The Littlest Writer

I've posted little stories in the past that both Hannah & Courtney have written. Yesterday after school, Hayley announced that she wanted to write a story so she set herself up at the computer and typed away. She asked me to spell a couple of words and then proudly read me her story when she was finished. I know I'm her mom, but I must say that I am impressed! It's not very long, but what a story for a 6-year-old! (And I love her title too!)

Hayley's Night Whispers
by Hayley Humpherys

On a cold night, Hayley was safe and warm in her bed when… The closet started shattering and big black shadows came creeping out of it. They got closer and closer and closer until they were so close to me they could almost touch me. I got out of bed and started following them… out the door and into the family room… and into the kitchen. I opend my eyes and was safe agen in my bed.

(She was also proud to inform me that she knows what the "three dots" are called!)

Our 5 Minutes of Fame

We were surprised a few weeks ago to receive a phone call telling us that our local library branch had selected our family as their "Library Family of the Year" for 2010. There are 5 library branches in Amarillo and each branch chooses a family every year that they (the library staff) feel utilizes all the many library services.

I admit that I am at the library a lot -- probably 3-4 times each week. During the school year I usually stop by during the day by myself but in the summer the kids frequently go with me. I generally don't stay long, but will pick a few pictures books off the shelves for the kids and almost always have books or audio books that I've placed on hold waiting to be picked up. So almost all the librarians know me by name (and they are a wonderful group -- so friendly and helpful). I love being able to manage our library account from home and request books through the computer. I also love being able to request (free of charge) practically any book that our library doesn't have in their system through the Interlibrary Loan program. Needless to say, our family loves the library!

The first part of being a Library Family was to go to the downtown library and have our picture taken for the plaque that gets displayed at the library branch. Fortunately this wasn't a terrible ordeal, despite the fact that Brian and Hannah had both been sick with the flu. (Hannah had stayed home from school that day with a fever, but we tried to keep her away from everybody and they let our family go first.)

Then last Saturday we attended a special ceremony honoring each of the library families. We got to stand up at the front while the librarian from our branch introduced us and told a little bit about our family. We heard a few words from the mayor of Amarillo (the kids were excited to meet her) and a few other people. I think the kid's favorite part were the fruit and cookies!

As part of the ceremony, we were presented with our own plaque to keep (an identical one is displayed at the library) and we also received a book bag and a very nice World Atlas book from Barnes & Noble.

They had told us the newspaper usually prints up a little story about the library families, but I haven't seen anything yet so I'm not sure if they will this year since it's been a week now. The kids have been waiting to take our plaque into their classes at school but they've been waiting to see if anything is printed in the paper.

It's an honor to be selected -- hooray for libraries!

Cold, Cold, and Cold (and some snow and ice too!)

The last couple of weeks have brought some interesting weather to Amarillo. I think the temperatures have been the coldest since we moved here -- several mornings when we got up it was below zero outside and there was a wind chill of probably about -20 degrees. Yikes! Plus we really struggle to keep our house warm (several factors contribute to this), so we were going around wrapped in jackets and blankets. Our hot water heater kept freezing in the garage and we kept a fire going as much as possible.

In addition to all the cold, we had a big snow storm come through the city. I think the official report was 6.5" of snow but there was a lot of drifting, so some spots didn't have a lot and others had more. Here's a drift on our driveway:

School got cancelled for a day and the kids were very excited! The girls spent the day playing and creating.

I walked past the table and spotted this which made me smile:

McKay spent a good part of his day off listening to Harry Potter audiobooks. He recently decided to re-read/re-listen to all the books in a row and then go through and watch the movies.

A couple of days after the storm, the roads were starting to clear up but there was still some ice. The kid's school bus slid off the road coming home from school in the neighborhood just below our house. There were only a few kids left on the bus at the time (ours included).

McKay called us using the driver's phone to see if Brian could bring down a chain to help tow the bus out. Another bus in the area stopped to help but they didn't have any tow chains. So Brian and I drove down to see what we could do. The other bus was able to pull the bus back onto the road using our chain.

When the bus slid off the road, it hit a tree and broke some limbs off.

In addition, the tree limbs broke out one of the back windows of the bus (on the far side of the picture).

The girls standing by the tree:

We're glad everyone was safe!

The snow was just right for playing in when we made it back home -- better hurry before it all melts!

Sliding down our own hill:

Hannah and Hayley's mini snowman:

The only problem with melting snow is that it turns our road into mud! But fortunately this time around the weather warmed up pretty quickly (and we have worked on improving our road) so the road has dried out for the most part. At least until the next storm comes through!

Back to the Remodel

So, remember how almost two years ago we started our remodeling upstairs addition by raising the roof over the garage? Well, after that initial push to get the roof up and our helpers left, unfortunately not much happened since then. Brian got swamped with other work (there's no escape!) and while he did a little bit here and there -- mostly on the heating system -- not much has changed.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, Brian's brother Randy had a lull in his work and he was able to come and give us a big push! Brian helped as much as he could, and during the two weeks that Randy was here, the upstairs changed A LOT! YAY!!

They started out putting in the ceiling and some of the heating stuff in the attic space.

Then the rooms (4 bedrooms; 1 bath) were framed, wiring done, heating ducts, etc. A lot of work!

Sheetrock was started (we brought up some apartment workers to help with this job) and is not quite finished.

Finally (but unfortunately not before the below-zero temperatures hit), we got the insulation in the walls and ceiling.

I have hope that the kids might actually be in their bedrooms by summer! (Of course, now that Randy has left again, work has come to a stop while Brian catches up on other work, but I'm still hopeful!)