Answered prayers

I'm blessed beyond measure this morning as I hear the giggly girlish laughter coming up from the basement, as Sophie has some friends over.  It has taken her awhile to make friends here in Kansas.   I'm just so happy that she is finally making friends, and having them over here!

May 1st

One of the blogs I follow mentioned trying to post every day in May...and I realized that I haven't posted in a very long time!

Spring has been very slow in coming this year.  We've had a few very nice days lately, but are due for another few days of wintry weather tomorrow and the next day.  Hopefully this will be the end of it!

Last fall I bought some bulbs to plant and didn't get around to it until January.  I thought I was probably too late so didn't plant very many of them.  I wish I had planted all of them though, now that I see what came up!

Ivy

A few weeks ago I finally gave in to Andy and the girls repeated begging to get a puppy.  Andy's friend had a litter that was ready to be rehomed.   I agreed to go look.  That was all it took, once there I knew we weren't going home without a puppy.

Andy chose one of the three females.  After a day of tossing names around, we decided on Ivy.  It was one that I suggested.  She is a Blue Heeler, and hopefully will be a good running dog for Andy when she gets bigger.

It took Kiki about a week to start playing with her.  Sometimes Kiki looks at me with eyes that just seem to say, "WHY did you bring this thing home?"  They are getting better around each other with time.

We're crate training Ivy.  The first few nights were rough, but she's currently letting us sleep about 6 1/2 hours at night before needing a potty break.  After going outside, she'll sleep for a little while longer.   That is a relief!  We're still working on potty training.

I like her pretty well now.  :)

Kiki and Ivy.  

Ivy at 9 weeks, 9.4 lbs

She's very playful!

Basement

When we moved in to our new house, it had an unfinished basement.  It was framed in for two more bedrooms, two storage rooms, a furnace room and a bathroom.  That made it easy to know where things went!  The first few weeks we were here, my parents came and helped us get it wired and sheetrocked for the bedrooms and bathroom.  SO HELPFUL!

Looking toward the stairs from the bedrooms

The closet under the stairs and the two storage rooms

 After they left, things went much slower!  However, we are now almost done!  Just a few finishing touches left to do.  We love it!

Looking from the stairs toward the two bedrooms

Bookcase Andy built in the "library nook"

Family room with theater

Chair project

When we moved to Kansas we inherited yet another table that was once Grandma Beebe's.  I'm grateful!  While we were getting carpet laid in the basement I spent about two hours recovering the six chairs.  The new is the red, the old is the brown.  I like the change!

Kansas City Japan Festival

Somewhere I saw an advertisement for the annual Kansas City Japan Festival, and knew I wanted to go!  Andy had to work, so I took the girls and a couple of friends and set off!  More information is here:
http://www.kcjapanfestival.com/

There was workshops and demonstrations you could participate in or watch.

 
We ate some decent Japanese food.

I finally saw a sumo demonstration!  We saw some Taiko drum performances also.

Sophie even dressed up (cosplay) her favorite Anime character and was in a costume contest.
Fun day!

Watch for the unexpected

I found out where all the bluebirds went!

I haven't seen a bluebird since mid-July, and I wondered where they all went.  I used to see one every morning when I took Kiki for a walk.  Then, all of a sudden, they were gone!  This morning I went to the gym to exercise, but it was such a nice day that I decided to take Kiki for a walk too.  I came upon this stand of trees and there was a whole flock of bluebirds!  

I was reminded that I need to keep my eyes open and look for God's blessings.

Update:  I took this photo and wrote this post a couple of weeks ago...but it took me that long to transfer the photo to my computer so I could put the whole thing together.  I haven't seen any bluebirds since this day.  That's okay, it gives me something to look for when I take Kiki for a walk!