Talia turns 6

With Preston's sister, Natalee's wedding this past weekend, we were able to have Talia here to celebrate her birthday last Thursday/Friday.

Thursday evening we gathered at our house and yelled "Surprise" - her one request - when her father brought her back from an outing.

We had a Sundae bar - ice cream, bananas, strawberries, black berries, chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce and nuts.

I helped out by making a strawberry cake with a Danish Dessert and fresh strawberry filling and frosted with a whipped cream and cream cheese frosting.

Her main request this birthday was that she wanted a doctor coat and kit so she can doctor her animals.

Lights out for the Happy Birthday song and blowing out of candles.

Some of her cousins & brothers eating their cake and ice cream.  Jasper, Addie, Eve, Milo.

Dr. Talia had to heal her "patients" of various ailments who then gave her a paper with a letter on it.  When she had healed all of them, she unscrambled the letters to spell "Bathtub" where her gifts were hiding.

Dr.Talia in the doctor coat we gave her and with the doctor kit her parents ave her.

Talia and her gifts.

On Friday morning - her actual birthday - we fixed a birthday breakfast of Aeirdach, orange julius, bacon & fresh fruit.

Papa turns 77 - WOW!

February Birthdays

We all gathered at Trina's for Tamlen's 15th birthday celebration.  We are pleased with the beautiful young lady she is becoming.

Although we gathered at our house for pie and ice cream the day after Garth's birthday Feb. 10th - he was not to be deprived of his free meal at Tucanos when accompanied by a paying guest.  He invited his "sons" to go since I wasn't too keen on it and Guy, Garth, Deren and Sam enjoyed a lunch together the last day of February.

Impromptu Valentine dinner

When we were asked by Guy if we would help out with their children for a couple of days so he could take Trina off for a get-away for Valentine's Day, we decided to give the Harding children a proper Valentine's Dinner.

We put up decorations on our newly finished dining room wall and got the table ready

 I made hamburgers in the shape of hearts and grilled them.

I made pasta with heart shape hot dogs, cheese slices cut in the shape of hearts, heart shaped finger jello, heart shaped buns, heart shaped pineapple and strawberries and heart shaped rice krispies.

   I also made tiny heart shaped marshmallows and dipped them in chocolate.

Here are our guests - starting left and going around the table - Eve, Mitchell, Marcus, Sheridan and Caleb who wasn't feeling very well so could not really appreciate it.

Our renovations

Okay, so for those of you who want to know what we have been up to, here are some pictures.

Here I am taking the "popcorn" off the ceiling of the living room.  We had to remove it from the hallway, office, dining room and living room and it was, indeed, a "nasty" job.

Before we could paint, I had to then wash down all of the ceilings over and over again until I had removed all of the powder.





Hera Garth is taking the mirrors off the dining room wall.  He needed a thin blade to get behind the mirrors and cut the sticky corner tabs.  He discovered that his machete worked great and we only broke 3 or so mirrors. The rest came off whole and we donated them to Habatat

Under the mirrors we found paneling with several holes in it.   Underneath that, was a wall of many small pieces of wall board so we got some new thin  wall board and put it up.  Home Depot was able to match the existing paint and . . . . . .

This is what it now looks like!

Drake was rather unhappy with us when he came for his grandfather's birthday celebration and found that we had taken out the mirrors.  Oh well, we can't please everyone.

For those who haven't seen the difference it has made to take out the portion of the wall separating the living room here are a couple of shots.

        

 

  We are really enjoying the changes!

Our Halloween Party 2012

Shelby and her roommate, Macy.  I made Shelby's costume

 

A picture is worth a thousand words so I will just let you look at the pictures

Back Row: Stephanie and John, Shelby, Macy, Mellissa and Jake, Drake, Marcus,  Alden, Tamlen
Front row" Caleb, Owen, Kasen, Mitchell, Nyah, Addie, Eve & Kalen
Floor:  Taren and Trysten as "The Cats"

Our New House 2012

The garage

A  picture of the front of the house

Back yard

The deck all along the back of the house

Master bathroom shower

Master bathroom

 Guest Bedroom

Hall/Guest bathroom

Hall/Guest bathroom

Living room with fire place

Front Door and entry way

Our office/sewing room

Another view of deck

side of kitchen.  Garth is in small dining room with mirror wall

Kitchen

Laundry room

Large over sized garage