June!

Welcome to the Teeter House where we jump on beds, always have a million projects going on and clothing is optional! 

(Although if you visit us, we'd appreciate if you packed some clothing...)

We finally have a bedroom big enough for all of us!  So much fun and so many fantastic conversations are had in here.  Everything from in-depth conversations on cancer and WWII to Brooklyn realizing she loves to give foot rubs (which I'm happy to volunteer for) and lots of stories being told--both childhood and written word. 
Oh, and lots of jumping.

One of the kids' requirements for a new house was that there must be stairs.
To be slid down of course!!

Out on the side deck popping Snap Its.

My watermelon boy.

Swingin' on the back deck.

We're in the east mountains of Albuquerque (Sandia Park, to be specific), and although it's about 10 degrees cooler than Albuquerque, it's still freaking hot!

So, at this point, at least half of our stuff was in California still.  We had one nasty couch and a few chairs (which were dwindling as they kept breaking--we were down to 1 when Russ brought our stuff back from CA!), etc.  Anyway, the weekend after we moved in, I saw a garage sale sign that said "decorator's liquidation".  Um, okay, it's worth checking out...
Dude.  I scored.  It was an interior designer who had a giant garage FULL of stuff used for staging homes.  Everything was in great condition and beautiful and from places like Pier One and World Market, where I would never shop and pay their prices, ha.
Anyway, I ended up with some amazing stuff--2 like-new couches (the one in the photo had been used once and was a $500+ couch!), my amazing sitting chair and ottoman (that I told the kids to be nice to because it's so comfy I want to be buried in it when I die), 2 gorgeous console tables, a big lamp, and lots of little odds and ends.
Oh, AND she lived right across the street! ...which is a 1/2 mile out here, but was awesome considering I had to make 6 trips to get all of the stuff!

Ah, this is a Before couches and stuff.  Like our tv console?  Ha.

The workshop area.  There WERE cabinets and everything in here when we looked at the house.  Apparently they TOOK them!  What the heck?!
Oh well...time to start crafting!
First big purchase for the shop?  Table saw!  ...which I was very happy for.  Woodworking has never been even remotely interesting to me, until I discovered Pinterest...and how much all of those beautiful things in all of the photos cost!!  

Then I found www.ana-white.com (who got into woodworking the same way I did--wanted the pretty things, but couldn't afford them) and I could not WAIT to get started!!
So a big requirement for the workshop is that Russ have his bench and I have mine (that way I don't have to stand on a stool to work at his bench!!).

Here's the After. 
Russ's bench is on the left and mine is on the right (although is always covered in crap, and I mostly work in the middle of the floor anyway).
This was all constructed while I was hauling things back from that garage sale!
And not only was it constructed, but the kids decorated it for me as well!!  They got their paints and markers out and left some fantastic artwork on my "crafting table".

(Oh, and since we've actually moved in and got started on projects, this 2 1/2 car garage has become FULL!!  I never thought we'd fill it up so fast...alas.  What do you do when you're working on 10 different projects at once?!)

Our first woodworking project wasn't anything spectacular...mostly just necessary.
A chicken coop!

 Not very pretty, I know.  But we were eager to get going on our little homestead.  And our first order of business animal-wise was meat chickens!  They don't need roosts or anything, so we just needed to construct something to keep them safe for the whole 8 weeks it takes them to reach adult-size (isn't that insane?!).
Oh, and after we finished this, Russ went upstairs and ordered not 15 chickens (like we'd discussed), but TWENTY-FIVE!!
So the following weekend we had to go get more materials so we could double the size of this coop...

This happens a lot here...we call it the redneck pool.

Russ snapped this photo in Albuquerque...ah, typical Albuquerque (enlarge and look at the cars to see what I mean).

The garage isn't just for Russ and I...also for Brooklyn and Sam and Barbie and My Little Ponies.
Trying to make it a fun place for everyone to be.

So I LOVE this game on my Kindle.  Pixel Perfect I think it's called?  Anyway...it's a math-type puzzle and I can sit and play it over and over and over all.day.long.  And here's the thing, because I can't find another version, I play the same 20 puzzles OVER and OVER.  Insanity, I tell you.
So it's no surprise that Sam was quite curious about it.  He's been interested in numbers lately, asking me to ask him math problems.  And of course he's a technology dude, so it's no surprise he likes it, I suppose.

Oh Tesla...don't you know that's where the dirty laundry goes??

Another New House Requirement from the kids was "A good house to have a dog."  I think a 1/2 acre fenced backyard will do!
So, meet Brin (Short for Herobrine, for you Minecrafters)!
He's a 1-year-old Australian Red Heeler mix who was given to the pound by his owners, saying he was aggressive towards cats and was an escape artist and was house-trained...none of which were true.  ...including the house-trained part (he was outside alone all day long and then slept in the garage at night, no wonder he wanted to escape!  He was bored!).
We looked at several dogs, but he was the only one who paid any sort of attention to us.  And actually, the thing that drew me to him at the shelter was at first his name, Russell!  And he's a red-head!  Plus, while all of the other dogs were barking their brains out, he just sat there staring at you with his soulful greenish eyes, begging to be pet.

I won't say it's been a cake-walk, but he's a really great family dog.  We started doing some agility training on him after he got loose once and I called him to come home.  He was sprinting, turned on a dime, then sprinted full-speed back at a barbed wire fence...I yelled, "NO!" but that boy sailed right through the 1 foot wide gap...insane.

Another New House requirement:  Good place for hammock.
Check!

The troops coming in from romping in the dirt.

We have some really crappy chairs that we got on Freecycle for cheap when we moved here (and were chair-less).  Well, they started breaking one by one and why waste a good chair when you can have a swing!?

So much fun!  There were daily fights over it for awhile...and then another chair broke...hehe.