I detest wind.

 So here are the pictures I promised but the wind wrecked some stuff last night!!! I kept hearing a bunch of bangs and a window frame in the south fell out and the whole north wall fell over. 

 From the west.

 A pier for the deck. This is what the entrance walls sit on.

South side of house.

Cheers

Ash

Yay! We have started the upstairs :)

So spur of the moment Corey decided that he would just take two weeks off and see if he could hire a couple of his uncles and another guy to help close in the house. We have been trying to get professionals to come but everyone is soooo busy and doesn't seem to have time till 'next week' and 'next week' if you get my drift. It took most of yesterday to put the entrance/mudroom up. The ended the day by putting the bundles of blocks up onto the upstairs floor ready to start in the morning.

 The difference between the house and the entrance is that the house is sitting on a footing. If you want to see the footing look here Footing. The entrance is sitting on piers which I don't have any pictures of. It's too much for me to explain on here. It is a lot harder to start placing and stacking the blocks on piers vs. a footing so that's why they had to fiddle with it for awhile.

 The bundles sitting on top of the floor waiting to be stacked. By the time they had quit working last night it was too dark for me to take pictures so I was outside at 8 am this morning taking pictures before they started working again and it changed again! I want to document this whole project and make an album yet.

 This is looking from the east.

 Same view of entrance, just closer.

View out of my back door. 

Now this is what they did today, well most of it...I will be snapping pictures early in the morning again because it got too dark for me. 

 From the east still. It is hard to get good pictures because we are so close to the house trailer.

 From the east but of the back of the house. Those windows are still just basement windows.

 North side of the house. Where that board is running horizontally above those basement windows is where the upstairs starts. It's hard to tell because it's all just white.

 This is the view from my living room corner.....lol! I hope my floor is not always this dirty! Or cluttered.... ;)

Ya there is much more than this done, so I will add more pics in the morning.

 This was my Tuesday morning view!! Just spectacular :) I was not a happy camper that morning so this helped! lol.

My babies :) Just chilling in the kitchen while I was making lunch yesterday.

Anywho, that's all for now folks!! Have a great night.

Ash

Yes I actually have contributed to this project!

 On Sunday Corey and I finally got the floor of the house all shoveled off. We had been running a few errands and the kids fell asleep in the truck so we thought we would see if they would let us accomplish this task together, and they did! Every so often I would go and check. I think Ali woke up once and I gave her suckie back and we were good to go again!

 

As you can see there are a few more sheets to put on yet to have the floor completely done.

 Hubby hard at work!

 See I am actually working!!!!!! I am going to have to try and get people to take pictures of me when I am contributing to this project lol. This worked up a good sweat!

 Our rafters waiting..........These showed up the morning after the snow quit. Like seriously, who drives on from Brandon on SHIT roads with a full load of rafters and expects someone to have their yard cleaned first thing in the morning after a snowstorm wknd??????? Sheesh. So he just dropped them in the snow and we plowed around them.

All the snow we pushed off the floor.

Corey has taken the next two weeks off to work on the house. He has hired a couple of guys to help him out so hopefully the weather holds out and we can get the upstairs walls up and roof on! So there is a good chance there will be some new pictures of true progress in the near future. On another note, this means I will have guys for lunch every day. I need ideas of what to make.....................Help!

Good night!

Ash

Diaper Tricycle

This is what I made the other day. I seen this idea on Pinterest (of course lol) a long time ago and have been meaning to make one for a baby gift. So I finally took the time to do it! If you are interested in making one just go to YouTube and type in diaper tricycles/cakes etc. and piles of ideas come up.

Cheers
Ash

Bittersweet Horfrost and Sunrises.

This morning we woke up to some beautiful horfrost!! I love horfrost. The old wives tale is that 6 months to the date later we should receive rain and if that is true that is wonderful. It means we will get a rain mid-may. Let's pray it happens bc we will most likely need it. (Unless we get PILES more snow yet)

It's also things like horfrost (and sunrises/sunsets etc.) that really make me sad for the people who are either sick in a hospital bed (too sick to go out) or passed on. Because these are such beautiful things that God created for us to enjoy and know that there is always a new day or that no matter how bad it seems there is ALWAYS something good about your day. Seriously. All I have to do is watch the sun rise and it makes me feel so rejuvenated, full and content. (not every morning mind you...he he but most) Anyways I guess it just tugs at my heart because they will never experience these things with us again. Someone said me today that my Grandpa will be able to experience these things through my eyes. I want to Thank that friend. She is so right, not only will he be able to cherish those wonderful moments in life with us still but he will always be with us. I know my Grandpa is going to Heaven and for that I am glad. Mom said he was singing in the hospital the other day and he even had a nurse that could speak a bit of low German and she sang 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus' with him. Oh how I wish I could have been there to hear him sing one last time and also to sing with him. My Grandpa loves music and loves to play instruments.

When I sat down tonight I had absolutely NO intentions of writing about Grandpa. But when my fingers touched the keyboard I could not stop. I love my Grandpa so much and I am SO blessed to have had all my Grandparents alive till just a couple of years ago. Not many people get to spend as much time with them as myself and my cousins have, or even introduce to them their Great Grandchildren! So for that I am Thankful.

So when you get to Heaven Grandpa, please say Hello to Grandpa Friesen, sing with the angels, make some home-made Summer, Comst Borsht or Noodle Soup with Jesus and don't forget to behave!

Goodnight Grandpa.
Love Ash

Passing down family recipes one generation at a time

So lately I have been on a mission to organize my duo-tang that is supposed to be my 'Canning Diary' but is also filled with my random collection of recipes. I have been wanting to make a Recipe Binder, so I started the task. I had been telling my mother-in-law about my project. I think I must of talked about it at least two or three times, the last time being at her house. Because all of a sudden she says she has something for me. It's something that she started working on for my birthday and hadn't finished it yet. Out she brings a Recipe Binder! It has our family name on the front and everything, cards to write recipes on, page protectors, etc.

Needless to say, my crappy binder went to the wayside and I transferred my recipes to the new binder.

I don't know if she could have given me a gift that meant more to me than that. I just wanted her to know how special this is to me, it's not a fancy elaborate gift or anything but I'm a lover of practical meaningful gifts.

In it she had recipes from Grandma Manns, Grandma Nelson, herself and some of Corey's aunts. Unfortunately I never got the pleasure of meeting Corey's Grandma & Grandpa Nelson and I really wish I had. I have been told more times than not how much Corey is his Grandpa Joe. Brenda even inserted a funny little phrase that Grandpa Joe used to say pertaining to a certain recipe. That made it even more special. Apparently she has more recipes to add to it yet and I can't wait to see them :)

This is something that I will treasure and use for all of my days! I love it.

Thank-you Mom-in-law!

Cheers & Goodnight!
Ash

House update and freezer burnt hotdog buns.

 All that is new new with our house is all the snow that is on it LOL! I'm glad we have the floor on so the basement did not get full.

 Out of the back door.

 Out the front door.

 Getting ready to go to the cabin.

Lifelong friends? yikes ;)

This is the best we could do for a picture of all four of our kids. Of course we always leave it till we are ready to go home and the kids are DONE! lol. Sorry Reg this is the best I could do ha ha!

So since it is hunting season, it is a tradition to have a 'Fish Fry' where our hunting crew and families get together every weekend to fry up our most current catch of meat. It's funny that we call it a fish fry because the purpose is to fry the deer meat but lots of times nobody is lucky enough to shoot anything so then we end up frying beef lol...

Last night was Fish Fry number 1...I guess to end Muzzleloader (Deer-1 Hunters-0) and to kick off rifle season. We headed over to our cabin across the road which is where we were all meeting at about 7 pm and by the time we got there both kids were sleeping so I just decided to take them home and put them to bed. So, I missed the partay last night. One of my girlfriends took pity on me and spent the evening with me while her hubby went to the fish fry.

Then today rolled around and Tanner was upset because he never got to go to the cabin so we promised him that after his nap we would go to the cabin and have a fire and roast some hotdogs. The hubby and a couple of his buddies decided to site in their guns and afterwards we all gathered at the cabin and proceeded to have a lovely Sunday evening of laughs and stuffing our faces with hotdogs and chips. Not to mention a rum and a whiskey here and there ;) Although this was kind of spur of the moment plans and we didn't really have any hotdogs or buns so Reg and I both had to mooch from our mother-in-laws!! And really who keeps fresh hotdog buns in their house in November??????? lol. I must say that a camp stove hotdog really drowns out the taste of a freezer burnt bun!

We were discussing how city people would be so bored (and probably disgusted) with our Sunday entertainment! This cabin is nothing fancy. It is an old granary that we pulled into the bush and put an old wood stove in. There has been so many memories made there. I believe it has been there for 4-5 years. It is a pit stop for the sleigh trail, a place to we have family gatherings, a place to have Birthday party's, a home for the mice (no joke ha) and it's where we spend Christmas Eve every year. A lot of BS has been told there and so many laughs.

So all in all it was a wonderful place to spend a few hours while it snowed to it's hearts content today!

Cheers!
Ash