I can hear it in my head!

I introduced Morgan to the group Anonymous 4 on our drive to Eagle River yesterday.



After hearing this she stated:
I can hear it in my head! Can you?
(me) Yes, and I can hear it in my heart too!
YEAH! That's what I mean, I think God is talking to me in my heart. Can Dad hear this in his heart too?

Of course then in 4 year old fashion she was utterly distracted from our conversation by a painted bowling ball made to look like a bee!

Playing Baseball

Morgan has been very interested in playing baseball. She developed her own equipment with a squeezy heart ball and a tube of bubbles for her bat.






I decided to indulge her and buy a kiddy bat and ball - she's really quite impressive! We then added bases for her to run. They put her over the top a few times because she thought she was losing each time she would run and Papa would get the ball. When she realized that she could win by running the bases before Papa got the ball and got himslef back to the pitcher's 'mound', things really got fun!

Apprentice Painter

Morgan wants so much to help with all the house work, so why not, we let her join in when it's OK
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The next few clips are of her stenciling her cieling fan blades. We were at Lowes and she saw a 'girlie' fan with pastel blades and butterflies - I was tempted to get it for her, but the long term use of it outweighed giving her the pretty thing for her room. Inswtead I told her we could paint the blades with butterflies (which we can repaint or just flip over later when she outgrows the cute factor)

Papa's beach

Our daily swim

Morgan-isms

We've moved into a new phase - more Morgan-isms than cute pictures. Today's: "Mommy, the world is a big nature puddle!"

Don't trip on your trip!

This was a monologue of Morgan's from her car seat:

"trip, trip, trip...
Don't trip on your trip! Oh, that could be confusing....You should say 'don't trip on your vacation!'
I hope Grandma and Grandpa don't trip on their trip!

Making Pizza

She loves working in the kitchen; she actually sat in front of the oven and watched the pizzas bake!

no more naps...

All this early spring to summer Morgan has been struggling to go to sleep at night. We decided to start cutting back her naps at school and now this summer she's not even having daily quiet time. Because of this she does fall asleep better at nighttime and in the craziest fahions.

after nodding off at the table she slept on me for a half hour

this is my favorite because she literally toppled over

she must have been sitting up with her legs crossed and crashed!

Grandma and Grandpa come to visit

Charlie and Mary Beth came to visit the new house and we took a needed break from big projects and had some fun...

Charlie helps Jim wire the kitchen for an electric box and cable

pulling cable

visit to the air museum

sitting under Duggy

building a model airplane with Grandpa

ta-da

6 yards of dirt and 10 more on the way

In 2005 the city replaced 5th Street, the street in front of the house; the owner, in one of her thinking moments, had the sewer replaced from the house to the street. The construction company that routinely got street contracts was, and is to this day, notorious for destroying front yards. They left depressions/holes in the front up to 18" deep and 10' across on bothe sides. The front sidewalk was replaced at the same time and has been at a minimum 1" proud of the yard and up to 8" proud and the dirt was erroding underneath. We thought a half load of dirt (6 yards) would be enough for the front and back, but as you see it filled in one side and only a few holes in the back. We called to get another 10 yards today and will work on filling in the other side as well as bringing it all the way up to the foundation to create a slope away to control water drainage.

MLS listing photo from the spring - if you look carefully you can see how high the sidewalk is from the grass

7.2.12 - 6 yards of dirt delivered at 9:30AM

just f few loads and we are starting to see just how deep and wide the depression is

Here you can see the space under the sidewalk.
 Jim was able to get the shovel handle all the way underneath the sidewalk.
 It's amazing it hasn't started to crumble already!

We're not dirty - just HOT.
We were working in 95 degree heat with 80+% humidity and it's only 11AM

Jim was so hot that he literally had sweat dripping
off the brim of his hat as he scooped dirt!

7.3.12 - Jason Baumgartner comes to help! Bless him! At 7:45AM no less!
 He and Jim made short work of the rest of the pile this morning

The depression is not full - Jim had to install a 2' pve pile for the clean-out
 so it didn't get buried under 18" of dirt!

you can see how far out Jim had to spread the dirt

filing in the drpression around the water shut-off

9:15AM and the 6 yards have been moved to 2 depressions
10 more yards coming later today to start on the otherside of the sidewalk