Front Steps

This is our front entry.  When the project is finished there will only be one door and it will  be on the left.  That door will be ground level with a stairway leading down to the basement and 3 curving stairs leading up into the entry.  Where the right door is now we will have a bay window. 

The above picture is of the 12 foot drop out of our front door.  So far we have all avoided falling.

Since the workers were waiting on two support beams that will be permanently in our basement they worked at hauling out some of the clay and old basement a couple days last week.  It is nice that I can back straight out of my garage stall again.  And it looks better around the place, too.

Here are those beams that finally came Friday afternoon.  Once they get them into place they will be able to finish the basement.

This is the west wall.  We will be redoing the sewer pipes.  In the right corner is where we are planning to put a new water heater and the furnace.  That way they won't be setting in the middle of the basement like they are now.

This is the north east corner where I will have my pantry.  You can see a portion of the chimney.  We won't need one anymore as we are getting an electric water heater.

They poured the footings for this section of the basement on Thursday.  On the right is where the stairs will come down from the front of the house. 

There is still work and details to work out before we are finished with the house project but the basement portion of it is almost done.  I have been very thankful for the nice weather, not only because I like sunny warm weather, but because it makes this project go faster.

I have some pictures of some of the children's science work.  We have been studying human anatomy and enjoying The Body Book.  We are allowed to make copies of the pages so Leah gets to do it as well.  For starters we have been studying the five senses.  This first model is an overview of the five and was easy to make.  You just have to cut, fold, and tape.

It looks kind of creepy when you lift up the flaps.

Then we did a model of the sense of taste. 

Folding back the lips reveals this:

Daniel likes the Usborne anatomy book and the Human Body for every Kid book that we use as well.

School has gone well this week.  Most days we are finishing early enough for the children to have time to enjoy the nice outdoors.  Which reminds me that I need to wrap this up and get out and enjoy some of that myself.