Wogoman weekly - volume 2 issue 51

I would like to start this email by saying that officially I feel so much better than I did two years ago today! :) Now I can sit back and relax with Tenille sleeping in her crib. So much easier! Our little girl continues to "grow up" she can say her last name and doesn't sleep with her butt up in the air anymore. That was so cute! I am so surprised that this "baby" stage is over that I am still trying to figure out where the time went. As of tomorrow our little girl will be 2! Can you believe that? She is going to daycare tomorrow and bringing in ice cream sandwiches. Then it is off to see daddy at the "station" as she calls it and then dinner with paw paw and grandma. So exciting. I forgot we also have swim lessons tomorrow morning. She is doing so well in them. Not totally excited about the getting her head wet but flying through everything else. :) Today she was so excited about doing "rocketships" off the side that she didn't even wait for me to be there. Her eyes got real big when she realized that there could be a problem with this! But once a lifeguard always a lifeguard and she didn't even get her head wet! (speaking of this, I did have a nice safe on a two year old last week at a friends party. They have a awesome fish pond and this girl got a little too close. I caught her but the back of her diaper and shorts before she even hit the water. I have ninja skills that I just haven't told you all about!) J made it home wonderfully. He did have a a two hour delay but we were able to spend that time at home versus the airport so that really helped. We went to the zoo and Tenille has so much fun seeing the . .. you guessed it . . horse! A zoo full of cool animals and that was her favorite. She did also like the lion and the monkeys. We were going to have dinner camping with friends and family but the weather turned bad pretty quickly. We were so looking forward to smores that J saved the day by building us a quick fire (using one my fire starters) and we had smores. Tenille sobbed when we squished the mellow between the two graham crackers and she screamed for us to take them apart. She wouldn't touch them. I guess she is a marshmellow hugger. :) I have discovered that we are desperately low on our stock of strawberry jelly. So I made my first attempt. Pretty easy to make, Jason's grandma showed me how a couple of years ago but that situation didn't figure in the daughter who sits on the counter and eats as many as I can clean! But look how happy she is! Well that is about it. We are gearing up for tomorrow and the big second birthday. J is doing his darnest to clean up the property before everyone gets here and it is looking so nice! I have also been working. While J was gone I hung up 4 bird houses. Two of which now have nests and one has eggs! :) And I would like to brag for a moment and say the one house was destroyed but the Amish guys that were here and I saved it, cut a new back for it from scrap wood (with a hand saw), and drilled holes in it and put it back together. As my father - in - law told me the other day, that is very little house on the prairie. So yippy for me! I moved and can now use a chainsaw, a hand saw, a power washer (my fav), a leaf blower (my second fav), a drill, and the new lawn mower. So I think I have really come up in the power tool world! So I hope you are all well. Be prepared for pictures next week!

wogoman weekly - volume 2 issue 50

I am so happy and sad all at the same time. Our little girl is no longer with "toot". We talked about it for a week and Sunday she gave it up. I am now sure she didn't understand that it wasn't coming back. The first major clue to this is when she woke up Sunday night screaming, "Gone, All Gone!" We had to rock and sing to make that better. Monday was just about as bad. Last night she slept all night and only asked about it once today. And what did she ask? "Daddy bring toots?" Daddy is doing hazmat training in Colorado Springs. We got rid of the toot the day Daddy left and now she is sure he is bringing them back. I told her no but we will see if she "gets that" later. Our computers and Skype are our new best friends. Tenille has been talking to daddy on the phone and on the "T.V." every night. They play peak a boo and she giggles so loud she hurts your ears. We both miss him terribly and can't wait for him to come home on Sunday. I decided today that at this point in my life I have never been happier. Everything is going so well. Yes, a few weeks ago when the trees started coming down I panicked and thought we will never get this cleaned up. And now, most of the flower beds are tamed (remind you I said most), we had the worlds biggest bonfire last Friday and we got rid of most of the tree tops. Did you know tires and wood can smoke for up to 4 days and will probably keep doing it if you don't have rain? There are still things that are so frustrating that you want to pull your hair out but we are taking them one step at a time. This includes that whatever is eating my garden plants. Still completely enjoying myself. Tenille's birthday party is coming along nicely, other than Elmo can apparently not be put on a cake for fear of copyright laws or some such nonsense. I am now looking for someone to help me break the law and give my daughter an Elmo cake. The things I do! She got her first present in the mail today and LOVED it. She is so excited to outside that the gardening set was a huge hit. She calls it her purse but took it everywhere with us today while we worked. One of the pictures this week is with her Elmo pinata. It is about as big as her! She is on the phone with J when I took the picture. Notice the smile! With the passing of the toot, I have realized that my baby is not so small anymore. She is a big girl and I didn't know that the baby stage was ending. I should have paid better attention. One day she was my baby and the next, a big girl. Good thing she still loves her mommy and daddy! She asks all the time "mommy doin?" to which I tell her. Yesterday while driving she asked and I said I was driving, I asked her what she was doing and she thought about it and replied, sittin ( she was in the car mind you). The picture of her sitting on the floor is our smart little girl trying hard to read my book clubs new book. It is about Theodore Roosevelt. This girl is into deep books. On a side note, she did pick our her first two books from the library. Something about animals, (go figure) and the other was good night moon. We have read them every night since we got them. So cool the library has books for tots! She did get another incident report this week from school. It seems she was running in the hallway and tripped. She caught herself with her upper lip and now has a big "ouchie" there. Hopefully it will heal before her pictures on next Saturday. Hope all is well with you. Family, please let me know if you are coming to Tenille's party so I can get enough of Elmo's favorite food. (Don't know what it is, then I guess you should come!) Please bring your lawn chairs if you could, that way you aren't sitting on the ground! Ok I think that is it. Love you all!

Fishing at grandpa's

wogoman weekly - volume 2 issue 49

Ahh the count down continues for our girls big day.  Look at that we are already to issue 49 of this year!  Working outside has become an understatement at our house.  I am starting to wonder if this is what the Amish feel like.  Work all day and get up and do it all over again.  J and I cut, moved, split, and stacked firewood yesterday after church.  Yep, that is right, I used a chainsaw.  I am so proud of myself.  I was scared to attempt it for fear I would cut something off I would rather keep but I am all in one piece.  J showed me how to run the thing and have me two pieces of wisdom. 1) here is where the brake is to shut off the blade if need. 2) be careful how you saw, the wood could pinch the blade.  I thought the second one was pretty stupid.  I mean how could I get it stuck if there was that chain zooming around it.  I showed J how to do I could use it and within 3 seconds of him starting his (across the yard, mind you) I pinched my blade in the tree.  I now understand! ( Just want you to know I freed it myself, thank you very much!) I was so thrilled with my cuts until I started pulling the tree apart and noticed that I didn't cut as much as I thought I did and now we are the proud owners of weird pieces of firewood.  Well, it all burns the same right? Once Tenille woke up from her nap, she happily played in her car and her house, and with the dogs while we worked.  If it wasn't for the TV's in the car, I am not sure she would even know what they are.  She is a big help in the garden.  We picked our first and second batches of peas this week.  Tenille ate the whole first batch while I worked on other parts of the garden.  The second batch she saved 3 for Jason.  The rest she ate.  Guess the girl likes her veggies.  I have officially made a fenced in garden and planted more beans since the first crop were appetizers for the bunnies.  These seem to be doing well and are up already!  We also got our first box of food from our CSA which is community supported agriculture.  We paid some Amish guy to grow us veggies.  Last week we picked up lettuce, spinach, onions, radishes, snap peas, and rhubarb.  We also signed up for a loaf of bread a week.  That stuff was gooooood!  I would encourage any of you to think about it next year, pretty cool and helps keep our money in the community.  Plus you get to eat better.  (You know for all the chainsawing you are doing too) We lost two trees this weekend in the storm.  Crazy sounding to hear them fall.  Tenille was with my parents and I guess slept through it all!  Such a good girl. I wish I could tell you all the crazy things she is doing but she is learning so fast that I forget them because there is always something new.  I have video taped her reading a book with me Time to Pee is the title.  She also has learned from her Uncle Jeff that you can draw on yourself.  This meant last night while J and I were eating that she was really quiet in the sun room.  I checked on her and she was coloring on paper.  A few minutes later she comes into the kitchen looking all sheepish.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong until I looked at her feet.  She had "painted" her toes nails with marker.  Well, her toes and most of her feet as well.  It was off to take a bath after that!  She did come home today and proclaim her name was "wogoman"  it was so cute!  It is the first time we have heard her say that.  Doesn't that make your heart melt? While she was helping me grill last night she looked at my herb garden and said, "oh my goodness" never heard those words before but there she was, just being so honest, telling us her life story,  She has started to "sing" for us which is really cute.  She has a microphone and everything.  She has also asked me to sing for her when she is tired and need to sleep.  Her favorite? "Sunshine"  which is "you are my sunshine" (which by the way isn't a really a happy song all together, it is just the chorus that is happy, I googled it).  She is also a big fan of "pony boy" which is a song and she gets to ride on your leg.  J is a sport and even makes up new verses for her like "sasha dog" and "harry dog".  She is also starting to talk a lot more on the phone so be prepared.  She talked to daddy, grandma/grandpa, and uncle mark all in the last two days.  So watch out world!  And for those of you not in my family all these songs might not make any sense so sorry if you are confused.  Hope all is well with you.  Posted a cool picture of J fighting fires on the blog.  He is working so hard everywhere that I am surprised he doesn't pass out when he gets home.  We hope to fill the pool to 5 ft this week.  I am sure there will be pictures. Tomorrow is the last day of school.  And on that happy note I am done!  Yippy!

Jason in Action

We are so proud of him! Two fires in two days!

wogoman weekly - volume 2 issue 48

And so another week comes to a close in the life of the wogomans.  I know you are all riveted to your computer waiting to here the latest, greatest stories in our lives! We worked our butts off Thursday and Friday nights so that we could do other things on the holiday weekend.  We got the rocks put in for the edging on the front of the house, we put stones in the landscape, and kept Tenille busy trying to put the rocks INTO the flower beds.  I have attached before and after photos.  I think our house is still recovering from the shock of being loved.  On a side note, do you know you can get 5,000 pounds of landscaping stone for $15 bucks?  We did, and if you have an awesome husband like mine, he will even move it all before you get home!  I know, he is the best!  Tenille seems to have been amazed at rocks.  She picks them up and carries them with her.  She doesn't seem to have favorites, she will put one down in a heart beat if it would help her pick up a better one.  She did spend the better part of Saturday night "watering" the rocks.  I tried to show her how to put the water on the plants but to no avail. Sunday we spent at the lake with the wogomans and at jack and brendas.  It was awesome to spend time with so much family.  You just never know who might be there. (Jess had a friend and he looked just like kid rock)  (I didn't even know kid rock knew where Bristol was) Tenille is filling our time with tons of fun saying that I need to writing down.  She says it and then I think, I need to write that down for the blog. . . then I forget! She scraped her knees for the first time yesterday.  So was so brave!  Now we just kiss the scabbed knees and move on.  I'm sure there is more but I am so loaded done with school work that my brain freezes! Ahhhh 4 more days left!