New chicken house progress.

We have been working on building a permanent big chicken coop. We are building it extra big to encompass future growth and also those times when we have a batch of meat chickens. Right now we only have 7 chickens so people may think we are kind of crazy. However, i already know it is better to go too big than to try to talk a husband into building on. HA HA! So this weekend it is really coming together. 12 x 12 building, 8 feet tall.

Studs for the walls up and part of the floor down. We are putting the floor down after the walls are up. This is for easy replacement of the floor if it gets really poopy or nasty after a year or two.
The walls are going up!


First coat of Barn Red paint. The weather TOTALLY cooperated with us. It was 70 today! October 30th! I couldn't believe it. So we were painting it as fast as we could get it up. It still needs front human door, chicken doors cut out, windows and roof. But I think we have a stellar start. The human door and roof are getting put on and started tomorrow.


I had a couple helpers. Luca.
Gioia. She painted up about 4 feet. As high as she could reach. So basically she did half of each wall, first coat for me. It really did help!
Dominic!

Halloween Fun!

We attending a Halloween Pumpkin Carving party today at our friends house. My kids are Luca as the dog on the end, Gioia as the hot pink Unicorn in the middle and Dominic as the Fireman on the right.

Here are the Jack O Lanterns we carved.



Here are some fabric pumpkins Gioia and I made tonight. We are going to send this batch to my Grandma who has a birthday Sunday on Halloween. I think she will really like them. She collects all things Halloween. :)

New fireplace!

We finally got a big project done around here. We got our fireplace insert installed and operational. We got this from some friends. We removed the 80's style gold brass trim, spray painted it black and dropped a chimney liner in. Actually, WE didn't do most of it. We hired a chimney guy. It was only a 200 dollar difference than ordering the parts ourselves. It was a hard job. It took professionals 4 hours to do the liner and get the insert to fit. A week before DH had to cut two rows of bricks out to get the insert to fit.

So the other day it was chilly outside but not really cold enough for the furnace. DH decided to fire this baby up. We had it up to 78 in the house (and probably 80 or so in the living room) with just a small fire. NICE! So I really think this can provided the majority of our heat this winter. I am super stoked about it.

In other news: I had a lasik like procedure done on my eyes. It was a rough recovery involving my mom having to come stay with us. Actually she stayed an initial 2 days and then came back to my rescue for 3 more days. THANKS AGAIN MOM! :) Stuff like this is much harder with a house full of little kids. You can't just go lay down and sleep it off all day. Anyway, my vision is continuing to improve and I think I will enjoy it a lot once everything is good.