Aaaaand out!

with two minutes to go.

Trying... so... hard... to... stay... up!

Really?

I cooked 1.8 kg (!!) of Spaezle this evening to go with my New Year's Eve Gulasch... Let me be clear, I had to use *two* frying pans the size of this one to do so. And this is how much was left over. We're all stuffed and nobody is willing to eat just a handful more...

More from the artiste!

Dog with car glamour shot

Nice sunset... but wait...

... how did he get so BIG?!?

Merry Christmas again!

Here was the setup the night before. :)

Merry Christmas

Ok, so I'm a little late in posting this... but here we have our Christmas morning "before" post. Well, except that the stockings had already been raided...

Cookie factory

I may be a few days late but I still wanted to have some Christmas cookies this year.

Merry Christmas

From a trio of labradors!

Throwback!

Just found this little gem on my phone. Dated November 22, 2018.

There are warm dry sheets in the dryer!

Talented... and prolific!

Portia made art for everyone this Christmas. I may have missed a few pieces...

Fuddnuddler Kids

For Four Days?!?

I guess when you have the space, you fill it! We are headed to Dripping Springs Sunday - Wednesday. Only five people... Daddy said it was "ridiculous." And en we laughed and kept packing.

Happy Fourth Sunday of Advent!

Gingerbread House

Carollo gave everyone in my office a gingerbread house kit that we decorated during our office's virtual holiday party this evening. Portia helped, too! I'm not sure we're going to win the decorating contest... but we had fun!

How it’s going (part 2)

Daddy has been doing most of the glueing, but Portia is there to witness it all!

How it’s going

This is Portia this evening helping sand down the burrs in the channels Daddy cut into the various boards for her car house, which will help with glue and assembly. The refined car house design will hold up to 20 cars, with a tunnel through the bottom and an open attic for the "cars that go so fast they can fly."

How it started

This is the first of a multi-part series playing on the current theme of "how it started - how it's going" where people post two photos adjacent to one another showing the beginning of something compared to where they are now.

This photo shows some drawings Portia made - completely by herself and unprompted - showing the four side views and a scale drawing of a "car house" that she wants to build for her (the kids') match box cars. The two on the left are side views and the two on the right are the front and back views, respectively (they have doors!). Note the scale (and the use of fractions!) on the scale drawing on top! We had to shrink it down a little bit to be a realistic design. :)

Important conversations

Today's important lesson: don't snort tomato soup (from our bread bowls)!!

Ta-da!

All of our light strands (except the two on our tree inside) are now wrapped around the branches of our Live Oak. It's pretty cool when you're standing right under it and look two stories up to see lights above you.

Phase II

Well, we had our hot water heater go out after the first day of tree wrapping so we had to take a hiatus to deal with that... but tonight we have mild weather and the wrapping continues!

Pinewood Derby

All four kids raced pinewood derby cars for cub scouts this weekend. We took advantage of being at the track early for setup to race a head-to-head all-Tanner heat. Cars are in increasing age order left to right. Yes, Portia beat us all!

Should have posted this photo instead

I had a very enthusiastic helper picking our tomato bushes clean.

Which of these things is not like the other...?

Hard frost forecast for to tonight so Portia and I picked what was going to be our biggest tomato crop ever... there was one that has a chance at ripening. The others, I'm not too sure about. Anyone know any recipes for green tomatoes?

And because we can never do only one thing at a time...

There was a dead limb that needed removing "while we had the ladder up there."

This is the year

We finally decided this is the year where we put all of our lights up in the big oak tree in the front yard. It involves long ladders and lots of ropes and climbing gear to keep Neal safe. This photo shows about half the lights... stay tuned for more (literally)!

Ready to work!

The kids certainly did their fair share of work during our pre-Thanksgiving trip to Dripping Springs this week. Here is Portia all geared up for some lopper duty (to snip little cedars before they can become big cedars).

Watching the cedar shredder at work

We had to keep a safe distance but the kids enjoyed watching the cedar shredder make light work of the designated areas.

Hide and seek

She was hot and it was nice and cool under the car...

This was the view

From my hammock this afternoon.

Color matching

Overalls and grass!

There once was a girl

With a curl
In the middle of her forehead
...

I thought they had gone to bed...

Yeah, right! Instead, they were making good use of their headlights to do maze puzzles in the tent.

No clever title...

Jeepers Creepers...

"Wiley open your eyes wider and smile."

First tooth!

This one has been a long time coming, so Wiley was especially excited when his tooth started wiggling a few days ago. And today, it finally fell out!

Moving out...?

Nope, just camping for three days. Kiwi knows we are packing and will not leave the front hallway for fear of being left behind. 😂

Teenager in the making...?

Graydon slept in late this morning (until 9:30!) and so someone is super impatient for her morning run.

Time for a Test Drive!

The saga around Daddy's truck has been truly epic. After spending over a year at the shop that was supposed to restore it (that then closed when the owner died), waiting for the paint shop to finish the job (which they never did), and getting it back in pieces with "some assembly required" ... today is the day it got (almost) all put back together. It's still missing the tailgate, but otherwise it's in good shape. Portia got to be Daddy's copilot.

The other reality

This is what half my work day looks like every day now. I absolutely love my colleagues... but they can be somewhat needy at times. And they leave such a mess behind!

COVID Technology

We finally upgraded our zoom setup for piano lessons. When this all started in March, Daddy strapped a 2011 android tablet to the tripod for zoom calls. Being able to easily relocate and aim the tablet has been super handy, but we finally decided to give up on the nearly ten year old tablet since we have two brand new iPads (courtesy of AISD) in the house. Portia and Graydon helped build the new mount this afternoon and got to learn about helicoils!

Virtual school in action

This is another picture of what virtual school looks like for us. Taking the time to be thankful these days, we are so fortunate to have a dedicated space, supplies, and headphones (!!) for everyone.

Alpen Prinzessin

In case you were wondering

Portia is reading too but was exiled to the kitchen - for whispering (!!) - because she can't quite read in her head yet.

Quiet...

The kids decided to have a "reading party" before supper and it's deathly quiet in the house. I'm a little worried I've landed in a parallel universe.

Forging

Graydon got to try his hand at forging a knife from a railroad spike.

Creature Power Disks

Wiley and Portia are now very into Wild Kratts, so we made a few extra creature power disks.