Barn Raisin

I managed to con Alliance Roofing (happens to be owned by my daughters grandfather...aka my Dad!) into spending their Memorial Day visiting with Annika, and working on building our garage in their spare time! In the wee hours of Friday night there was only a slab with a lot of lumber in piles in our backyard. These first few photos are from Saturday, where most of the framing was completed and the last photo was taken just a few minutes ago, with where they left off. I couldn't believe how fast things progressed while my dad, Adam & Timmy (brothers), Keith and Jonathon (friend from Ft. Rucker who lives here now... has the roommate with a plane!) worked their tails off! Keith had a ball, but they were all quite tired at the end of the day/weekend. We took Sunday off and took the family to church and toured our area to show them where we live. Danielle (sister) came up to visit with us, although I think her primary motive was to hold on to her niece as much as possible... which I was happy to let her do! So we all earned our Alliance Roofing tee-shirts one way or another, being covered in sawdust, spit up or flour (had to suck up to my dad and make all his favorite goodies!). THANKS to all who came and helped!!! We'll update with more pics as Keith and I slowly finish the project!

Springing

Spring has come and is almost gone, but we were able to get a few plants in. Mom and Dad (Lamb) sent a pretty pink hydrangea for my first mother's day and we planted it in our front yard, we'll see if we can keep it alive! Annika is growing always and smiling more all the time. She is very much a Joyful child, I believe there is something to a name like JOY!

Getting Settled

La Viva et Bella!

We closed on our new home on the 22nd. God was gracious and gave it to us 3 days early, and we were able to have our "stuff" delivered the 23rd. By stuff, I mean the tremendously large amount of junk that we own that we for some reason thought we needed. Two weeks later and we are still throwing things away. Part of the downsizing is common sense: if we didn't open the box while we lived in Alabama, we probably won't here. And we are also moving into a similarly sized house, but there is a kid in this one... who has a whole bedroom to herself! We also are trying to compensate for the lack of garage (one is in the works) and smaller closets. All in all we are VERY pleased with the house. God has been so good. We have so much more than we deserve!

Rocking chairs on front porches are so underrated. I realize it is not yet the peak of mosquito mania, and its not too warm yet, but we've used our tiny front porch many times in the last few weeks to relieve some stress. We have had some speed bumps in the getting settled process, to include the roots in the sewer that backed up our pipes for the second time today. The city will be doing the repairs, we just have to be careful until they get done. We are trying to adjust to Keith's work schedule. Its not much to complain about, but it is further from home than anywhere we've lived before (there were very few homes closer to the airfield), and we're unable to have our breakfasts and lunches together everyday. The beautiful noise coming from the lungs of my sweet baby have been a slight hindrence to unpacking boxes. It takes both Keith and I to get much done right now. But we are so close!

The neighborhood is QUITE interesting. If you want a really good comparison, watch Gilmore girls... we have it all, complete with a Babette! I am attempting to be a happily married Lorali, but I'm not quite funny enough. More about the characters of Haymount later.

Here some great pics of our sweet bundle...she's smiling (almost) all the time!

How we spend most mornings...and afternoons... Annika's favorite things are dogs and trees!

You're funny lookin'!

Hmmm... I think she literally wants an answer to, "got milk?"

Sunday afternoons were made for this!

Working on the push ups

Come on, lets play!

Oooh!

The dairy princess