Play Ball!!!

This is how every Rocker game starts each day at the Cullum house. (Rockers are the imaginary baseball team the boys have. For their birthday they received "official" Rocker Jerseys and hats which they are not sporting at this time because they are in the wash. Every morning after breakfast the boys go outside to play the Rocker's 1st game of the day. The Rockers believe it or not have won the World Series about 3 times in the last month. Every game has very enthusiastic and loud commentating done by the boys.)



clearly we need to work on learning the words of the National Anthem :) Usually the words are just as jumbled each morning but there is no hesitation between them. Instead they sing the errors with confidence. The camera distracted them a bit

Pouring the slab

Once we had the dirt up to the right level a plumbing company layed out the plumbing, Kyle layed out the electrical, and Kyle and David layed out the visqueen and the wire mesh. A mason company poured and smoothed the slab.

More Strong Foundation

Once the footer is poured and dried we had to remove all of the footer forms (wood). Then we had to dig through all of the sand that was "inside" the house. Since this lot has a lot of oak trees we had to remove all organic material (tree roots, etc) so that as the years pass the dead organic material doesn't leave air pockets which would lead to our slab sinking in places. Some people would just get rid of the old dirt and not do this sifting process, but that is not as cheap. Once we cleaned out all the exhisting dirt the footer wall built (not by us). Once the footer wall was set up we spent weeks pouring and compacting new dirt up to the appropriate level for the slab. The kids were fantastic with helping out with this entire process. They pulled out roots, they ran the compactor, the threw dirt, etc.

Laying a Strong Foundation

Building a strong foundation in Florida is quite different than what I was used to living up north in Wisconsin. As you can see our soil is sand. And our water table does not allow for basements. Therefore the first thing you build for the foundation are the footers. Since our soil is pure sand we had to use the wood to keep the sides that were dug from caving in and then you set up the rebar in the footer cells. We thankfully did not do all this work ourselves.

New House

We have been busy building our new house. We started in September 2010. We have had our entire family and extended family, sub contractors and friends help in the process. I don't have time to write down more details so instead I will spend the time I do have uploading photos for viewing. Thank you to Sandy for taking documenting the building process in photos.

Kyle and I both love Bungalow homes so this home has been an attempt at a comtemporary Bungalow.

The west side view--shows the beginning of the back porch


front view

Parental Rights

EVERY American should educate themselves on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its impact on the Parental Rights of Americans.

Parentalrights.org

The treaty can affect our right as American parents to decide our child(rens) education, religion, discipline, health care, etc. Instead that right is given to the government and the children themselves, but ultimately the government.

Little House on the Prairie

As I type our family is sitting down for our weekly (sometimes bi-weekly depending on the weather and the adults exhaustion level) Little House on the Prairie family viewing. Pa looks handsome as ever. Ma is graceful and beautiful. Mary is the typical first born aiming to please and excelling in everything. Laura learns life the hard way and in her own way. Carrie is sweet and cute. Nellie Olseon is mean and bratty as ever causing you to wonder however did her father manage living with her. Mr. Edwards always brings a laugh.

For my birthday in October I received the entire 9 seasons of Little House on the Prairie DVD set. I was a big fan when I was little and became a bigger fan when I began reading the book series to the boys. I am close to a fanatic now talking about LIttle House episodes with my mom friends and eagerly anticipating the next time I can sit down and watch an episode. Kyle and I spend several nights a week watching the episodes together before bed so that we can decide which episodes we will allow the children to watch.

Our family loves watching Little House on the Prairie for many reasons.
good morals and character displayed
The whole family (including Prema who can't hear and can't read the subtitles) can enjoy and understand what is happening in the show.
as we dream about slowly growing our own homestead, our kids see first hand hard work done in chores
the kids get to see the "old ways" of doing things
every episode is so relaxing to watch
real life situations are played out for our kids to see and we can discuss
one room school house with classical teaching which is how we homeschool