Month: November 2009

Bottles being shot with bb guns, kids riding horses and jumping in a chicken coop, and discussions about the best plan of attack for jumping over a bonfire. These were the sounds of ETE Birthday Bonfire Bash 2009.

Before the guests arrived, I filled holes in the yard with the only “dirt” available: horse poop. You don’t want anyone stepping in any holes.

Then Aunt Kati got things started by getting the kid dizzy:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzi1_QFCnGM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

ETE Birthday Bonfire Bashes bring people together. Nathan bonded with James, even asking to be picked up at one point.

Then he and Maya dragged him upstairs…

…where Maya talked James into doing this:

Maya was a bit more graceful:

This year the sacrifices were shoes and baseball cards.

The in-progress chicken coop was a surprising hit:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syT2L8-D6ww&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

Maya wishes chickens would fall from the sky. Also she can ride a horse with NO HANDS.

Every year James jumps the fire. I keep making the fire bigger but he is fearless:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svNtMVQfMyg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

Nathan didn’t hang out for the afterparty.

Which is probably good because things got crazy.

Next year I’ll try to make the fire even bigger…

It’s mostly a blessing that Justin works from home, but it can sometimes be a curse too. Because he works from home he can wear whatever he wants and it doesn’t make a difference. I thought that was a good thing, but the truth is, it isn’t always a good thing.

We rarely shop for clothes. A few times a year I might hit up the Target sales rack and indulge myself by getting a shirt or two, almost never spending more than $5-$10 per item. Justin shops less than I do. He only buys something new when he no longer has anything to wear that doesn’t have holes and/or stains. Don’t judge us, it’s just who we are.

Well, today I realized just how pathetic our ways are. Justin’s one pair of “good” pants got a hole in them and he wrote “Justin pants” on the grocery list.

To build a chicken coop you must first pick a location for your chickens. I picked the exact spot in the yard where a HUGE pile of “yard debris” sat. Yard debris at the Blaix compound means everything from leaves and twigs to whole pine trees.

The pile was too big and too close to a tree to burn in one round so we broke it into two rounds. This is the second round-

Once the pile was gone the coop could be started.
First you build the floor, making sure it’s level despite the very un-level ground.

Then you get your 2 year old to help with the hammering

Next come the walls
Good job, holding that board, Justin. Keep up the good work.

Then the roof

Finally, we had the inspector check it over

More to come later.