.

A close-up of the uncapping process. Note the honey oozing from the cells. (it's very tasty) This uncapped frame will then be placed in a radial extractor (the large cylindrical shiny object in the first photo) and spun at very high speeds (we have a motorized version) so that the honey will be spun out and then drain to the bottom, where it will flow through a honey gate into a large bucket. We obtained approximately 8 gallons of honey on Halloween. There shouldn't be s shortage at our house this winter!

The Trophy Wife

Perfect in every way

Happy Halloween!!!

I was a lumberjack this year for Halloween, and Cecilia (Matt and Leah's older daughter) was a fairy.


Did anyone else dress-up?

Another kitchen post

I know you've all been in withdrawal without recent photos from my house projects. So I'm drawing together a few recent photos of the kitchen. Hopefully, the next pictures I show will be after the floor and countertop are in place.