January (and some of February)

Here we are nearly halfway through February already! I can't believe it!

A lot has been going on... we were in Texas until the 6th, came home to a busy week of cleaning houses, Couple's Night, spending $500 on tires for my car, a doctor appointment to find out why my hair has been falling out, cleaning day at Fanton's new house, and lots of other cleaning!

Catching up on my cleaning accounts and carrying over my cleaning schedule to a new calendar  after getting home... It's always a headache!

Lynna adores little Kenneth- actually, all the little girls do.

Cutie!

I made two homemade chocolate cream pies for our Lowis family gathering.

Josh shot a huge buck while bow hunting! It was a twelve pointer.

Abi's calf project, Bodie, went to his new forever home...

We had fun with these one night! Sam and I have Roman feet. Everyone else in our family has Greek feet. 😀 What kind of feet do you have?

Our family has number 3, the Nordic/Anglo Saxon nose. What kind of nose do you have?

Our Lowis family gathering was so much fun! We had an Italian themed meal with everyone contributing a dish.

We had it at Aunt Carol's new house.

Shy, quiet Uncle Tony had all the kids wound up higher than a kite! Here, Blake took cover on Aunt Holly's lap while Uncle Tony followed suite. It was hilarious!

My cousin Taylor with her husband, Josh, and their little girl, Evan. She is incredibly cute! They're due to have another baby girl August 13.

Testing out the new selfie stick.

Talk about chaos, try to arrange the Lowis family for a picture!

Everyone was there except Jaron, Michael and of course, T.J.

Left over chocolate cream pie...

I made soft pretzels for the first time one evening. They were so yummy!

We had an ice storm a few weeks ago.

Everything was coated in a slick layer of ice.

Our driveway was a skating rink!

Dad bought these shelves for Mom for Christmas. The boys finally found time to put them up for her. Our basement is organized!!!

Of course, Abi's area is always neat and tidy.

Abi and her favorite chicken

Abi somehow gets the boys to help her. I don't know how she does it!

An early birthday present for Gram... 😉

Josh came home from work one day with a fine mist of paint all over him.

Sadly, Talitha has an incurable staph infection. Abi sold her to someone who will be butchering her.

She plans to keep Gus around, though.

Snow!

Ah, the joys of winter... 😬

Our church had it's annual Couple's Night on January 27. All the girls from Grace up helped decorate and serve the food. Well, I stayed home to watch the littles so that the boys wouldn't have to change stinky diapers. (see below) 😐

The theme was different life stages. Dad and Mom put various items into bags and each couple picked one without knowing what was in it.

Mom and Dad were Retired Grandparents

Loren and Kelly were new homeowners

Newly weds

Grandparents

New baby

Alaina couldn't figure out what was going on. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was taking care of the boys and the littles. Here's a fun story...

I was changing Doughy's poopie diaper that evening. I was happily (ok, not happily, but dutifully) wiping along when I suddenly realized that my finger had slipped off of the wipe and I was scooping up poopies under my fingernail. Oh joy. 😝

I thought this was extremely funny! It's so true!

Little miss Sobriety

Those littles do the funniest things. Like finding this after Doughy finished eating... I'm sure it's a sign of genius.

The boys took down some old disgusting shelving in the basement. It's probably been there since the 60's or 70's.

All cleared out!

With the shelving gone, we now have one long room instead of two smaller ones.

Playing the game of Life.

KK was very, very sick last week. He had worked with old carpet at Fanton's and the old moldy shelving in our basement. That night, he got a severe headache, like a migraine. He spiked a fever and had a tight pain in his lower throat. We don't know what he had exactly, unless it was a different strain of the flu than he'd had only two weeks before. We were pretty worried about him. Thankfully, he's all better now!

Thank goodness for bacon seeds!

Gram sent this awhile ago...!

It's been an on going saga with my car's tires. An unnamed individual 😅 said my car tire size was 19. That size is very expensive. Walmart's cheapest tire that size was $178, without mounting fees and taxes. It was going to cost me around $900 to do all my tires. 😳 Well, Josh was checking my tires to make sure they were road safe as they're getting pretty wobbly. He texted me later saying that I should go double check the size again as he thinks they're actually 18s. I ran out to check, and sure enough, they were 18s! That size is a lot cheaper and more common. I bought new ones from Walmart for about $500 altogether. Way better than $900+! Praise the Lord!

Ok, I didn't realize it, but I put some February pictures on here. The following pictures are all from February. 😊

February 1st, we cleaned and organized Gram's house.

After cleaning Gram's house, we ran home for a quick bite to eat, then went over to help Fantons move their apartment stuff into their new house. We were so tired that night for church!

We had spent that Monday (January 30) cleaning their new house. They weren't planning to actually move until Saturday, but they wanted to get out of that apartment asap. I don't blame them in the least! We were glad to be able to help them!

We had tea with Gram the next day. We hadn't gotten together for a long time! It was nice to reconnect with Gram again.

Sorry, I couldn't help putting a picture from Ireland in here...

On the 4th, we moved all Fanton's stuff from their storage units.

It was really cold with a stiff south wind that whipped through there.

Almost done!

While unloading one of the trailers at Fanton's house, they accidentally broke this container of popcorn, showering it all over in the trailer.

We girls were so thankful for our leggins! The wind was so bad it would lift your dress up way past the modest level. 

I walked in to see this sight... 😋

Eventually, we youth all packed in to that room to eat our lunch.

Lots and lots of boxes!

There's always a crowd of spectators on moving days. 😜