Mary birthday #1 part 2

Corrie quotes - holiday edition

(after realizing we had to go back to our house...because we live there)
"Maybe we could just move our house next to gramma and grampa's!  So then I wouldn't have to be in the car and eat snacks."

"Dear Lord, Thank you for sending baby Jesus in the stable and help us to have a good Christmas and help us feel better in our bodies and..."

"Hey Mommy?"   ('Yes..')
"Nevermind, I just lost the question in my head."

Mary first Christmas/birthday (part 1)

Christmas cuties

Christmas at home

before we start our travels thought we should post a little about the Christmas we had at home...

the girls on Sunday, after church



the assortment of gifts...

 Corrie wrapped up this present and put it in Dad's stocking all by herself, not too bad!

Merry Christmas from the Powells

Steps 1a, 3, 4, and 5 of the wood stove

So really the first step was cutting up all the branches around the house (some were growing into the side of the house and roof, some fell during storms, some were cut up by the streets dept. down our road, some dropped too many leaves and were punished :).   So over the last year I built this 4' tall by 12' long rack for stacking firewood, 1 piece deep.  See the little jig I have to cut the limbs?

In the first 4 days we've already made a dent in the scraps I collected.  Still waiting on a delivery of real firewood...
Step 3 was the installation.  Didn't get any of that...
Step 4 was cleaning out the ash dump of the fireplace -- probably 30 years of ashes from basement to 1st floor in this vertical dump that had a big cavity at the bottom.   The blower fans need electricity so I dropped an extension cord down the dump to get to the basement outlet.  I've probably cleaned out 40 gallons of ash by now, judging by the number of 5 gallon buckets and trashbags.   Even a couple bricks and chunk of concrete came down!  And a stick.  Was starting to wonder if I'd find any bones   :o

















Step 5: keep the fire going and enjoy :)




One of the snags was that the 'pro' came out twice didn't tell us the model we ended up with wouldn't fill the height of our opening :( so it's propped up on bricks. Probably should've gone with the bigger model. Better fit, better heat. But we'll get a custom piece made, painted black, to hide that part. Still need to remove the white paint from the rest of the bricks..