home renovation: a sunny room

Well, it has been a very exciting two weeks here at the grovestead. We are basically living in an HGTV episode, though the only cameras are my own. We are putting in a front door on our house, and a big window to overlook our yard. If this were an actual HG episode it would be called: Let there be Light.

And oh, it is so good.

Our front room at one time was the kitchen in this 1890's farm house. It also used to be in the back of the house. It's a bit confusing, and I've mentioned it before, but the front door to our farm house is on the back side of our house. What was once the front yard is now the back yard after the land around us was developed and two new lots popped up on the land that used to have the lane that drove to our front door. (This was years ago...either the 70's or the 90's...can't remember at the moment).

Anyway, we needed a front door that didn't lead guests through our garage and we needed more natural light in this house. We toyed with adding a sun room onto our house, and then decided this room that we didn't know what to do with could become the sun room if given a big enough window. 

So here are a whole lot of pictures of the progress for anyone who cares. I LOVE a good home renovation (and have spent much of my life watching Sarah Richardson, Candice Olson and that Scott guy on Property Ladder) so to be living out a home renovation is really exciting to me. Which is good, because we have spent much of the last two weeks (and will this next week too) walking outside and around our house anytime we want to get from the kitchen to the bedrooms. So far it feels like an adventure, although today is the first day we've had rain...which tends to make the run with children around the house a bit more adventurous. 

Alright! Here are the pics! This will be overkill if you don't care. Just fair warning...

petting zoo

We went to visit our neighbor's goats again today and I was thinking about how I will sometimes lament how far we live from the zoo.  But then we have experiences like this and I realize the trade off is quite fair. 

I actually just jumped on here to record two quick Ivar quotes from the day.

Today during nap I was singing The B, I, B, L, E to Ivar. I sang, "I stand alone on the word of God..." And he interrupted, "That will be so owie to stand on Jesus."

And then later this afternoon I walked past his door where he was playing alone and heard him say, "Okay. I'll tell you a little choice. You can sit there or there." And then his voice raised and he said, "No, I said there or there!"

The boy has picked up on my choice centered parenting. And my raised voice when he doesn't pick one of my choices!

all together: Sara Groves, Andrew Peterson and Bebo Norman

Listen up. If you live  in Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virgnia, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Virginia, Michigan, South Carolina, North Carolina or Kentucky then you're going to want to get this one on your calendar.

Sara is going on tour this fall with Andrew Peterson and Bebo Norman. Bebo basically sang me through my four years of college, my constant soundtrack for that season of life. And ever since Sara when out with Andrew on his Christmas tour I have been a huge fan. Huuugge. A funny thing happens when I listen to Andrew's music: I see little homemade music videos with each song. He paints pictures with his lyrics and it's awesome. These three are the real deal. And they're going to be on stage all together. Which will most certainly to lead to one thoughtful, inspired, amazing concert.

Click here to see the exact location for each concert  (and to see one of the goofiest concert posters ever...)

And then mark your calendars! Rory and I will be at the Excelsior show in Minnesota. Nebraska friends, try to get to Lincoln the night they are there.

Here's one of my favorite Andrew Peterson songs to convince you to come:
And here's one of my very favorites of Sara singing a hymn I have always loved:
Hope you can get to a show! Get a sitter! Grab a friend! Make plans for dinner and a concert! And then enjoy a night of awesome, thoughtful music.

rainbow tomatoes

Did you know tomatoes ripen in rainbow order? Rory brought in this bunch of baby tomatoes to show me and I was so amazed. Sort of a different kind of color spectrum...

And then, later I walked out the garden to get a tomato for BLT's and found this one that was bigger than the bread. How awesome is that?!!

honeycomb

towanda.

I dropped my kids off at my folks today. I came home and pretended I was a house cleaner and hit my house like it was my job. Because it is. 

And then I went out to the garden, picked some green tomatoes and knocked something off my bucket list:        I ate Fried Green Tomatoes while watching Fried Green Tomatoes.

It was everything I had hoped and more. If there are any other fans of Idgie Threadgoode out there let me know and I'll invite you over next time. 

summer reflection: two favorite moments

At some point this week I decided not to jump on the "holy smokes it's already September" bandwagon. So I'm not going to say that.

What I am going to say is that my one little word for the year is Reflect, but I haven't reflected in a long, long time. So I thought I'd take a moment to look back at the three months that just flew by...

I have a favorite moment of the summer. Which is fun because I have trouble picking a favorite color. But I can pick a moment. It was at our favorite place to eat here in our new town: the golf club. Few seem to know about this gem of a eatery, but we adore it. The food is exceptional and the price is right. We went many times this summer, eating on the patio, watching the golfers tee off on hole one. (Entertainment for the kids! It's perfect.)

On this particular favorite night of them all, we ate (maybe I had the perfect cobb salad with homemade blue cheese dressing. Maybe I had their buffalo wings that could win a competition. I can't remember...but the meal was awesome as always) and then we went to the club house and asked if we could take a golf cart to check out the course. The guy was fine with it, didn't even make us pay. The sun was setting, it was Friday night and there was no one golfing. Rory drove, I held Elsie in my lap and Ivar either stood or sat between us. The night was perfect in temperature, the course was stunning, the homes surrounding the course were fun to look at and the kids were thrilled. I remember Ivar blissfully laughing and asking if this was Disneyland. (We had just flown back from California the day before). I knew in the moment that this was a favorite memory in the making.

I have a close second favorite memory: eating an orange scone in disneyland as soon as we arrived. We hadn't been on a ride, but we stopped at the building that plays Mary Poppins music and had our coffee at an outdoor table while people watching. And I remember feeling magically happy.

Svea and Ivar: best of cousins

Remember these sweet valentines? Svea and Ivar are six weeks apart. One of the best joys of my life was being pregnant at the same time as my sister. Sweeter still was when Annika and her family moved from Montana back to Minnesota to be closer to family.

Ivar adores Svea. He can't get enough of her. He can't stop talking about her. He can't wait to see her. He'll wake up in the morning and excitedly mention to me, "oh! I know. We could go to Svea's house today!"

I first heard this music on our disney cd. It's from the fox and the hound, and when I heard it I imagined these two best friends and all the fun they have together at age two. Annika and I recently met up at Lake Nikomis and I took some random footage on my camera with this song in mind. 

Best of Friends: Svea and Ivar from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

this week at the grovestead...

+This week at the grovestead, acorns are raining down from the oak trees. And one of our pumpkins is already bright orange. Tonight we had a big harvest meal with potatoes, sweet corn and tomatoes from our garden. Which was awesome timing, because we're trying to eek through the rest of the month without spending a dime due to a big summer of fun spending.

+It's hot here in Minnesota, but actually each day has brought a nice breeze and I haven't thought its been unbearable. Rory is taking advantage of the heat and brewing sun tea. It's remarkably easy and we really like it.

+Did you notice the new picture of me on the side bar? A serious perk of helping with the Soul Sisterhood retreat was getting my picture taken as compensation. This was the first time I've had my picture taken alone since my senior picture, in which I was leaning against an imaginary tree in front of a splatter paint back drop. I like this picture much better.

Rory was looking at this new picture of me and asked Ivar, "Who is that?" Ivar answered, "I don't know." Hilarious. It may just be that my hair is in a pony tail a wee bit more often than down and curled...

the tire swing

Since the day we moved in, I have wanted a tire swing in one of our oak trees. Not because I'm that into tire swinging, but because I think oak trees and tire swings go together like tomatoes and basil. 

I found this tutorial online and got to work. Lucky for us our grove was stuffed full of old tires that I had removed earlier this summer and placed in the pole barn. So I had my pick of tires to choose from. I spent a lot of time scrubbing it clean, and then drilled three holes in the bottom so that it will drain the water when it rains.

Ivar liked it and didn't need a push. Being up that high and gently spinning was fun enough for him. 

And then we gave a ride to Cookie Mama and Cookie Baby. 

And when we're not playing on it, I think it makes for the prettiest yard decoration. This was early this morning with a humid fog on the ground. So lovely.

trimming a tree near you...

Yesterday my dad showed up and started trimming our trees again. If you've been wondering what he's been up to in his retirement it can be summed up in two words: travel and trees. Lots of both. He got this new extended saw thingy that lets him reach branches way up high. And since this purchase, many of our trees have gotten a much needed haircut.

It's a perfect Paul Harrington project. He often mentioned that ministry was so ongoing...you rarely got to see a project finished because you were dealing with human lives. But tree trimming...now there is a project that shows immediate results.

Yesterday he seemed downright chipper to be out in the muggy heat. He kept saying things like, "I grew up in this. It's good for my pores. This is good exercise, think of the money I'm saving by not joining Lifetime."

Ivar is a quote a day

Ivar: Is me three?

Me: No, you're still two. But you'll be three in November.

Ivar: Mmmm. It takes a long time to get three.

***

I told Ivar I was going upstairs to put on my workout clothes. When I came back down he excitedly showed me, "I got your exershoes!"

***

Me: Ivar, why were you so sad in the kitchen just now. Why were you so upset? Do you think you're kind of tired?

Ivar: Probably a lot.

apples and stars

Saturday was a day that all day long kept me keenly aware of our new lifestyle. We were outside in the morning, picking apples and playing in the rock box. Then I spent a good chunk of time out in the heat, scrubbing chicken poo off of our driveway. If you know anything of chicken poo, you know the stuff is cement. And our driveway was becoming an embarrassment because our chickens hang out under our cars, causing a lot of mess. So I spent the early afternoon hosing down our driveway and using a scrub brush on my hands and knees to clean it all off. It was gross.

But that night Rory started to make an apple pie with the apples from our tree. It was close to ten by the time the pie was done, so we took it outside and ate it on our camping chairs on our fantastically clean driveway. It was windy and there were no bugs.

We sat there for a long, long time looking up at the stars. We saw six satellites and three shooting stars. And we talked about how crazy it is that we don't look at the stars more often. I noted how I've watched more Dancing with the Stars in the past year than I have the actual stars in the sky. But star gazing leads to good, deep conversation. I think that was God's intent. Looking up at night leads you to the big questions, the greatness of God, brings you to a place of awe and wonder and gently puts you back in your little mortal place. We covered a lot of ground while we slouched in our chairs: space stations and moon patterns, life on other planets, gps systems, and parenting.

So here's an idea for one of these last evenings of summer: get outside and look up. And if you can bring a warm piece of apple pie with you, even better. And if you happen to have a patch of yard that isn't covered in chicken poo, better still.

"Mama, I gotta work a job."

Rory built the kids a rock box that we painted red and then filled with little stones. We saw a rock box at the county fair and thought it was a good idea. So far the perks of a rock box versus a sand box is that sand doesn't get in hair, eyes or bottoms, and no animals use it as their litter box as they pass through our yard. And the greatest perk is that it serves as the third parent. Ivar is out there all the time.

He'll tell me the game plan when we get home from errands or when he gets up in the morning. He'll say, "Mama, I gotta work a job. With the bulldozer."

Today I heard him downstairs say quietly to himself, "I gotta go work a job. Bye." And then listened to the kitchen door close and watched him, from an upstairs window, walk out to the rock box.

At least he has a strong work ethic.

the rooster scooter

The timing could not have been anymore perfect. Just after sending three of our roosters to "a friend's house," Uncle Carl gave Ivar a Rooster Scooter.

I picked up the rooster scooter on my way back from the retreat this weekend, where Uncle Carl showed me the hatchery and all that was involved in making this happy rooster.

This rooster scooter has already gotten around a bit. He made his way to the Carver County Fair where he took home a blue ribbon! And now he's at our place, getting to know the other chickens at the grovestead. Uncle Carl, you hit it out of the park with this one.

good writing

My friend Meta (above with her son Jasper) is one of my favorite writers on the planet. I love her way with words. I love how she processes life and her ability to put words to things I think are too tricky to articulate.

She's done it again. I read this post and thought the whole time, I've got to pass this on...

the soul sisterhood mother daughter retreat

I just had the most lovely weekend. Surrounded by seventh graders and their inspiring mothers, I got to focus on motherhood...without my own kids nearby. It was restorative, restful and ended up being a powerful few days to remember my focus in mothering, my purpose and why I do what I do. 

I got to help out at the Soul Sisterhood mother daughter retreat. 

The mom's and daughters were remarkable. On Saturday night a photographer came to take pictures of each mother with her girl(s). You can see those pictures right here on Leslie Crane's facebook page (scroll down to see all the mom's and daughters). The pictures are stunning and make my heart swell a bit because I know those mom's now and how fiercely they love their daughters. 

Best of all, I got to work with Amanda and Melanie, two dear women who quickly became fast friends. We had an awesome time together and hope to work together for the future mother-daughter retreats. I already can't wait.

If you are interested in bringing your own daughter on a mother-daughter retreat, be sure to check out the website for more information. Or, if you would like to find six other friends of your daughters and invite their mothers, you can set up your own retreat on the Soul Sisterhood calendar. Retreats focus on our identity in Christ Jesus, creativity and crafting, deep conversation and healthy meals. You can read more of the mission and vision here.

our first eggs! (and other news)

+ Oh my word. I just changed the water for the chickens and found two fresh eggs. Our first eggs! Which basically turns today into a holiday. Eggs! Two of them!

+ On Sunday, my new stroller was delivered. It's a joovy sit and stand and for the first time since having Elsie, I can cart both my kids around in one stroller. This changes everything.

+ My toenails are blue. I'll spare you the picture, but last night I told Ivar I was going to get my toenails painted. He asked what color and I threw the question back at him. He said, "blue, like your eyes. Because I like your eyes." My heart swooned and I believe you'd have painted your toes blue too.

+ Ivar seems to have spurts of emotion that must be released. Sometimes they come out in tantrums, sometimes in silliness. My favorite was a few days ago in the car when he started panicking in the back seat, screaming, "I can't see my eyes!!! I can't see my eyes!" I looked back, and he was trying. I had to calmly explain that no one can see their eyes.

+I am taking an art journaling class online and it is so good for me. To have my modpodge out, to be free writing with a pen, to be squirting out paint, cutting out ribbon and paper and gluing it all down. It just feels so good to play.

+This weekend I am helping lead a mother daughter retreat for The Soul Sisterhood. I am so excited to meet the moms and daughters and to put my retreat leader hat back on. This will be my first two night stretch away from my kids since Elsie was born. I'll miss them, but I think we can agree that it is time!

Happy Weekend everybody. Or as said in our house, Happy Incredible Edible Eggs Day!

red barn farm

We spent a glorious evening at Red Barn Pizza Farm, a beautiful place that operates as a csa and brick oven pizza joint. The gardens are stunning and the rolling fields in the distance made me want to be a painter...it is just such a pretty time of year, everything green and bright.

Our pizza was awesome (though pricey!), and the weather was perfect. Most of all it was a great night of catching up with good friends. And for taking pictures by tall corn.