Summer Fun

School has slowed down for the summer. We have just 2 subjects to work on, Math and Language Arts. Usually we do a lot of activities thru the summer, attending festivals, road trips, museums. We will try to do some of that, but honestly, most of our time will be spent working on the house! I hope this proves to be a summer they will remember, despite it's general lack of "fun". The fun will have to more of the homegrown variety, like backyard games and time with our friends.

Here is a sampling of some extracurricular things we have done this summer:

Eddie has been learning to mow the lawn (supervised of course), and the boys have had a great time shooting bb guns in the backyard with Dad. We also managed to get over to the Kenai River Festival for an afternoon, where we painted some wooden fish, met some mimes and Eddie was kind enough to stand behind the mermaid cut out, while his brother was the whale! What a great big brother. There are lessons in each of these: selflessness, diligence, patience, not to mention the value of hard work. I'm hoping these will be lessons that stick! Perhaps they are learning afterall....

Daily Miracles

The boys have been so helpful while we are working on the house! Often times they are stuck in the car with the baby, listening to Jim Weiss stories on CD. Hopefully that will change soon since most of the smelly/toxic things have been washed or removed from the house.


Liam kept himself entertained for an hour or so while I worked, and then my mom came to take him to her house. He was so cute, making "L" noises to himself!

We are planning on having a nursery next to the master bedroom and we would both really like that to be the first room finished. It would sure make things easier to have a bed to put the baby down for a nap and a clean, safe place for the kids to play while we work. It would also be nice to not have ask for someone to babysit every day! I need a couple of hours every day to work or I start to feel like I'm not pulling my weight.

If we can get everything torn out and possibly painted and repaired before our tax rebate gets here, we will be able to move on to installing flooring and appliances (and maybe renovate the bathroom!) right before we need to move in. God has gone before us every step of the way with this house and I am trusting that He has worked out every detail.

I can't express how awesome this week has been! From the hardwood flooring that was found, to the materials we have come across, and even the piles of carpet sitting outside, that are right now keeping the nettles at bay, I have seen God move and heard His voice this week. I am so thankful that He has blessed us and He has a plan! I am especially grateful for the time that my boys get to spend with their dad, working on this project. It has been a real blessing to see their faces light up and their attitudes improve just from having Dad choose them for a job! They are so proud to be helping. I have been praying for this for a long time.

Keep praying for us! We are trying to remember to return the blessings when we get the opportunity, letting God use us and listening for His promptings. I pray that you will be listening for His direction and looking for the blessings in your life, however small they may seem :)

No Apologies

An acquaintance of mine just found out she is pregnant with baby number 4! I'm happy for her and wish her the best, but it seems like she is getting some flack from her and her husband's family and friends! That has really become an irritation for me! I hear that each time I get pregnant and it is SO annoying!

I'm so sick of listening to random opinions flying out of people's mouths concerning pregnancy and children. A) Its not your place to tell someone how many kids you think they should have, B) its just plain rude and inconsiderate to not wish them well, but instead chastise them for having a child! Maybe you don't consider children a blessing? Good. Don't have any of your own! Maybe you think they have too much on their plate? Trials build character and ability, which these naysayers must be lacking or they wouldn't share their opinion so readily.

Some people find raising children to be a wonderful kind of life. No one said it should be or would be easy. No one asked you to donate or pitch in to help raise a large family, and if that is the basis for the criticism (i.e. having a large family that is dependent on welfare), I do agree, but most often that is NOT the case. If you are bothered by children in public place, don't go there! Find other times to do your errands or dine. Children keep this county, and our economy, going!

It is a fact that U.S. has fallen below the replacement birth-rate (the rate at which our future generation will replace our currently mature workforce), much like most of Europe, Japan and China, and will see a major workforce shortage in the next 2 generations and will not be able to support its aging population (that's you, baby boomers!) I personally think that this will allow us to eventually get our federal finances back in line and rediscover our values as a nation, but I could be wrong. In either case, the people of child-bearing age who don't want to have children feel that they are doing the world a favor by not having kids, and I feel that I am by having them!

I won't make apologies for wanting or having a big family. I take care of my children, teach them to be upstanding citizens of sound judgement and compassion. I take pride in my job, and this is the one I am best suited for! You should be thanking me for making the world a better place.

Am I done? No. I'm not positive we'll have more kids, but I wouldn't mind if we did! Am I tired? Sure, but its a good tired, one that comes with a job well done, and I'm not about to quit half-way thru!

Finally, to all the critics out there who ask pregnant women "Don't you know what causes that?", as a woman with 9 children once said " Yeah, we do, and we're darn good at it!"

Lasagna Gardening

Last year, I planted started a lasagna garden. My mother bought the book for me a few years ago, and like any good daughter, I set it aside with a "huh, yeah" kind of attitude and forgot about it until last spring. I am so glad I have that book! This might be the easiest method for starting a new garden, ever. Its so easy that the idea can be shared with a friend in a matter of minutes and they can be home creating their own garden that same day!

I didn't plant a lot last year. In fact, I only planted potatoes and only because my brother works for a restaurant that had a box of sprouted taters and gave them to me for free! So I rounded up my materials: a pile of newspapers, 2 bales of straw that we had been using for an arrow stop for our targets, and the hose. That's it! No dirt needed, no special ingredients, at least not when you are only planting potatoes. The author claimed that potatoes could be planted on nothing more than wet newspapers, covered by 8-10 inches of straw or hay, kept watered and they would grow.... and they did! I did a 5 by 15-ish section in my garden (that I had previously tried to rototill!) and come late September, I was astonished to find new potatoes under the layer of straw when I lifted it off with my pitch fork. The best part is that they were really clean! Who would have thought?

Somewhere I have pictures of what the potatoes looked like at harvest. We didn't get many (I didn't plant until the middle or end of June, I think) but they were good. While the hay was off the newspapers, I added a thick layer of leaves that had been raked into piles in the yard, covered them up with the straw again and then the snow flew not too long after that.






I had planned on adding more layers this spring, but since we are moving, I had the burden of clearing my materials and preparing to reseed the lawn. These pictures show how after just one winter, the soil is bare, no weeds, and it was moist and crawling with worms when I took off the layers. The bits that you see that appear to be grass are straw that was left behind.

I am so excited to lay down new beds at the new house! I saved all my materials that I took off.

It really is that easy! I'll only do potatoes this year, but now I know that I can add lots of layers under my straw in the fall and have some really great beds for spring planting!

It's ours!

We finally closed on our house on the 28th! I started a blog about the house, called "Our Irish Manor". We've taken the weekend to relax and that proved to be necessary since by Sunday morning, everyone was sick! It started with one boy and moved on to dad and then even I was feeling queasy by the late afternoon. Today, I am feeling back in the game and have spent most of the afternoon working in the yard at the house we have been renting. We've been here for 5 and 1/2 years! I know that it will be difficult to leave when it comes time, but its definitely exciting to know that we won't be tripping over each other or our things in the new house. The idea that it is ours trumps any pangs I have about leaving behind this home for another!

I want to share our list that we made before we started shopping for a house. We had looked around at houses for a month or so and I could see that we were going to have a lot of conflict when it came time to get serious. So we made a list! Let me tell you, this is not a "name it and claim it" kind of thing. That wasn't the idea. We wanted to have a clear idea of what it is that we were looking for before we started arguing about houses and we wanted to honor God by trusting that He already had a house picked out for us, we just needed to be patient and let Him show it to us. We were blown away! The very next day after we made our list, our house was on the multiple listing site! Was it there before and we just hadn't noticed? Or was it reposted, at a lower price, just for us? We don't know, but it fit all the things on our list and even the ones that we didn't put down because we figured we could "work on that later" or they were already a must and didn't require further discussion between us!

You can see that I added two things at the bottom of the list in a different color ink. That is because they were added the following day, after I realized there were a couple more things that I felt were important for me, as far as location. The really funny bit, where I know that God must have a sense of humor, is that there is a man-made lake across the street from us (the swimming?) and we are just up the street from a creek that flows into the Kenai River (the fishing!). Isn't that neat?! God is so good and His provision exceeds anything that we could ask for!

Add my new blog to your reading list so you can stay abreast of our progress!

New House!

Well, we are buying a house. FINALLY!! I'm soooo excited to have a place that will be ours! We have been renting since we were first married and while we have been fortunate to live in some very nice places, it is still not quite like having a place that belongs to us.

The house we are buying is big. So big that I wonder how I will keep it clean! And then I remember that our things won't be quite as underfoot as they are now (and we are purging during the move!) and that these children will be doing much more than they are now. It will be so nice to have a storage space that is accessible! And two *squee!* bathrooms! I think I am most excited to have a bathroom that will be predominately "mom's". No more wiping up to sit down!

It feels like this homebuying process has taken far longer than it should. Initially, we thought that the house was unfinanceble with a conventional loan, since it will need SO much work to get it liveable. After pursuing a complicated Renovation loan with a not-so-wonderful bank, we went back to our bank to get that conventional loan. It is a little bit frustrating, considering all the work I put into getting the reno loan, and even more frustrating that the renovations will have to come out of pocket now instead of being financed with our loan, but ultimately it will be better for our family. I can honestly say that it was a struggle to honor my husband's decision on this one! I know he's right, but that doesn't always make it easy to agree with him.

I'm considering creating a blog all about our home renovation. It might be a good outlet during what I'm sure will be a stressful process. I have some dream projects in mind for our new house. I tend to get an idea in my head and then run with it, which can lead to a lot of problems later when things change and then I get my dreams dashed! Keep us in prayer during these final days before closing. We both have some strong feelings about what should be done and how, when, etc. We're surviving, but we really need to be more unified! In the end, we will get there. Pray that we will honor God in all that we do, placing Him before all things. That's when we will have real peace and unity :)

Why I dont shop at Walmart

Im protesting. Its silent, its with a smirk, but Im protesting the new Walmart in our town. No one will notice or care, but that is what I am doing.

Walmart opened about a week ago in our town. Its new, its huge and you can see it clear across town at the memorial park! Try it sometime. Go to the gazebo in town, at the park by the Uptown motel (Leif Hansen Memorial Park?) and there is it! Enormous, towering above everything else in our little town, even though it's half a mile away. No missing it, we have a Walmart.

I dont care for Walmart. I dont care for big box stores in general, but my dislike for Walmart borders on detest. I hate shopping there, crammed between rounders with my should-be-convenient shopping cart, run over by other shoppers looking for the Jug-o-soap. Its miserable. On top of that, I get the satisfaction of knowing my money is going not into the pockets of American companies, but factories all over Asia. Sure, Im helping them, but what about all the people in my community?

"But Walmart brings jobs!" I hear people protest. Yeah, they bring jobs, but what about all the people they are putting out of business to provide "jobs". Jobs that don't have much of a future, I might add. Not much potential for moving up, or increasing pay and forget about overtime!
It was the same conversation when Kmart came in. They came, they unemployed, they left. The city was able to get another store in there (wouldnt want to lose those tax dollars!) but can we do that again, with a bigger building!?

Im exhausted with "more". I'm well aware that eventually I will have to go in there for some random plastic "can't find it anywhere else" thing, but for now, I'm protesting.


Update: As of September, I have been in the Walmart one time. We went camping and my husband insisted on stopping there on our way out of town. I only saw the food section, which I was thoroughly unimpressed with, and then made a mad dash out of there. I hear they have organic coffee..... if ever there was something that would lure me in, that is it. I'm still protesting though. :P