Bustin' some moves

Here we see Big Daddy going sledgehammer-crazy on our front steps. The step cracked in half sometime back around Christmas time; it has just now made it to the front of the lineup of things that need to be fixed around here.
Busting up concrete with a sledgehammer has high a therapeutic value, as well as being a necessary step in this project. Tomorrow, we will load up the cement mixer you see there and hopefully pour ourselves a nice, new, more user-friendly front step.
This blog post has been brought to you today by the Becker Homestead Supervisory Board and Suggestion Committee, providing valuable input and unobtrusive observation to home improvement projects since 1999.

Faster than a speeding butterfly

Those small little blurs you see way out yonder in the field are a few of my children engaging in one of their favorite summer activities- chasing butterflies. Perhaps surprisingly, they manage to catch quite a few, too. They go out there every single day, all summer long. It's still early in the season, so there are only the little yellow and white butterflies zipping around out there for the most part. The kids will be languidly lying about the yard, not doing much of anything, until one of them shoots up and yells, "BUTTERFLY!" All the rest then spring into action, grabbing nest and shouting "Mine! It's Mine! I saw it first!", until the butterfly is either netted or manages to fly beyond the kids' sphere of pursuit.
Here are some very bored looking children. They may possibly be on the verge of perishing from heatstroke, as well (at least, if you took their word for it.) Funny how kids are always hot, and never cold. As soon as the temperature outside hits about 55 degrees, kids are positively sweltering. They beg to be allowed to put on shorts and wear flip flops and be served popsicles. They plead for the slip-n-slide to be dragged out. Kids don't ever get cold. I've had children come inside from playing in snow, quite literally on the verge of frostbite and hypothermia, who will not admit to being cold. I pull children out of the pool in summer, purple-lipped and shivering so hard they can barely speak, who insist they are not even a little bit cold. Huh. Beats me.
I guess I'll call this photo "during", since I neglected to take a real "before" picture of our most recent renovation attempts. We will be installing a new wood burning stove against the back wall, and then laying down a wood floor to replace the old dog-and-kid defiled carpeting. I'm hoping to be done with this before the baby arrives...

How to Move a Piano Up a Flight of Stairs in 7 Easy Steps

1. Enlist the help of several strong friends or family members who love you enough to want to help you with this difficult and mundane task.

2. Stand around staring at the piano.

3. Stand around staring at the stairs it needs to go up.

4. Discuss the merits of various methods of moving pianos up flights of stairs (this step may take up to an hour.)

5. Find a half dozen small, nimble children to dart in and out amongst the piano movers' legs, make lots of noise, and make inconvenient requests while said piano is halfway up the stairs (for reasons known only to small children, this is seen as being tremendously helpful.)

6. Move the piano up the stairs, and into its new position (this step may take up to 5 minutes.)

7. Offer sincere thanks and undying gratitude, as well as offers of reciprocal help, the the piano-moving volunteer crew.

This process may be used to move any type of heavy, awkward item up or down stairs. Here's another fun game we also played today: how to stuff a 7-foot sofa in to the trunk of a compact car. If you haven't yet guessed, we're doing some remodeling...stay tuned for more do-it-yourself fun!

Summer breeze, makes me feel fiiiiiiine....

Blowin' through the..um... laundry. What a beautiful, warm, sunny, day! Unfortunately, there are no leaves out on the trees yet. We'll just have to make due with the cool shade of our drying unmentionables.

49 Flavors

Pomegranate. Cinnamon. Buttered Popcorn. Dr. Pepper. Watermelon. Cappuccino. Peach. Coconut. Banana. Bubble gum. Blueberry. Food science has come a long way, baby.
As you can see, we got a big bag of gourmet jelly beans. The kids are marveling over the spectrum of flavors- comparing colors, trying to make guesses, trading for their favorites. I am marveling that there is a combination of chemicals out there that can make a jelly bean taste exactly like popcorn.

In which Fly has two baths in one day, and is not happy.

Fly hates baths. So much so, that she very rarely goes upstairs, because that is where the bathtub is. I am no longer capable of dragging her upstairs for a bath by myself- it is necessary for Matt to scoop her up and carry her upstairs to the bathtub when she needs washing, with the poor dog crying the whole way. Now normally, she only really needs a bath every few weeks (a bathing schedule my young sons are quite envious of.) However, this morning before church when she was let outside to do her doggy business, she found a particularly delightful pile of poop (whose, I don't know) to roll in. Since this activity left her in such a state as to not be welcome in my house, it was necessary to rush her in to the bathtub. A wet, unhappy, but much better smelling dog came out. She dried out and fluffed up while we went to church. We got home and let her out to do her doggy business again, and a boy set to work removing all the icky piles of temptation from the back yard. But alas, the dog was quicker than the boy, and managed in that few minutes to roll in yet another pile of poop. Back in the bathtub she went for bath number two. The poor dog has been skittering around corners nervously all afternoon in fear of being dragged off to the chamber of soapy horrors yet again.

Mom is great, she gives us chocolate cake!

Oh yes, for breakfast! I always make something tasty for dessert for after our Tuesday prayer meeting; if the kids are lucky, there's some left over for them the next morning. Today is a lucky day!