April 18th, 2018

It just has to be documented!

We have been in Wisconsin 16 years and have never seen winter weather in April like we have this year!

Yesterday brought a huge snow storm – with white out conditions.

We could not even see the sky line for most of the day!

Blake took this photo as he came down our road on his way home from work in the evening.

That little blur up ahead is Twin Oaks!

Of course the snow storm gave us lots of beautiful visitors at our bird restaurant!

Are you tired of bird photos yet?!

We have friends staying with us this week, and we had a big day of fun yesterday that wore two little people out.

We also found lots of snowy day things to do – like making cookies and making play doh!

It is a beautiful sunny day today, and is supposed to warm up a bit!

I bet this winter wonderland won’t stick around long.

We sure can’t deny it’s beauty!!

The Heavens Declare the Glory of the Lord!!

Annie Sloan DIY Project #2

The kids bathroom downstairs has an awkward layout, to say it best.

It also is lacking a linen closet, which really would be nice to have.

I had a friend mention that we should put a dresser in the bathroom for storage.

What a great idea!!

Addie Mae is my color girl – and so we searched for color of chalk paint that we could use to paint an old dresser that came with us from the farm but did not have a place to be yet.

Since we had pulled some blues into the family room with throw pillows and a blanket, and the family room is right outside the bathroom, we decided on this blue.

Then we got to work!

Addie Mae helped me paint it before she left for work one Saturday morning!

It took three coats before we were satisfied that the white was completely covered.

I did just a bit of distressing on it – for me a subtle distressing is more my taste!

The finished dresser looks cute in the kids’s bathroom, and fills the need for some storage space with all those drawers.

Since we finished this dresser, Addie painted our knife block with white Annie Sloan chalk paint!

I distressed and glazed it – and it is in the garage curing before we start using it again.

I guess the knife block is Annie Sloan project #3!!

I have my eye on an end table in the living room….but I am wondering if I don’t like it just the way it is…so time will tell!

Hopefully soon it will be time to garden – and I will get my creative outlet through something that feeds my family too!!

The Things Our Days Are Made Of

Life here at Twin Oaks is full and blessed.

We are still working on getting things finished around here!

The boys cleaned up and put a couple coats of varnish on our sign from the farm so we could hang it on the wall in the family room.

I LOVE IT!!

The guys literally spent all day last Saturday on the land.

After calling the sheriff’s department, they started a huge burn that day to clean up all the brush, branches and dead trees to get ready to bring in fill and top soil to make our YARD!

There are still road bans – meaning that we cannot bring trucks down our road right now until they take those road bans off.

They do that every spring during the thaw from winter so that heavy trucks do not tear up the roads.

Right now it is winter still, so it might be a while until they take those bans off!

I do not have good photos of last Saturday – I took mostly video that day – but here is one right as the guys started burning.

It doesn’t look it, but the pile was the size of half a football field!

They have kept at all the other little things that we are trying to finish too.

Like ceiling fans.

Hanging the shutters.

The boys did such a great job!!!

And hanging a blind in the kitchen that arrived.

The kiddos and I spent a day in town over a week ago to sell a bunch of winter clothes that we were done with and get some things that they needed.

It was a productive day!

Here we were waiting at the consignment shop for our big pile of things we dropped off to be gone through.

Of course there was coffee!!

Eliza asked if she could grow her hair long like Addie Mae’s.

That prompted a lot of talks with her about what that means.

That it will touch her back, that it will need combed, that it will get tangled easier….

All the things she could not handle when it was long before.

She was really determined to try!

So we are!

Our newest six year old has also lost two teeth!

She struggled quite a bit with those loose teeth and how they felt – so I was so proud of her when she did not cry when they finally fell out!

Thankfully we have these oils to help her (and I!) each day.

This was my view from the kitchen early one morning.

TOOK MY BREATH AWAY.

What if.

What if the Lord had not led us to Tate?

We are SO blessed!!!

Speaking of that, just look at these two.

Always together.

This guy claimed to be security the afternoon that we wrapped Lane’s birthday presents!

Small house problems, you know.

Our sweet pup turned TWO!!

I love her SO much!!

And she is ALWAYS at my feet or my side.

We brought the grand babies home from church on Kayla’s birthday so she and David could have a date!

It was SUPER fun!

Have I mentioned how much we are enjoying these guitars?

Well, we are!!

Chad’s teacher told us that Chad has been his student that has caught on and advanced the quickest!!

We are getting things in order for Chad to be part of the worship team at church!!

He sings when he plays and my heart is in a puddle every time.

We had five dentist appointments this week.

Some crazy lady in charge of our calendar made the appointments for 8 a.m.

CRAZY, I say!

It was nice when we were all through to have the rest of the day before us – because it actually was a nice, warmer day!

These two.

They have been best friends since the day they met and have grown up like twins.

They headed out one night this past week to eat to make good on a gift certificate that one gave the other.

I love, love how they invest in this all important relationship!

The finches have all molted and gotten their bright feathers!

Someone forgot to tell them it is still the dead of winter here in Wisconsin.

We had our first lunch and play date at River’s new place!!

It was FANTASTIC, as always!!

We sang this song at our women’s meeting at church this past month, and I loved the words.

I decided it should be the next song that the kiddos and I learn!

My helpers.

They are both also my talkers.

I mean NON-STOP talkers.

While we were putting away dishes this night I learned about six species of birds and the fascinating fact that worms cannot drown.

I love listening to them!!!!

We woke up this Friday to some serious RAIN.

And WIND.

I headed to town anyway and nearly drown while running errands.

Friday evening was to bring ICE.

And SNOW.

So, date night got cancelled!

But we took a date night at Twin Oaks in the upstairs while the kiddos were told to stay downstairs.

He, he!

Creative, huh??

The ice came.

The snow came.

It is APRIL, folks.

Some of our windows are covered in ice!

There is a bird lady who lives here.

She is OLD!

She had one of her guys put some bird seed on the patio in a dog bowl so the birds could eat under cover while it was so windy!

If they could say thank you, I know they would have!

Look how happy they look!

We were all stuck at home yesterday – which was GREAT!

Even Addie was told by her boss to stay home from work!

Nasty weather!

Warm sweaters, kiddos in pjs all day, and lots of cuddling went on!

That is until I decided to make a bunch of food and sliced my thumb on the food processor blade.

Cause what wouldn’t be a better day to go to the ER?

In an ice storm with 45 mph straight winds?

I know, I know.

I should have had Blake just super glue it himself!!

It was a nice addition to our date this weekend though.

Getting to talk to each other in a quiet ER room while we waited FOREVER, I mean.

Grant has been out since midnight hauling and plowing snow.

Church has been cancelled for this morning, and I am letting the kiddos sleep till they wake on their own!

We will have another cozy day at home today, and worship together too!

We have a family staying with us this week – something we have been looking forward to for a LONG time!

Having Twin Oaks full of people is my FAVORITE thing!

Especially people who will eat meals with us!!

Looking forward to a great week, Lord willing, of good food and fellowship!!

Hope you all have a great start to your week too!

Caterpillars to Butterflies

A while back I started a unit study with the kiddos about butterflies.

Besides ordering a bunch of books from the library and saving craft ideas on Pinterest, I also ordered a caterpillar kit from Amazon!

The caterpillars were SO interesting to watch.

Here is how tiny they were when they first arrived.

They started moving around right away.

They grew bigger by the hour!

Pretty soon (a little over a week) they were in their chrysalis.

Then it was time to move them to the butterfly garden!

Blake helped the kids set up the butterfly garden one evening while I was away at a church event.

It took almost a week for the butterflies to emerge from their chrysalis.

We did not see any of them emerge, but we got to watch as they let their wings dry and expand as they pumped them full!

Four out of the five butterflies survived.

They are hard to see in these photos, but they are there!

While all that growing was going on, we were reading caterpillar and butterfly books and doing some crafts too.

I did not take photos of all of our books – I had ordered around 40 of them!

I also do not have photos of all the crafts we have made – but here are just a few!

This craft was the kids all time favorite with this unit.

I like to stretch Eliza’s sensory capabilities any time I can in our school setting, so we use lots of paints and find lots of ways to paint with them.

It was with potatoes this day!

We also made butterflies out of coffee filters one day.

Super cute!

And caterpillars from popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners!

This unit study was so great!

Our next unit study is birds – and it will be just as great, Lord willing!

I am SO glad that I get to be a teacher to these amazing kiddos!!

We are having SO much fun!!