2 teeth! and some pics

So my little man has gotten two more teeth today. He is growing up so fast, one day very soon he is going to start walking on his own. He cruises around the furniture and will climb up things. He is so interested in what his brother is doing, always crawling over to him to help play cars or whatever he is doing. Eli is really good with him, but will take things away from him if he wants to. Haven't posted many pictures so here are some of my babies.

Gray day

Well another gray day here in Eastern Oregon. Yesterday was so darn beautiful and I was stuck inside working. Really not a fan of being trapped inside on the nice days. Looking forward to this weekend's forcast, we should have a beautiful weekend! Might check out the bird festival and work on the garden and just enjoy my family! But it also looks like the days leading up to the weekend will be very blah. So I just hope to get through the blah and move onto the beautiful!

Now what?(Recycling)

Since I posted about the last day of recycling on Saturday, I thought I would write about how terrible it is to not have an opportunity to recycle anymore. Burns is a small community distanced from major towns by quite a distance. We have had a volunteer recycle program for many years, then recently we had a commercial recycle place take over. This made the volunteer program unnecessary so we were left in the hands of the large commercial venture. I loved the program. They would take your stuff and sort it for you. They were open 6 days a week. Then the unthinkable happened. The stuff isn’t worth anything anymore. Now they are no longer in business and our community is left with no recycling at all. I consider myself a “green” person. I recycle. I have even trained my family to separate the recyclable stuff from the easier to dispose of trash. Now what am I to do? I feel like it is not an option to throw the stuff away. I think that our local government should provide that service. Perhaps they need to subsidize the recycle business, hiring him as a contractor so he can provide this service. What I don’t think is right is that we don’t have any option to recycle now. How can such an important issue be without solution in this day and age? And what do I do now?

Here it is, monday again. So this weekend was very eventful in the Ward household. Saturday was a halfway pleasent day full of cloudy skies and mild temperatures. After a trip out to grandmas house, we started our backyard bonfire complete with branches and weeds to burn. It was something that needed to be done as we had 2 years worth of christmas trees in the pile. Then we started cleaning out the garage and took 2 loads of cardboard to the recycle place because it was the last day of business for them. Good thing is now our garage can be organized. I say can be because it isn't that way yet.... Hey, have to save something for next weekend, right?

So the last thing to be completed was the building of the raised beds for my garden. That was duly accomplished as well before the end of the day.Sunday was a real shitter of a day. Cold and windy with snow trying to come down. But the good news was that we got to spend the day together inside as a family and do some cooking. Josh has been making our bread for the past week in my bread machine. We have vowed to not buy another loaf because it is too easy to make in the machine. So Josh cranked out a wonderful garlic loaf in the morning. We also baked a ham (delish) and made stuffing with all sorts of left over bits of homemade bread and bagels from the freezer. It was also delish. We also made cookies and rice krispy treats, however I varied the treats and used special k cereal as well. It was awesome that way. So there we have our productive weekend in a nutshell!!

Well, for a couple of days all I have been feeling is blah. I don't know if it is because the days are getting fairly spring like and I am stuck inside or what. I hope that this weekend I can get some more work done and start feeling good about myself again. Like I said before, gardening is my big push this weekend, and I would love to clean out my garage too. It would feel so good to be organized and not have piles of stuff everywhere that has no purpose.
That being said, I think that if something has been in my garage for 2 years with no use, it can safely be given away. I would love to be able to use my garage, and not for the cars like most normal people would but for projects like woodwork or the like. So hopefully my family and I can be very useful and productive this weekend and get our lives and house organized! Wish me luck.....

So here it is, the end of another work day. It is only a couple of days til the weedend and the promise of better weather. Today was funky with snow and wind, but it is supposed to get better towards the weekend. I really want to do garden and yard work. I miss being able to be outside everyday and can't wait till it is time to garden and grow my own produce. My dream is to be able to start my own CSA and hopefully have animals too in a coop type situation. But that is sometime in the future and for now I will be happy to grow food for myself and my family.

It was so great to work on one project. Now I have big plans to do other big projects. One thing that is very high on the list is planning and working in my garden. I have a good idea what I want to plant and how I will lay out the planting boxes. Now I just have to do the manual labor part as far as getting rid of the weeds and getting the raised beds in. Then a fence built. And hopefully by the end of summer we will have an abundance of fresh produce grown by me personally. I can't wait to finally eat something from my garden.

Well here it is, Tuesday, and now I can brag about how much we accomplished this weekend. It was pretty chilly and snowing so we were forced to work inside. I will post pictures when the project is finally complete, but right now we are just working on finishing touches.
We put up bead board on the biggest wall in the downstairs bathroom. It got a couple of coats of a pale blue paint. Then I painstakingly taped the top of the wall to paint stripes. It sucked, and I mean like big time. But after working on the painting project all weekend, it is finally finished. The top has red and blue stripes and looks really cool. We bought a jigsaw to cut out the light switch part and learned how to use it. It is so cool! Josh also made a pegboard for the wall that looks awesome. He also cut out custome brackets for the shelf and it looks so cool. The last thing to do is finish putting the shelf up on the wall and stain it. Then I will post the pictures.
It felt really good to work on something and see the results. Both days I fell into bed completely exhausted, but very happy with the progress.

Well here it is Friday, and boy oh boy am I ready for the weekend. While it doesn't seem like I work very hard at my new job, it is so nice to be able to do whatever I want for a couple of days. Last weekend we (being me and Josh) accomplished so much moving thing around in our house and all around tidying up the place. I hope to at least match that production and at least get some of my garden tilled and my raised beds built. It does look like we are expecting crappy weather, but I don't want to let that stop me. I also want to get some inside work done. I want to at least start on my quilt and plan my bathroom remodel (just some paint and a little changing on the wall). So TGIF and heres to hoping that I will accomplish something this weekend.

Here is a cute picture of Noah from when we were eating out at Red Lobster.(The food sucked monkey balls, even Noah who eats everything puked up some of my french fries...) He will take the straw and put it in his mouth like a dog. He even makes a noise to go with it. Hilarious, for reals!

So, I logged into my blog account and saw that the last time was two years ago! That is so crazy! And then I thought to myself, self, you can do better than that. What a way to keep up your writing skills and document all the happenings in your life. So here it is sis, my only blog reader, my blog. So since the last post I have had another child and watched Eli grow up some. Went through, (and still am) a rough patch in my marriage. Refinanced my house, or at least am in the process. Got a new job. Finished college, or at least finished one degree. So while all of these things are monumental, they all have happened in that past 2 years. Now my sis is having another baby and I am beginning to realize that if I don’t write some of this stuff down, then I am going to forget these stories. And really, I don’t want to forget! So I hope to turn over a new leaf and start documenting my life. In the process I will talk a lot about my wonderful babies, and some about my husband, and some about the rest of my family because these are the most important things in my life. Perhaps some great truth will surface and I will have the question that holds the meaning to life (Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy reference there). Enjoy sis 