THEY ARE DIGGING!!!!

The backhoe showed up this morning around 8:30. They started to dig around 11:00. Pat, our contractor just sent me this picture. My sister-in-law also sent me some pictures that I forwarded to Mom. Hopefully she will be able to post them for me. We are going over there tonight to take some more pictures. 

Before.....

Mike has been working his tail off the last two weekends getting fencing ripped out and moved and rebuilt. Our nephew, Trent, came up last weekend and helped him and Payton. This past weekend Mike had plenty of help from Payton, Cael and Nate. Nate took more of a supervisor roll than anything else. I even went over on Saturday afternoon to help pound posts. Mike had to work overtime on Saturday morning, so the boys and I tore out the fence at our house. We only have to pull up the wooden posts and it is done. Mike and I went to the bank last night and signed papers for the construction loan. They are supposed to start digging this week. The house is scheduled to come off the line on June 10. So things are moving. Not fast enough for me but they are progressing. I have taken some before pictures and will get them posted. The land looks different without the fence there! We have started to pack boxes. A little at a time. I have tried to do some things in the boys' rooms but they flip out and think I am getting rid of it instead of just packing it away to move!! 

On a sad note. We had to say goodbye to our cat, Fluffy, 2 weeks ago. We are not sure what happened but think he got into some poison somewhere. Mike had to put him down. The boys are saddened by this and I have found myself looking for him and then remember he is gone. We will not be replacing him anytime soon. I am hoping that I can convince all of them that we don't need any inside pets. I have enough animals in the house with Mike and the boys there!! Maybe a puppy outside but that is down the road. 

The Ultimate Baby-sitter!

The Grahams

Newest Additions

The first weekend in March we traveled to Fort Madison and Payton picked out 4 pigs they are about 55 lbs each. Three boys and a girl. He has a black and white one whose name is Boss Hog, the gilt is named Daisy, the blue butt is named Roscoe, and the white one is named Cletus. Do you detect a theme? Yes he is a fan of Dukes of Hazard. He is really enjoying having them. Nate loves them too. He has become the Dr. Phil of pigs. He will go and sit on the straw bales and talk to them. He also loves to try to shoo them. Of course they don't always listen. :) 

On March 27 Payton and I made a very fast journey to Travis and Kerry's to pick up Trixie. She is a 60 lb angus heifer calf. She is precious and very sweet. Payton is thrilled to have her to start his herd. What farmboy we are raising!! Again, Nate loves her too. On the ride to get Trixie, Payton was talking about changing her name because she was now his calf and there was already a cow named Trixie at the farm but after seeing Chance and hearing him say "bye Rixie" we knew we couldn't change it. 

Payton will be showing the pigs, Trixie and a heifer of his uncle Mark's at the Iowa County Fair. He will also be doing some other projects to display but we haven't decided what yet. We are hoping maybe we can talk Nana and Grandpa into letting us borrow their camper to have there this year. It would save on time and money going back and forth and food. But we haven't brought that up to them yet. We will have to sweet talk them a little. :)

So Payton and Nate love to be at the farm with the animals and being outside helping Mike and all that good stuff.  Nate also takes time to help Grandma Shirley make stuff, cinnamon rolls were on the list last time. Cael likes to be over there too but, and we have Grandpa Bud to thank for this, the first thing Cael does when he gets to the farm is go in the house and ask Grandma for some ice cream and popcorn!! Grandma Shirley doesn't mind. She enjoys having them around and likes to feed anyone who comes over. Thank goodness for that. Otherwise they would never get any food! Just kidding. It seems like we can stuff them full of a great breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage etc, and the first thing they do is ask Grandma for something to eat!!

So the house is coming along. We have had the survey done. We are just waiting on the abstract to come back and we can sign the papers and start digging. Here is are the plans. We have moved the 2nd bedroom wall 2 foot into the living room to make it bigger. Otherwise these are it. We are all excited and nothing is moving fast enough!!! I have become a pain to the people working on the abstract because I want it done ASAP!! I hound them continuously!! I will keep everyone posted as things get moving along. 

 

Happy Birthday Kadelynn Ann.

Thanks for the Help!

Thanks for all of the help at the benefit.

You worked REALLY hard.

And we couldn't have done it without you!!

(Or your checkbooks!!)

Happy Birthday Nater Tater!!

Today is Nate's 4th birthday. Unfortunately he is sick and we are headed to the doctor at 1:00. I am guessing it is an ear infection on top of something else. He did get to celebrate over the weekend. On Saturday night we celebrated with the Owens' family. He made a haul as usual. Grandma Shirley scored with a very noisy and annoying chainsaw. He loves it! He had a Mickey Mouse themed party again and had a great time with everyone. He also got to celebrate with most of the Juilfs family on Sunday. We took a Mickey cake that he had helped me make but wouldn't let anyone cut it and cried the whole way to CR because we brought it with us. It was supposed to be his cake, no one else's!  He didn't get as many "fun" gifts but he got money deposited into a savings account for the future. Which is terrific and much aprreciated! I can't imagine how much college will cost when he gets there!!