Fence Stakes & BBQ Steaks

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The fence is up! After Ollie got out four times Thursday, I'm glad to have a fenced front yard. My Aunt Kaky's friend Charlie from All-Fence did a really nice grape stake fence for us, Heff's idea and I had to basically shut him in his truck and send him to work to keep him from grabbing a shovel and digging fence posts with the guys. One of his favorite things in life... building a fence. He's crazy :) But he is swamped at work and this fence couldn't wait any longer!

little stinker

and we put gates up on the back patio a few places

and just in time for Memorial Day weekend... our BBQ is in! Heff drove down to Greenfield last week to pick it up from the guy who made our last one, my Dad's tow behind and one for practically everyone of our closest friends and family members.
`
We put it down on the firepit patio by the creek and built in back into the hardscape as much as we could- I don't even think it looks that big here! Maybe if the sun would ever come out we could put this thing to use.

The horseshoe on the front was one the previous owners found in the creek. Hope it brings us good luck!

Happy Birthday Grampa!

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Monday was my Dad's birthday so we all went out to Sundance for dinner to celebrate. Jerry had class until late so we made 8:00 reservations. The girls were troopers and rallied for a late dinner out- even if Maisie had to pass out on the floor for a little while. Sundance is one of our favorite spots (our first date!) so it's always great to go there for dinner. Happy Birthday Dad!

Sidecars at the bar

Jannie and Grampa!

Em and James looking stylish as always

naptime

but she woke up to join the party not to long after

Allison and Jer- Francie moved everyone around so she could sit next to Awoo.

Queen of the table - had to remind her this was GRAMPA's birthday party

happy just hanging out

opening cards... My Dad loves birthday cards and usually gives us a bunch of cards he fills out himself from every member/pet in the family (RIP from the dead cat Tillie card is always our favorite) we have to make sure our cards represent at his birthday!

make a wish grampa! The girls and I walked down to Satura Cakes in Los Altos that afternoon and they picked a bunch of "cupcake" desserts to bring Grampa

Guess who got to blow it out?

always entertained by the spoon trick

trying hard

fun family dinner :) happy birthday dad!

House Work

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We've been doing a few things around the house since we moved in (my husband loves me- I told him this house was so great for us because we wouldn't have to do ANYTHING to it and then... somehow we've changed a few things :)

Project #1 was the guest bathroom.

BEFORE

AFTER

and I took some pictures of the creek in the backyard while there is still water in it!

We've hat a lot of rain in May this year so it's still running. Our neighbors said it usually dries up about now and then starts running again in the fall. You can walk the creek bed to the nature preserve and to the park when it gets low/dry so even though it's so great to hear the water running we're looking forward to exploring when it runs dry too!

and another project we are excited about... no more leash for Ollie! Still in the works but fencing our front yard in our old house gave us so much room to hang out and talk with neighbors we wanted to do it here too- finished pictures Friday if it's done by then :)

Farewell to the Fowl

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Saying Goodbye to Queenie, Daisy, Susie and T.T. (how do you tell a nice family inheriting your chickens you named one of them Trailer Trash??) We decided not to be those neighbors who move into to a new house with 4 chickens. Mark and Sarah had passed down two of their chickens to their old neighbors who live right near Jannie and they offered to take ours too. They have a palace of a coop in their big backyard and four happy kids to take very good care of them (I heard an egg doesn't sit for ten minutes before it is collected!) Francie was VERY sad ("But I just love Queenie more than anything in the whole wide world!") but she got through it and knows she can visit anytime.

Byebye to my 30th birthday presents!

Good job Owie

"Hey where are you taking my chicks?"

The coop is gone!

driving chickens over to a new home. Egg cartons included.

The new proud owners. I love how Francie is being pushed into the picture- she is still getting used to this idea.

It's A Pool Party

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Sunday we had like 12 things on our to do list - mostly getting things ready for tenting/closing on the old house. So we headed over to McKendry at noon to get to work and ended up playing, eating, drinking, swimming and hanging out with our neighbors all afternoon! (Well- Heff might have gotten 4 out of 4 major to do list items done himself while I played and then joined us for fun- I'm such a slacker) How are we going to ever have any fun not living next to our friends next door anymore!?! After a few hours of fun in the sun we went over to our friend's and other old neighbors the Watson's for a BBQ we've had on the books for awhile with some other families and THEN had the task of moving our chickens to their new home. It was a busy day!

Francie and Alexa (Francie borrowed Bella's suit for some swimming)

Heff and The Moo

Everyone was going to go swim at the burgess pool but Jenn called to warn us it was closed for the day (poop or a faulty heater- we'll never know :) so Sandra brought out the backyard baby pool. Just as good!

Emma leads the troops- they'd been dressed up for "shows" 30 minutes earlier

no one can move after Sancho's Taqueria and Coors Lights for lunch

Sandra fulfilling Emma's request for some tunes

Rocking Out

Baby Bella in a Bikini

Too much fun








Owen flanked by his girls. (They were all playing "family" and Owen was the Dad. I heard Francie nagging him "Oh OWWWWW-en! We have a PROBBBBBB-lem! The Baby is CRYYYYY-ing!"

RBT Captain's Dinner

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Thursday night we went to the Rebuilding Together Construction and Volunteer Captains dinner at the Dunwoody's home. The girls tagged along and were so excited to find an in-ground trampoline in their pretty backyard. Between that and the giant cakes no one was complaining. It was great to see all of our RBT friends.

being a pest while she is supposed to be sitting down eating her dinner

checking out the chicken coop (a palace compared to ours!)

Maisie making her grunting sounds. She says "duh, dish, uh-uh" for most things she wants these days

JUMP Shark! Trampolines are too much fun

gotta have some cake before we leave!

Playhouse Relocation

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Well we sold our house- now time to move the playhouse! Yup- after all that work getting it settled in a whole TEN months ago we had to get it back out the same way it went in. There isn't a great spot for it in the new house so we decided it would find a good home up in Red Bluff at Claire and Tom's. When I told Francie we were going back to the house to meet some guys about moving the playhouse she said "But Mom, it's like pretty glued down." Yes it was...

NOT happy when the hacksaw came out and it actually started coming down

"Dad put that back up!"

still mad

Whatever Francie ;)

Dad's helper- she came around to the destruction once the powertools came out

hey where did my playhouse go?

top off!

Francie said "hey it looks like a perfect little dog house now!"

the playhouse moving time was a great excuse to see EMMA!

and there it goes- ready for the flatbed truck to pick it up and drive it north!

I have to get the arrival pics from Dad's phone- he and Francie drove up to Red Bluff for the DAY to get it settled in. Kat and Donald called us Friday night to tell us they saw it in the freeway in Williams!! Better than GPS tracking :)

Playgroup

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Friday morning we made it to playgroup- it's been awhile! It was fun to see all of our friends and take a break to sit and catch up with the moms. I didn't break out my camera until the end but Ronan had a really fun house with a cool playroom, great healthy snacks and best of all he shares the love of all things Mickey & Minnie!

not sure what is going on here

adorable baby girl Austin

The round two babies- Maisie sharing toys with Cillian

and running around

Darerca and her brother (why won't mine sit and look at the camera for me!?)

and their momma MaryCatherine

Thanks to our gracious host Ronan!

Sisterly LOVE

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Sometimes I can't help myself and I have to dress the girls in slightly tacky, bright colored-ness. (Hence my latest blog changes too! Sorry ABA/Christian ;) Maisie tries to hold her own but Francie is kind of rough and tumble with her sister. Maisie usually wants to play and then ends up in tears- she's turned into quite the drama queen. Maybe the "It's Fun to be Me" shirt should have been reserved for Francie.

(wish this one weren't blurry)

For some reason Francie calls Maisie "Little Fih-Foo" now. I think that is what she was saying when I tried to take these

trying to appease me and put her arm around her sister. I give it a C+

Maisie just can't believe the doll hasn't been snatched out of her hands yet

"Wait come back!" Maisie is done with the torture (and yes that's a beer coozie on Francie's sippy cup. She doesn't like cold hands and neither do I when she attacks my mole-arm!)

More Moab

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A few more pictures some of the other girls took from our Moab trip! A rare thing- I am actually in most of them... A) because there were so many other people with cameras and B) because Maisie was attached to my hip/lap/shoulder the entire three days being sick I could barely manage to take my usual flood of photos! Thanks girls :)

Sitting outside for lunch- love the effects whoever took this pic!

hiking up, up and up (looks impressive- it was only a 30 minute hike from our rooms)

irrigated fields in the desert looks so strange

girls just wanna have fun - what a great trip!

*sidenote: my sister commented on these pics and said "you hike?"- my friend Janna facebooked me and asked what I was doing with real shoes on and my BBF Kerri said her daughter goes "that picture is so cool it looks fake. maybe it is- i mean where is her waterbottle and backpack" HA. I guess I can't fake being a hiker!

Nature Preserve

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We've been taking walks down to the nature preserve behind our house at night before dinner. We are still working on getting a fence put up so Ollie gets to go on a lot of walks. If we were good dog owners maybe we'd make it a routine :) The girls love exploring the nature preserve and Heff and I love any excuse for taking Bud Light to-go! 

Last night we forgot to grab a jacket for Francie (and it was COLD- come on summer!!) so she wore Heff's fleece.  

The first time we walked this cool place when we were still looking at the house- Heff was saying the only downside he saw was that there wasn't a good place to shoot his bow in the backyard- and then we turn the corner and found this archery range with old hay bales! Francie has a left over arrow on her shoulder...

 

Potty break. In the front yard!? Sorry neighbors- Heff taught her bad habits!!

and then Monday night we walked downtown for dinner - fish & chips! It was sooo good but probably not a great idea to have your fish, sides and vegtables ALL fried for you meal :)

 

I'm Feeling Better!

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Maisie's fever came back full force Sunday (105!) so we made a trip to the Moab Regional Medical Center ER. She was so sad and sick :( I was worried about her but we were in good hands and got all checked out before we flew home- then went straight to our pediatricians office and saw Dr. Noland Sunday night. She slept well last night (after not sleeping more than an hour at a time on my chest the night before) and was a much happier camper this morning. Her fever is down and I think she is on the mend but we're headed back to the dr this morning to make sure.

My poor little sick Sharkie on my lap at the hospital waiting for blood results. She was NOT happy when 5 people had to pin her down to draw blood, then hold her up against the wall for a chest xray and swab her throat. They check out everything in the ER and thank goodness everything was normal. She's probably fighting off a viral infection and she is a high fever kid. But she's much happier today and so am I.

worn out and heading home

she was so happy to see her Daddy!

enough with the pictures mom- I'm snuggling

And Francie was anti pictures last night but Maisie was so excited ot see her sister and perked up to play and read books with dad. We missed you Francie and Daddy!

Girls Getaway in Moab

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Thursday afternoon Maisie and I set out on an adventure to Moab Utah with some girlfriends and their babies. We stayed at a really cool resort on the Colorado River and having fun with six babies- most of the ONE year olds! Maisie came down with a fever Friday morning though so we laid low and quarantined ourselves from the others for awhile. The phone service isn't great here so we instant messaged with our pediatrician's office to check in and evaluate- good thing for technology even out in the boonies! We think she has another ear infection (ugh- I hope this doesn't mean tubes) and have been pumping her up with generic (thanks recall!) Ibuprofen getting her back to herself. She's been great today and we even ventured out on a hike to the top of the cliffs.

Red rocks- it's a really cool landscape here with red rock cliffs and "fins", desert terrain and the river running through it all.

view from our room

Evelyn and her mom petting the horses (Maisie wanted to go see the "doggies" as she calls all animals but then freaked out when we got too close!)

as close as she would get

On the run

swinging when we arrived

and then this was our Friday. Quarantine with infant Ibuprofen, lots of water and her favorite doggie book.

little sharkie slept... She took like 12 naps and luckily I brought my laptop so I actually had peaceful, uninterrupted time to get some things done and snuggle with her

and she's up. "Hey! I'm number ONE this weekend!" She is being really cute and loves having mom time all to herself I think :)

she took this picture all by herself. I guess she's seen me use a camera a time or two :)

still happy fighting the fever

After cabin fever took over sickie fever we went out for a little walk around the ranch

"Hummm... which way are those horses??"

self portraits

"Nice to meet you too. Just don't try to lick me again."

awww- sad sick sharkie eyes

but this place is so cool!

rock sorting

sunset playtime

"Dude. Stop taking pictures and catch the ball mom."

afternoon activities- the ladies and babies congregated outside our room on the grass for a cocktail hour of girl talk and trashy mags while the babies played in the sun

Beth, Maisie and the resident dog have a chat

Noelle taking good care of baby Paloma while her mom gets a massage - it was tag team efforts all weekend!

and then an hour later the clouds rolled in all of the sudden and a huge storm dropped buckets of rain on the resort! We golf carted it to the lodge for dinner in the bar

Maisie had a much better Saturday- more pictures next...