God made dirt.. And we have LOTS of it!!

This is how our front side yard looked when we moved in. Eric cut down those small trees. (I do not have a good pic of the back side yard, so just picture this type of mess there too!)

Then, he rented several machnes to get it to this point...

The above photo now looks like the photo below..

Side yard..

The new fence will go from the back corner (attaching to the exisiting fence) to about the middle of the hill in this photo. Then, it will come down the hill to meet the yard with a double gate and continue a few more feet until it touches the side of the house. Can you picture that?

Side and back yard...

The burm and yard will all get hydroseed next year. The ledge in the middle of the burm will have small bushes and wildflowers planted on it. We will also be planting a few new trees and a small garden for Zoey. She loves blueberries and strawberries!

And Currently..

Heres the view when you drive up. On the left of this photo, we have dirt piles that will stay about 1 or 2 feet high until they reach the driveway. This will keep and water from rain and snow melt from flooding our neighbors. We plan to set up a fire pit and seating back there and also put a short fence (maybe a split-rail) on the top of the "flood saver hill" just to give it a more finished look.

Heres the side yard

Eric has also set some of the posts for the fence on the top of the burm

We will keep updating the progress as we get more done. Right now, Eric's up on the roof with a good friend replacing the shingles. We wanted to go one more year before we did that, but he was looking at it the other day and noticed they were all lifting. Each time its windy or rains we end up with black pieces all over the deck too, so it was definitely ready to be replaced.

UPDATE

The roof is done! I didnt get all the photos on here when I started this post, so thats the reason for the delay. Heres a new photo of the fence too!

Sorry about all the delays to those of you who wanted pics of the landscaping projects. We are still running AT&T internet which is terribly slow. We even had a few days where it was crashing our computer. I am actually debating trying to go back to the Monday Email again, but I know my yahoo doesnt support that well either. I'll get some new photos of Z up here very soon! Check back!

Lots To Tell!!

Wow! Where do I begin! We have been super busy lately.. or at least it seems like we have been. Back in August, we decided to take Zoey to the Alaska State Fair. Thank goodness we had a Daddy who wasn't working and a beautiful afternoon with sunshine! Here's some photos!

The goats were her favorite!

Isnt she cute as a fat old man on a tractor? Haha!

We took her to see the animals first. After that, we decided to go back to the car for the stroller. That turned out to be the best idea we had since she fell asleep right after she sat down. Mommy and Daddy walked around for a long time and then we all went to dinner together. It was a great day!

Zoey has transitioned into a toddler bed!

Here's the first photo of her in her bed! Shes on the left side of the monitor.

One day, she decided to climb out of her crib during a nap so Eric quickly changed her bed into the daybed with rails. She's done well so far. She escaped one night and Eric found her in the living room at 4am. After that, we now keep her door shut! Another morning, I found her here..

because Eric thinks he didn't shut her door all the way! Usually at night she gets out a couple times and during naps she sometimes plays with her toys for a while, but shes done well with the change. I can't say she always sleeps in her bed properly. Here are some examples - look hard!Sleeping on the floor beside her bed.Sleeping with her head hanging off the bed.In a lump on the floor by the door (top right corner).Torso on bed and feet on the floor.. yes, she is asleep like this!

Other than that, she's been doing typical toddler things..

Having lunch with a good friend!

Enjoyng her new slide!

Helping Mommy with the tupperware!

This past weekend, Eric worked on landscaping. Hopefully he can get that and some wood harvested before Friday which is the day of his next knee surgery. He will be off work for 10 days again. I'll update you all on that later. Zoey went to a new bouncy house with Rita and did great! I'll take the camera next time! We went to Julies ultrasound today (its a boy!) and the park too. Zoey is now napping (by the door again) so I'm going to wash dishes. Thanks for reading our updates! We love and miss you all!

Almost Forgot..

I finally finished the mural in Zoeys room! I drew it on in pencil first, then painted the whole thing. After spending a few hours drawing, Eric suggested I make a stencil of each leaf.. Duh! Why didnt I think of that??!! Here it is!Also, we adopted a dog that Eric found on post. She was abused and very under weight. We named her Stella. Shes wonderful with Zoey and Chewy! Shes a Siberian Husky mix. Here she is with Chewy!

"Play With Your Food" Playdate!

I was waiting to write again until after the fun playdate that I planned for Zoey and her friends. We had soooooo much fun on Wednesday! The idea behind the playdate was to have fun but make sure everything was edible and safe for the little ones. When I was in preschool, I got to paint with chocolate pudding - its one of the few things I remember from when I was little. Also, one of my best friends husbands is a chef who does amazing things with food such as carvings and sculptures. His name is David Leathers and one of his signature phrases is "I play with my food" hence the shirt Z sometimes wears! So, between the two, I got the inspiration for this!

Heres Z with part of her mess! I made all of the kids their own "paints" out of vanilla pudding that I colored with food coloring gels. I also found a recipe for edible play dough in a book (Thanks Gramma (Sharon) Bujak!) that I was given for Mothers Day. All 6 of her little friends did so well with their crafts! I even made them a cute snack!

Heres a link to more photos from the playdate! Hopefully it works!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=241352&id=636585336&l=b1e7e4ab94

Banana Phone

Zoeys been playing pretend a lot lately. She pretends to cook, eat, feed her toys, dress up..

Shes so cute! I picked her out some play food when we went for groceries yesterday. Heres a couple pics!

Hello? Nana? Yes, it is a nana Z!

On another note, I have added two new albums to the shutterfly site. They include the photos of Zoey and her Granna Falk, our time with Gramma and Grampa Bujak in Florida and also the ones from the Bujak family reunion. Still working on the rest!

http://thebujakfamilyphotos.shutterfly.com/pictures

password -alaskabujaks

We Will Never Forget

Over the past 2 months, we have lost two very important family members - Zoeys Great Grampa VanDenBerghe and her Great Grampa Falk. We are so blessed that she was able to meet them and that we have these photos to remember the times by. We love you both and will miss you dearly..

Z and Grampa Falk August 09

Grampa VanDenBerghe and Zoey August 09

This was Gramma & Grampa VanDenBerghes cookie jar. When I think about them, I think about this & the windmill cookies that were always inside when I was a little girl. Now Z gets to enjoy it & we are happy to give it a good home.

She calls the owl "apple" - I guess they sound the same to her! She loves the windmill cookies too!

Piggy Princess

So, instead of uploading all of the photos that I wanted to, I chose just one. It took half an hour, but heres our piggy princess! I love her hair! Its long enough now that I can put clips and ponies in it plus the back is super curly. Her bangs are so long that they hang in her eyes. We had an old woman in Walmart tell us that we should buy a disposable camera to be sure we get enough photos of her - how sweet!

I have been working on animal noises with her lately. She can tell you what a dog, cat, bear, cow and fish say.. well, the fish isnt a noise, but she tries to make fish lips!

Speaking of, Daddy got Z her very own fish! He picked out a 20 gallon tank, 6 guppies, 3 tiger striped fish and a really strange bottom feeder. We all ready lost one tiger stripe, so he replaced that with 2 neon colored fish that zip around fast.

Heres the crazy bottom feeder stuck to the side!

Zoey loves watching her fish - we all do. They are very relaxing.

I have a few photos of the yard, but I'll save them for later. We rented some equipment and Eric spent the day tearing down the side yard. Its a huge waste of our land, so we plan to level it out, get the fence built, hydroseed, landscape an also make a play space for Zoey and a fire pit with seating for friends! We are working in stages as we save the money. Its been a while since we worked though since Eric has a midnight shift right now. I say "we" but all I'm doing right now is watching Z while he works. I only get to help while she naps. We will get pics up once its more than a pile of dirt!!

An update on the Monkey..

We decided Z was ready to go to a bouncy house! I took her on Friday and it was fun! Most of the play stations were a bit big for her, but she eventually found a few things she had fun on. We will get photos next time we go!