Mason's New Sandbox

 When Grammie and Grandpa were here for Thanksgiving they got Mason a sandbox. He loves it and wants to play in it every day.  He loves driving his truck in it, making sand castles, digging...Thanks Grammie and Grandpa!

Thanksgiving Plane Ride

 Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year! It was the first time we had Thanksgiving with family in a while because we finally live close to them. Chad's parents came for Thanksgiving and so did my Uncle Scott and his family. We all had dinner with my parents and Brandt, played games, and went Black Friday shopping at Wal-Mart. Scott also took us on an airplane ride. Mason loves airplanes and he wanted to go again when we landed. He kept signing more, more...

We caught a Toad

A few months ago we found a toad in our garage. Chad decided to catch it and bring it in the house. He thought it was too cold outside. We looked up what to do if you catch a toad and everything pretty much said to put it back where you found it and also that they hibernate during the winter and can live just fine in really cold temperatures.  So we kept it for about 5 minutes and then let it go in our front yard.  Mason had fun with it.

Horses!

A friend of ours has some horses and mini-horses so Mason got to go see them a couple months ago. He had a lot of fun. He got to feed them carrots and he sat on one of the mini-horses. He could have gone for a ride, but he was too scared.  Here's some pictures.  These are also the horses that we can see from my parents backyard. They peek over the fence and Mason pets them and feeds them apples sometimes. The above picture is from my parents' backyard.

Feeding the horse apples with Grammie from my parent's backyard

"Calling Maintenance" Vs. "Doing it Yourself"

Since we moved into our own home a few months ago, there have been a few maintenance issues that we've had to take care of ourselves since we can't just 'call maintenance' anymore.  We miss being able to simply pick up the phone and have someone else come take care of any type of problem we're having and replace any parts themselves, but at the same time, I have started to appreciate getting to do household repairs myself.  It's rewarding to research an issue and successfully fix it on your own.  It's also fun to learn new things and expand your tool collection in the process.  Also, it's nice to know that you are fixing it right the first time -- hopefully -- and won't have to ask anyone a second time to take care of it.

A couple weeks ago our garage door opener stopped pulling the garage door up all the way.  I did some research and found out this is common when the weather gets very cold.  I also found out how to increase the power of the opener to be able to pull it up all the way.  This ended up being a really easy fix once I found out what to do.  It was very satisfying nonetheless to have taken care of it from beginning to end on my own.

The most recent issue was a bit more complex.  Our over-the-range microwave stopped working and even though these types of microwaves are more expensive than counter-top microwaves, it still wasn't a viable option to just replace the broken part.  Luckily we found a nice stainless steel unit on clearance that goes well with our kitchen.  This issue was more complicated because we needed to first buy a new microwave and then remove the old one and put the new one in its place.  This is the first time we've had an over-the-range microwave so it would also be the first time we would be replacing one.  Since we are of a mindset to not pay someone to do what you can do yourself if you are willing to put in the time and effort, we decided to tackle this one on our own.  It ended up taking an entire evening and the next day's afternoon because we didn't have all the right types and sizes of drill bits we needed; and we had to put a new wall mount on the wall because the previous one was too high, but we were ultimately successful in replacing our own over-the-range microwave (see finished project at bottom).

The finished project: