Friday Favorites {edition fourteen}

Happy Friday, friends!  I'm linking up with Andrea from Momfessionals, and her friend Erika, for this blog post. 

It's been an alternately busy and slow week.  All the men in the house have been busy, so that's made it go by fast, and that is a great thing.  It's always good to stay busy in times like these. 

So, about this week...

Bonfires are always a favorite pasttime around here, and this was how we kicked off last weekend.  Not too long after this whole shelter in place thing took effect, we bought this firepit.  It's been used several times throughout these weeks, and it's been a nice little getaway from the typical activities inside.  The boys have been used it several times on their own, but last weekend Todd started this one.

A lot has changed in the backyard this week, and that is always exciting.  That first picture you see above this is from last Friday.  My stepdad came over and he and Todd mapped out where the new deck would be.  And we are minus one tree now in the backyard.  The picture right above this is the truck that hauled off the dead tree we had cut down last Saturday.  That was kind of a mess, because we had to take down a section or two of fence (that needed to be repaired) and the piece of equipment they used to grind down the tree stump made big tracks in our yard when they came back on Monday.  But, it's finished now, and as soon as this first project in the backyard is done, hopefully we'll put back that fence that we had to take down.

And by "we", I mean "them".

Our second major project has been the new deck.

My stepdad is such a talented carpenter, and a huge blessing to us.  He, Jonah and Noah built the new roof structure over our front door and stoop back in the fall to replace the old and tired awning that had been there, and now he and all the men here in our house are building this new deck.  They made a ton of progress yesterday, even though they had to re-do part of what had been put down on Wednesday.  They're about to get out there and get back to it today, and I can't wait to see how far they get.  It'll be so nice once it's finished.  I snuck this picture of Jonah yesterday as he measured that board he was about to cut with the saw you see in the picture.  All the boys have been operating that thing this week.  I love that they've learned new skills in this process. 

Last up for today is this podcast series I've been listening to this week.  It's my new favorite series, and it's all about having transformed speech.  One day in particular was so good, and mentioned a couple of my favorite passages in the New Testament about how we speak and act: Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3. 

Other things we've done this week include shopping for toilet paper (we struck gold on the third attempt), shopping for groceries, making lunch AND dinner for everyone all week, seeing a couple of friends at six feet apart and having a picnic style dinner in the process (in our church parking lot), losing Todd's keys, and about a million trips to Lowe's for supplies. 

I also finished the series I was watching on Hulu and am need of a replacement.  I was watching Counting On, a show about the adult Dugger family kids as young marrieds and parents, and would love a similar show.  I am not watching the news at all anymore, and this is for me to watch early in the mornings and at night when the guys in the house are occupied.  I'm open to suggestion!  I love fictional shows, but I am really loving documentary series and cooking or home design type shows right this moment.  We have Roku, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix, so please comment with some suggestions!

Well, I will wrap up this post with that.  Thanks for reading!  Love to all.