Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Spreading the stinky

A snapshot in the life of a Lancaster pastor...



So I got to drive one of these yesterday. 50 trips in a rig like this to spread cow poopy on a 40 acre Lancaster field. We filled the 6000 gallon tank up in a smallish lagoon filled with over a million gallons of manure. Surprisingly it didn't stink as bad as I thought. Enough to make me satisfied with a desk job though.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Hide & Seek with mama

Featuring an exciting chase scene-


Click here for live video of the action......

The culmination of pursuit

Hot Tea?

Recently the mornings have been a little cooler and I have attempted to return to my habit of drinking herbal tea with breakfast. I say "attempted" because I don't think I have had an entire, HOT cup of tea yet. Life is just different as a mom.

It's 1pm, Samuel has finally decided to take a nap, and I'm drinking this morning's tea... microwaved.

lbn

Non-holiday visit, cont.

Here is a video of Samuel laughing at some of my other cousin's kiddos. Hillarious!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Non-holiday visit to IL

Samuel and I visited my mom, dad, brother, grandparents, and all the crew in IL this past week. It was a total of six days, but even on a trip with no agenda (i.e., holiday visits), the time goes by so quickly. I didn't even get to call high school friends or anything like that. What did we do??


Helped mom and dad pack for their upcoming move (off the hog farm, to the adorable new log cabin they bought - yeah!).






Spent time with Grandma and Grandpa McDaniel,












my cousins' kiddos,







my horse.





































Isn't my cowboy brother a cutie?!










lbn

Today...

... Samuel took a long nap and Ben and I painted primer on every paint-able surface of the downstairs bathroom. Yeah! This past week Ben made major headway by completing the paneling, baseboard and chair rail. One year into the project and we're finally beginning to feel like there's some progress. Pictures will come when it is finished (hopefully before another year passes). It was fun to work together. So many days I try to work on projects like this, but my window of opportunity is small because when Samuel is awake he is into everything and wanting to play (which is great fun!), and when he is asleep there are so many different things I'm trying to do that it's hard to get out the paint and supplies and actually get something done before he wakes up again.

When Sam woke up early this evening, we packed up our dinner and went to the borough park to get out of the house and away from the paint fumes. We found a great bench on a little hill under a tree facing the sunset. It was a picturesque moment. We enjoyed our sandwiches made with potato bread from the Amish store, ham, sweet bologna (in PA you say, "ba-lone-a") and a real vine-ripened tomato from our garden. Samuel made his customary sounds, letting us know that his pureed fajita was delicious (Ben thought it looked so gross he wouldn't taste it, but it really was good!). Good times.

At home, Ben did the dishes, I bathed Sam and put him to bed, and we've been surfing the web. We have two days (one night) set aside for a vacation before the cold weather hits, and we really want to go to Assateague Island, MD to see the wild horses and camp on the beach but just realized that it takes almost 4 hours to get there. Our friends Mike and Kristi are our "Camping Concierge" and they gave us tips on these sites as well as another state park that sounds really nice (closer, but no ocean). We need to make a decision soon...
We also looked at Ben's facebook site. Honestly, it was my first time on facebook! It was really neat to see everyone on his friend list -- people he knew before we met, and other folks that I know but haven't seen in years. I've been making fun of him for having a facebook because it seems like that's the cool thing to do now, but it really is an ingenious way to network.

Now, here I am, left alone on the couch with my carrot sticks and PB while Ben catches the end of a football game. I'm here and he's there because he said it's my turn to blog.

lbn

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Guilt-Simplicity-Integration

Parenting has not helped our idealism. Even before Sam, Lindsey had piles of photographs (some from college) awaiting albums and I had a long list of home repair projects in the various stages of completion.

This to say, our blogging frequency has left something to be desired. The solution we propose is to reduce our two mediocre blogs into one average, run-of-the-mill at best blog. This said my "plaid sofa" blog will cease, and Sam, momma and dad will all share the same corner of cyberspace. Hopefully this will result in more pictures of "bird-lips" and a glimpse into the collective life of the Newton home.

B

Here are some shots Sam's first canoe trip to Lancaster County Central Park: