Roof, the finished product

Yesterday afternoon things started moving very quickly as the roofers began the next phase of installing our new roof. And as you can see Camden got his wish and got to take a trip on top of the roof with dad. 

 Just a few hours later, we have progress, and a big mess.

 And then fast forward to today, the finishing touches. As you can see our yard took a bit of a beating from the dumpster that was parked in our grass, but a little sand and dirt will have it looking great again real soon.

 It's all done and we are very pleased!

 An up close look

Now we are all set for the rain that we are supposed to get tomorrow!

Roof, part 1

Today is an exciting day around our house. It's the day our new roof goes on! We are so thankful that our entire roof will be replaced without any money out of our pockets. Thank goodness for homeowners insurance and the storm that happened on Oct. 5th that allowed this to become a reality. The boys have been really excited about this day, especially Camden. He likes anything that has to do with building, construction, and work. So he jumped out of bed this morning at the first sound and has been busy soaking it in all day long. I knew we wouldn't get much homeschooling in today due to the noise and all, so we packed a lot of work into the past three school days so we could take today off. The roofers were nice enough to let the boys take the old shingles off the shed roof so they had fun with that, and Camden came in and announced that he thinks he might want to be a roofer when he grows up. I sure love that boy! So this is what has been going on so far today:
Supplies delivered

 Getting started taking off the old roof.

 the boys get to work on the shed.

 Dad let them stand on top of the shed roof but what they really wanted was to be on the house roof right in the mix, sorry guys, not today.

 My husband, Mr. Inspector. I haven't seen much of him today because he has been busy making sure everything goes according to plan. I keep reminding him he's not being paid to help, but he just can't sit still.

Roof part 2 coming up later!

Easter fun

I do realize Easter is still over two weeks away but we are celebrating Easter in full swing. I figure we spend the whole month of December preparing to celebrate Christ's birth so why not spend the month leading up to Easter celebrating the Resurrection of Christ. It has been so much fun to incorporate this fun into homeschool. Thanks to some great ideas from my friends homeschool blog that you can find the link to on yesterday's post, and some ideas of my own, we have been having a great time.
Today we made these beauties:

We also ate some of these yummies:

And we have been enjoying reading from these books. The illustrations in these picture books are AMAZING. We just read the first chapter of The Bronze Bow and I think we are going to love it!

On Tuesday of next week we will begin doing these, a tradition we have done for the past several years.

Oh, and we enjoyed some rice krispie treats with mini cadbury eggs in them, they were DELICIOUS. And that is why there is no picture of them here because they are all gone. We made them before we left for the cabin and that was our tasty treat while we were there. Have you noticed a theme here? We like our Easter treats.

And you may be wondering why I took a picture of our vacuum. It has nothing to do with Easter. I just wanted to share a picture of it because I am really in love with it. We have been in  need of a new vacuum for several months now. We had some extra money set aside to buy this and were able to make the purchase a few weeks ago (right before Michael was out of work). I really love it and find myself vacuuming a lot. There is nothing like a new vacuum. Even our cars have had the royal treatment from this beauty. And I love how it's yellow, I LOVE yellow. Makes me love Dyson even more.

Praying hands

I have enjoyed getting some wonderful homeschool ideas from my friends blog, I plan on using many of her Easter activities/book recommendations/treats in our homeschool during April. Today we made praying hands. All we needed were these three items: pillsbury pizza crust, kosher salt, egg yolks.

I cut the dough in thin strips. Then the kids tried to form their dough in the shape of praying hands:

 It was a little more tricky than it looks so we came up with some unique shapes. And if your wondering why Anna is in her jammies, it's because she woke up not feeling too well this morning and was running a fever.

Anna came up with her own idea and did a heart shape, that works too! After the dough was made into the correct shape, we brushed some yolk onto the top of the dough and then sprinkled with some kosher salt, cooked as directed and wa-la, we had praying hands and various other shapes.

Before the kids ate their treat, they were challenged to pray for someone other than a family member, it's so often we pray for each other and we need to make sure we are lifting others up in prayer too. After they prayed, I asked who they prayed for and it was unanimous. They each prayed for our neighbor Thomas who left earlier this month to be a missionary in Japan with the Mormon church. It's hard to believe that when Thomas gets back our boys will be 12 and 14 and Annagrace will be 8! He arrives back home March of 2014. 

the great outdoors

We spent a wonderful weekend enjoying the great outdoors from one of the most beautiful places on earth (in my opinion), Munds Park. We are so thankful for the generosity of our friends who allow us to stay at their cabin and enjoy this great place! When we are there it seems as if time stands still and the worries of the this world fade away, not to mention it is a boys paradise.