I love spring!

Clay irrigated last week, what a day!

Thank you to the little lady who planted all these things, we are enjoying them so much!

Paint Color?

Just saying, this is the paint color for my house.  What color is it?  White walls are not very exciting in a n 80's rancher.

Lilacs

These were my favorites!  Love the deep color.  

Ivy took a bunch of outside pics around the first of April.  I love going back to see how much things are growing.

I don't think I have ever enjoyed lilacs as much as we did this year.  The little lady planted them everywhere and they kept popping up and surprising us with their beauty.

Rosemary and Lavender in the Backyard

A new venture for the kids!  Show lambs!!!

The blue one is Lavender, she is Ivy's!

Rosemary is the big white one and Clay bought her!

New for us, but a NM Landmark!

Call this number if you need your windmill worked on or replaced or rebuilt!

Casey and his dad are buying this from an awesome family and we feel so fortunate to have this opportunity!

This is inside the machine shop where windmill motors are rebuilt, bearings, gears everything new!! 

Don't you just want to jump in?

Some windmiller's tools!  Fun!

This building has some character...(Hattie and her baby Donnie-Do in the foreground)

This is the welding shop where the fabrication is done.  Look at all the sails!  These guys rebuild windmills from the ground up.  They are better than new ones for much less expense.  This is the last place in the country you can find a 20 foot windmill or have one rebuilt.  Also they put them up, repair old ones, and fix well problems.  

The Dining Room is Open!

The chandelier was a nasty gold one that came with the house....so, we used what we already had and this make-over cost $1.05!  for the whole room.  We just used leftover stuff, instead of buying paint, I used what we had.  The ceiling is white primer instead of ceiling paint, because that is what we had.  What a fun project!

The dining room is up and running after many coats of Mountain Retreat brown paint... I am putting my big old oriental rug I found at the Salvation Army when winter comes!

This used to be the sun-room, but we needed a room that would fit our long table and we needed to not be so crowded!

I painted it so dark because I wanted the dark windows not to stand out so much.

Ivy loves to wear an apron over her leggins and t-shirts, it seems to be her signature look,  she put this on for cleaning house.

Our first guest to eat in our dining room!!  Home school friends from our old town!  There were 10 kids here, 2 little boys avoided the camera..  After the eating was done, a swim in the Pecos was in order!

Ivy's New White Bedroom!

We whited this room out.  

This was out of the old opera house in Las Vegas, NM.

This room went from dark 1980's to looking like a normal room.

It may not seem like we did much, but the trim was so dark it was almost black.  These shutter doors are so much prettier.  The white splotches are on the photo, but not really there in real life.

Ivy painted both of these mirrors.  She was happy to have white walls if she could add whatever color she wanted....

This is the fan that was in Ivy's room before she talked her dad into switching it out.-just to show you waht we were dealing with!

One room down and 10 to go!

In the garden... and a dentist if you need one

So far we have planted 30 pounds of seed potatoes and 450 onion plants.

It was darker than I thought....

The fence is further along now than in this pic!

My new drip system, the micro drip is much cheaper than the big stuff.  I'll take it!

Hattie getting some much needed dental work done.

Ruby must be the dental hygenist

You know our # if you need an appointment.

Kitchen still in progress...

This is some paint I already had...

Sometimes it works better for me just to take all the options away and use what I have instead of too many choices...

Still much work left to do.  And for knobs?  I am waiting to see what my mom has in her arsenal.

Ice Cream Daze

My lovely friends came for a visit and we tore up the town:

The nice little gang.

Awe!  I already miss you guys!  Shantell, you need the yellow sunglasses! You guys need to move to this town.

a nice mess

Dancing in the living room... 

Shaking oh yeah -a-a-a

Layers

favorite spot so far

Kitchen Step 1: Upper Cabinets Gone

Still not pretty, but much better!

Why are these projects always more complicated than they should be?

Next step, remove the wainscot paneling and re-texture.

The dining room:

and  uncleared breakfast dishes..

Normandy? Yes, I'll take one.

I love all things French (excluding their politics).

via http://myfrenchcountryhome.blogspot.com/

The best French blog I have found.  However, this one is really good as well:                           http://decordeprovence.blogspot.com/

Even though I will not likely ever get to go to France, I can still be inspired and hopefully bring a little French style to our simple New Mexico life.

Got Water?

the 3rd and biggest bench,  the last one watered
The Pecos River is on the other side of the field where those trees are.

They called Casey at 2:30 in the morning to say "you have the water."  And he was glad to get up and irrigate for the next 10 hours.  It was awsome weather!  Perfect, almost 8o degrees and no wind!  Thats right I said no wind.

The front yard, the kids really enjoyed this of course!

This is how the ditches are here, so the kids call it the river.  Its kind of our own personal River Walk w/out the shops!

Our side yard and the middle field beyond that...

Soaked!  The irrigator  is out there working.  He had a good time. (Those are pecans on the ground...another topic.)