The Hamilton Family Blog

It’s coming….

Aaron — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:28:41 +0000

That’s right….a new blog post is coming!! Finally! (give me a break…life has been busy)

Garden Explosion!

Aaron — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:50:13 +0000

Many of you know we planted a big garden this spring…and it’s now in production…and we are pumped! So, we have had some lettuce, onions and zucchini already picked and more onions and potatoes ready to pick. Then the yellow squash, green beans & tomatoes will be ready within the next 2 weeks. Corn, cucumbers and cantaloupe are all up and healthy and will be ready in early july sometime. And best of all, there’ll b okra soon too! And we have 1 measly little watermelon plant, I don’t know if it will make it. Enjoy the pics!

New Projects…Spring Is Here

Aaron — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:21:42 +0000

Can I just say how much I love spring. The last week, after the deluge of rain, was one of the prettiest weeks we’ve had in months and I was able to take full advantage of it. With the onset of spring weather means the shop gets used more…and the shop likes that. The garden planting has begun with onions and potatoes in the ground and it’ll be time to mow in less than a week! I’m so excited (I know it’s weird to be excited about mowing). So, here’s a little run down of the projects that are done, in progress, or to be done.

I kicked things off by making some baby furniture, a dresser/changing table and chest of drawers, for our good friends the Feezels. (they are my 1st paying furniture customers) The furniture turned out very nice and Tiffani is loading it up with baby gear and will forward me pictures soon.

Next, I decided to finally do something about my dust collection, or lack of, in my shop. I spend enough time woodworking that not having dust collection means a real danger to my health in the long run. My friend Scott Sutton and I tackled the task on Friday after he got through working on his kitchen doors. I then spent most of the day fitting all the runs in and making the “drops” and hooking things up. Saturday night was the inaugural run for the “octopus” as Steph calls it (you’ll see why in the pictures). It turned out great and I’ve been amazed at how well it picks the dust up so far from my big tools.

Finally, today, I began work on the adirondack benches that were promised to our mothers last mothers day. I am excited to finally complete these so our moms can begin enjoying them. (no pictures of these yet…they will follow by the end of the week hopefully).

The next projects are: working on trim in the house, building 2 more benches that my friends want to buy, planting more stuff in the garden (mom and dad are coming down for easter and dad “the garden king” is going to help me with irrigation and planting more stuff).

We are trying to find things to do to raise money for the impending adoption…and although time consuming, I thought building some furniture for “auction” might be a cool idea. This is where we need some INPUT from the BLOG READERS! Let us know what you think about me making a few pieces of furniture for auction and what pieces you think would be best and appeal to the largest crowd.

Below is a picture of the “octopus” and a shop tour! Enjoy!

Our new friend Sam

Aaron — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:58:26 +0000

You should all go check out our friend’s webpage that are in kaZ right now getting their little boy Sam.

Aaronandcharity.wordpress.com

Orange Power!

Aaron — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:34:00 +0000

A little synopsis of the Pokes going to the tourney!

Daylight!

Aaron — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:46:51 +0000

Man, I can’t tell you how much I love daylight saving time. Today, after church, we came home and took a 2 hour nap…and still had time to plant in the garden today. Ayan was such a big helper planting potatoes. He would go to the bag and get me one at a time and bring it to me and say “Here nudder tato daddy”. Seriously, I love living in the country. It was SUCH a beautiful day today and it made me so excited about spring. New garden…woodworking…oh daylight is great!

Happy wingsday

Aaron — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:01:58 +0000

Like a scene from the office, my coworkers and I travel to the local wings joint every Wednesday for lunch for discount wings. Today will be no different, and I wanted to share my affection for wings with you, my faithful blog followers. Please feel free to express your wing love here as well.

New Family Portrait!

Aaron — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:26:06 +0000

Our good friend Lauren Brand (lwnphotography.com) took our family portraits recently and we just got them back yesterday. They turned out GREAT! We were all a bit amazed at Ayan and his smiling antics which makes it appear that we have him well-trained for potraits…(we’ll let you believe that if you want to).

Thanks so much Lauren. I’m a very proud husband of a gorgeous wife and father of the cutest little boy ever!

(this is my favorite) – the rest are below…enjoy.

Weekend Happenin’s.

Aaron — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:36:41 +0000

It was quite an eventful weekend at the Hamilton Acres. It all started with me taking Friday off to do a little work around the place. Little did I know that a 50 MPH wind and a cold front were rollin’ in and it would make my day not so fun working outside. But, I prevailed. I tilled up a garden spot about 80ft X 80ft out in the old corral area beside the barn. Tillin’ this black ground was not too easy, but I bought a tiller at a farm sale about 2 years ago that wasn’t running. It is a big 6 HP rear-tine tiller and it took me about an hour of work to get it up and running like a beast. So, we have onion sets and potatoes to plant this week and we plan on planting corn, tomatoes, green beans, peas, okra, yellow squash, lettuce & zucchini so we need all the space we can get. (pics will follow when plants are in the ground)

The next big event…was on saturday. I got up at 7am to go to Ft Worth and pick up a load of lumber that I’m using to make my friend’s baby furniture. As soon as I got back, my friend Brian Weir and his father-in-law, Mark, were here to help me chop out the mammoth hackberry stump that had grown for years right up against the foundation where we will be adding the add-on. The stump measured about 24″ in diameter and was SOLID. So, we took at it with chainsaws and 2 axes and a whole lot of manliness. After almost 3 hours of work, we had the tree about 70% chopped out to 4″ below ground level. And that is where it sits now…I will finish it this week (because the foundation goes in in 2 weeks!). Below is a pic of Brian in what I like to call his “axe murderer stance”. Brian is holding his prized wood chunk of the day. With one powerful blow, a 6″ chunk of wood flew off and Brian was pleased. (note the giant tree stump by his left foot)

Finally, to continue on our journey to country living, we have decided to get chickens. Not just for pets, but for layin’ purposes. There is a cool little poultry farm out here called Polish Farms (polishfarms.com) and we went out to visit them after church and came home with 4 little chicks. We plan to build an 8X8 coupe this week and put in a ramp into the tack room in the end of the barn for them to have as a laying room. Then, we’ll go back and get 4 older hens that are only 2 months from laying. The baby chicks won’t lay for about 5 months. Hopefully, with 8-10 chickens, we’ll have enough eggs to feed us and sell to some of our friends. Ain’t country life grand? (Ayan loves this chicks already by the way)

And finally, our dog Kip was sprayed by a skunk on Friday night. His normally fluffy coat had to be shaved off and he had to be treated with some kind of skunk smell remover from the groomer (but Steph didn’t mind because she gets tired of his long hairs around the house. Now he looks more puppy or some kind of large varmint. So, he deserves a pic too.

A Short Update….

Aaron — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:07:24 +0000

We went to our 2 hour orientation today in Waco. It was really cool to hear about how the process works at this agency. It is a Christian agency and they work very closely with the birth mothers to allow them to chose the adoptive families. We are now rushing to fill out our “formal app” and return it and write our “letter to the birth mom” that the mothers will see to choose who adopt their baby.

It’s a bit nerve-racking, but we’ve been through similar paperwork crunches before. After the paperwork is in and they run our background checks, we’ll have to do an 8 hour orientation and a homestudy. All of this feels so oddly familiar it’s just crazy. We got a list of organizations that do interest free loans and grants to look in to.

We also got a time frame. Most likely, if a birth mom chooses us, we would have a baby, if it is one of the 5 babies that are in the womb now, by August of this year. Folks…that is comin’ right up. How quickly life changes!

Thank you all for your prayers and we ask that you continue to pray for the following,

pray for the birthmom as she is walking through these tough decisions
pray for the unborn baby and the birth mom’s health
pray for our family as we continue to seek God’s will for us in this
pray for our patience as we seek out God’s provision in the funding
pray for us as we consider the huge changes a newborn would bring at short notice

Thank you for walking through this with us…

Aaron