So here is a little look into my home. Chris and I have been married going on 8 years now. We've lived in the same house all these years and we've been trying to finish the basement as well. The top floor of our house is finished but not the basement. When I first met Chris we didn't even have stairs going down to the basement. We've been living in the top floor of our house with two small bedrooms and one measly bathroom. It's been a tight squeeze all these years, especially when it came time for a new baby every few years. All five of us have been squeezed together and now I think we're about to get more space!

This is the laundry room in our basement. It has sheetrock and carpet and did have a ceiling but we had to tear it down today to redo some plumbing. So this is what it looks like now.

This is the doorway to the stairs
This is the hallway in the basement

This will be Emily's room.

This will be mine and Chris's room

This will be Logan and Brett's room

And this is the other hallway from the stairs.

This is all the crap I had under my kitchen sink LOL. We had to pull it all out to do some plumbing. I'm thinking most of this can go in the trash.

And this video is just a little tour :p Enter if you dare!!!

Logan built a tower!!!

Ok for anyone who doesn't already know here is my official announcement... Chris and I have decided it is best for our family to homeschool our children. We have been homeschooling since the last part of January.

Today we went to a conservation demonstration for a small group of homeschoolers. It was really interesting. Brett even sat through the entire thing and payed attention to every word. The kids got to see different animals and touch the animal skins the conservationist passed around. They brought home a bunch of different booklets and a poster but the favorite item was a little card with animal prints on it. Emily wants to go out and track some critters now!

After the demonstration some of the group went to Dairy Queen and we had lunch and let the kids go out to play on the playground. It was nice to let the kids get out of the house. It's been so cold lately they haven't been outside much. The wind was blowing terribly so it wasn't nice and warm but the sun was shining and it wasn't freezing so everyone had a good time. Here's a few pictures I took.

Before the big ice storm hit I had taken the kids to the city park in another town. They love going there to feed the ducks and play on the playgrounds. I wish our town had a better park. The Bolivar park is such a nice place to go and spend a few hours. The parks in our town bore my children after about 15 minutes. There's just not much to do there. These are some of the pictures we took on our day out.

Emily was so good about helping Brett go down the slides.

We always save our stale crackers and bread to feed the ducks.

I am posting some more pictures I took of the Missouri Ice Storm in January 2007. I converted my blog over to the new Google Blogger and it has edited all my pictures below and cropped em off. So here's some new ones. I am proud to say that the local newspaper printed a full page of my pictures in the latest issue! I love taking pictures and it was really cool to have someone acknowledge them. I hope you enjoy them too.

A Missouri Ice Storm 2007

Praise God for Electricity!!!! Ok this has been one of the craziest weeks of my entire life!!! It all started Friday night when the storm rolled into the Southwest Missouri area. We got ice Friday night and lost power for the night but it came back on Saturday morning. We got more ice starting Saturday night and at about 10:00 pm our power went out again. This time it stayed out.

We got more ice Sunday and some very cold temperatures the next few days. We have not had power until today!!! I am praying for the folks who live in the rural area's who are still without power and have no reassurance of when power will be restored. They are saying it could take weeks!

At one point all of (the county I live in) was out of power. 100% of us!!! This has been such a damaging wide spread storm. There's been numerous deaths from people miss using propane heaters in their home and getting carbon monoxide poisoning.

We have had to throw out all of the food that spoiled in our refrigerator that we didn't eat. We have been staying with family who has a generator so we weren't home the past week. At one point we had to wait in line at a gas station in another town to get gasoline for the generator. Every station in town was closed since there was no power in the entire town for over 4 days.

I have taken a ton of pictures over the last week of the damage the ice has done and some beautiful scenery pictures. We are bracing for another storm coming our direction this weekend. They are saying we could get up to 8 inches of snow but please no ice!!!

I am so thankful God sent the ice and took our power away for this last week! I have never been more thankful for the home and family I have. God has to show us how blessed we are sometimes by taking away things we take for granted.

More pictures of the ice storm

Here is a light pole down in someones yard

This yard is full of limbs

This is the view from my front door

Niangua River

The creek

Mr Squirrel

These guys worked long and hard to get power back to us I love them

Here's the latest video from Brett. He's singin'

January 2th was Chris's birthday so before he got home the kids planned surprises for him. Emily made him a card and we cut a slice of cake and put a candle on it for him. Then they taped this happy birthday song for him. They all hid and we turned the lights off when he got home and they jumped out to surprise him. It was so cute Logan was so excited all day and then he had to sing happy birthday to him again after he watched the video. Kids sure are great!

I bet my mom is ready to kill me right now ;) Sorry MOM I love you! I told her two weeks ago I would post this video and I've just put it off and put it off but now I am actually doing it. On December 24th 2006 my daughter Emily was baptized. She was so excited and I was excited for her. Now I was baptized in November of 2000 and yes the water is very cold that time of year... We baptize in the river around here ;) Anyway I was trying to prepare her for this little detail and no matter how much I told her the water would be freezing cold but she'd only be in there a minute she just acted like it was no big deal. Well as you can see in the video when she stepped in she decided that it WAS actually a very big deal!!! She looked like she was gonna chicken out but luckily the preacher got right to it and didn't take his time. You can see Emily kickin' as she comes out of the water. She was cold cold cold but she says she is glad she did it :) Praise God and I'm blessed!

Brett's 2nd Birthday he got a toy vacuum cause he loves them lol and Logan was more excited than anyone.

Brett got a new big boy bed for his birthday!!! Logan helped him pick it out ;) Brett wanted the Elmo bed but Logan insisted he get the Spiderman bed... so after much thought... Brett agreed that he needed the Spiderman bed too...

It took me an hour to put the thing together but it was worth it cause Brett loves his new bed!