Baby #9
Posted by lommiles on Apr 18, 2009
Andrew Michael
8 lbs; 14 oz. 20″
Rather big feet!
Nursing fine and doing well. Looks like my babies except the hair is darker.
Easter Egg Hunt
Posted by lommiles on Apr 12, 2009
For your viewing pleasure: Pictures of the fantabulous egg hunt at the wee house. Dave hid 70+ eggs on the crochet lawn. The flat lawn west of the house.
But first, let’s look at the IL egg hunt. See the girls hiding really big eggs under their shirts?
This is how exciting the hunt was! And how high eggs were laid by the easter bunny. In the lilac bush?
Also note how warm the parents are bundled up compared to the IL people.
Here the moms are chatting. Note the same very excited parental unit behind them.
The Easter bunny hauled all the kids toys out onto the croquet lawn so he’d have things to hide the eggs on, under, around.
Rena wandered around and found enough eggs and then went to play in the play house.
B-girl was happy with finding her quota of eggs and plastic duckies. So she was happy playing with Rena.
It is really hard taking pictures of kids hunting eggs. They move too fast. Or they turn around and stand in the way so the camera only sees their hinder quarters rather than the hand and egg.
The easter bunny decided that the yellow eggs were for the littlest ones. The pink ones were for the middlish kids and the green and blue ones were for the over 6 yrs old and boy did they have to hunt for them!
M-man showing off the TINIEST egg!
And B-girl shows off the plastic sports duck she found!
Happy B-boy has a blue egg!
M-man driving the JD tractor. Yes, the obligatory tractor picture!
The hunting herd.
And the local family in the Big House. Soon the girls will have to reorder their positions so Mom isn’t hidden. Maybe in a year or two Mom will have to stand in front of A-girl?
All for now! The kids are gone; the car is packed and I’ll see the rest of you this week.
shed demolition
Posted by lommiles on Mar 28, 2009
Today was the day that Reuben planned to demolish the shed. He spent the week before tearing off the siding, saving the good and tossing the rotted, broken and splintered into a brush pile.
More rot. Or rather, insect damage. Carpenter bees. Carpenter ants. Termites?
The see-through shed. All that’s left standing are the doors on the front. Tessa has enjoyed being able to see the orchard from her kitchen window.
So today he assembled a couple of friends with fireman experience and cousin Jeff! First they removed the doors including the squirrel nests and leaned them up against the stonewall on our side of the road.
Then they knocked out all the braces. Next they hitched the truck to one of the posts with the logging chain. They weren’t so sure it would be easy but low and behold, easy it was!
I hadn’t thought to explain the whole process in detail to Bboy. He had a good seat to watch the show.
So, when the shed fell down he screamed in terror and cried! and begged me to pick him up. Which of course I did. But, remember, he NEVER wants me to pick him up. He has this game going pretending to be scared of me all the time and running away from the ‘gramma monster’! Otherwise, he had a good time helping me outside or playing in the dirt, whichever way you want to look at it.
Unfortunately, one corner remained standing. But that shouldn’t take much to pull it down. 
Or maybe it will.
Several pulls and a broken logging chain later, they decided to pull out the corner piece by piece.
OK. So what is holding it up?
Maybe we should try a different angle. Sure, that’ll work.
Riiight!
Finally, the last corner fell.
Now they had to move the east part of the roof away from the walnut tree so as not to damage it with the burning.
Gpa and Agirl hauled scrap to the first burn pile in The Foundation.
And the last pieces are put to the flame. It didn’t take long to burn what with the really dry wood and the tar paper roof.
And this was about as close as anyone wanted to get to the fire, too.
Warning: Do not park in this lovely flat open area. There are a million nails there. Wait until Gpa and Sim get through pulling the magnets through it.
knitting hats
Posted by lommiles on Mar 17, 2009
So my sister sends me pictures of parrots and says, don’t you think this would be a nice knitting colorway?
- knitting colorway
Anyway, I hunted through my yarn boxes and came up with these colors. Pretty close, don’t you think?
The parrot on the hat sort of resembles Gonzo more than a real bird, but I guess that doesn’t matter to Bboy anyway. He has a hat and it has a bird. What more could a 2 yr old want?
new gardens
Posted by lommiles on Mar 14, 2009
I finally realized that my brain cannot hold two thoughts together and collate them. Not with recipes – not with knitting – not with reading. Harumph. And then I realized that I had had general anaesthesia in July as well as in September. So, maybe there is good reason for the ” brain on holiday.”
So, instead I am concentrating on my physical capacities. I haven’t been sick for two weeks! That is a record. Maybe the grandkids are healthier? They haven’t had colds for a couple weeks either. And it has been nice enough outside to sit on the porch and drink tea; read a book and drink tea; visit with T and drink tea; talk to the gkids and drink tea. Mind you, I still need two sweaters.
Thanks to the power company and the partial outages, the flower beds by the doors were dug up enough to need complete revamping.
removing step stones
Last week A&S helped dig up stones and Dave hauled more stones over from a random pile. That way I could lay them out in an approximation and try it out before actually committing to a new pathway.
new paths
Bgirl loves to dig so she got to use my new trowel to dig holes along the front door slate. Then we went over to her house to steal a bunch of plants divide some of my old coral bells that were getting too cramped. Yes, that’s it. And she popped them in the ground and gently – REALLY gently – brushed a few crumbs of dirt back onto the plants. She’s a lot more sensitive to these things than Bboy who simply stomped on the newly transplanted fleurs while going down the walk.
I also wanted to expand the beds along the stone wall. The B’s were happy to help me with that too. Digging dirt and carrying it by the trowel full up the hill to another spot to drop it. Bboy was happy enough to pick up stones again which was fine by me. Of course, he liked dragging the pail with wheels up the hill and down the steps.
- Bs helping stonewall
The nice thing about dirt out in PA is that once you tear the sod off, there’s not a lot of digging to do. It’s all stoney soil, no clay, and incorporating the mushroom soil is the only thing to do. And adding it every year. So once I get the sod off the expanded sections, I just have to wait for my Jung’s order to arrive and hunt my friends’ gardens in the “Landscaping For Less” program.
early spring
Posted by lommiles on Mar 8, 2009
daffodil
moving walks
Bboy n SIL
The local farmer even took Bboy around for rides.
new trucks!
Posted by lommiles on Feb 24, 2009
I have a vehicle! I drove it home off the lot today! That was the fastest slowest car purchase we’ve ever made. Fastest because we went to the dealer’s lot and drove it home in 2 hrs. Slowest cuz I’ve been without a vehicle since September!
So this is what we got! A burgundy 2003 Suburu Forestor XS (that means top of the line) with moonroof, keyfob lock thingy, leather heated seats, 6 CD changer, and so on and so on. AND it only has 105,000 miles on it so it is practically new.
I would go somewhere, do something if only I didn’t have this draining cold. I got some cold therapy tea so that should get rid of it, right?
blog site changes
Posted by lommiles on Feb 24, 2009
Hey, my most wonderful number uno son was tired of all the headaches and maintenance of managing five separte blogs so he converted them all to one multi-user blog. That means that my website location has changed to http://lommiles.the-miles.org. Please update your Bookmarks and Aggragators accordingly because he won’t guarantee how long the current redirect will last.
Thank you,
pinewood derby
Posted by lommiles on Feb 22, 2009
I've never been to a pinewood derby and I don't recall our boys being involved in it either. I'm sure I would've remembered slicing, cutting, sanding, painting and racing. But the Sim-boy is in Cubbies and made a lovely red and gold racer. Hmm. Did not get a picture of that, so I'll have to put that in later.
It's later.
Naturally if big bro get his picture taken, lil bro has to have a picture too!
One would think that a race featuring hand-made wooden race cars would be low tech. Nothing could be further from the truth. The course was put together by an engineer and an 
airline pilot. 
The visuals were run by someone else, maybe SIL R knows the vocation of that techie. But inspite of the cameras pointed at the finish line and the straight run and their projections on the wall including the a very large projection of all the stats, someone made sure that the nascar/indy flavor had a physical presence. 
How can you have a race without car oil banners?
Can't you just feel the excitement? The roars and cheers of the crowd?
Feline Spring
Posted by lommiles on Feb 22, 2009
It must be spring. In spite of the brand new fluffy snow this a.m. I heard screaming and thumping and rolling and falling and more screaming. Finally I'd had enough and went to look out the window. Here is what I saw: 
Mind you, I don't know either of these toms. T says the yellow one comes around every spring and is the source of our white cats. I suppose they've seen the tuxedo cat, too, in years that I have been elsewhere. Usually we call the neighborhood tom Mr. Rogers but if we have more than one what happens to the name?
