Monday, November 28, 2011

My Cell Pics

Everyone had colds this holiday weekend. Here is Alex and Michelle taking a rest on the couch.




I took Wednesday off. So i got to hang out with the boys. I took this pic and sent it to Michelle. I started laughing when i saw the face Alex was making.



Lily aka Wabba with the turkey pinata that everyone helped make.




Luke and his Winnie the Pooh cup. He must have just finished eating because his chair has no cover on it.



Lily is very stubborn. She think she was here first.



The boys are good with both cats(who are both fully clawed). Tessie will walk away, but Lily will stay no matter how much positive or negative attention she is getting.



Wrapping the fort in xmas lights




Saturday, November 26, 2011

Halloween 2011

Well now that we are entering the Christmas season, I thought it may be time to get the Halloween pictures posted. I've had a bit of a backup with blog posts after my computer ran out of space after storing my thousands of pictures on it, which makes for extra work to save them on external hard drive, back them up else where and still I feel anxious "deleting" them off the computer. All of which takes extra time I don't have. So, hence the reason for the lengthy delay.


We didn't have time to carve pumpkins this year as a family. But, Theresa and Alex carved this one during Luke's nap on Halloween. Here's Luke checking it out after he woke up from his nap.






I had reason to believe that Alex would be uncooperative with a costume this year. So, I came up with a costume that he could buy into on various level and it would still be a costume. He it quite the "handyman" lately and adores "Bob the Builder" now. So, I thought he would be into this costume. But, it took a major struggle to get on the tool belt and he would only carry the hard hat. He ended up collecting his candy in it.


Luke reused Alex's George costume. I thought for sure Luke would have the chicken pox on Halloween. But, Luke never got them. I don't think they were really the chicken pox that Alex had.



Thursday, November 3, 2011

Play Structure Play









Play Structure Update

Almost every weekend Alex will ask to work on the fort. It was quite hot for some time so i didnt get to much done. I also started to work slower so he could have more things to help me with. Here is where i am at so far:

I decided to wire it for power. Alex has always loved to plug things in. I bought 3outlets, 2 switches, and 25ft of romex. There is an outlet under the flooring to run an extension cord to the house. That way i can control the power. I wired each outlet to a separate switch and put each outlet on either side of the slide. Then covered the wires with a thin sheet of plywood and drywall.


I decided to build a door. I was going to have it swing out but it would hit the slide. So I bought some 2x4s, 2x6s, and a 2x3(didnt know they made them)


I was short one piece of wood to finish my Z, so I used some scrap to hold it together.

Here is the door completed and stained a black cherry.


Lowes sells gate hinges that look older. I wanted it to look like a tavern door or an old castle door. I found a handle that matched and added a latch to lock it.


I made the windows out of .25 inch plexiglass. I still have to add the latch on the left side. The 2 ft by 4 ft window folds completely flat against the siding. It will easily be out of the way when the swings are added. There is also another small window to the right of the ladder. The boys like hanging out in there while its raining.

I am not a MSU fan. My plan was to paint the whole thing a darker green. When i went through and primed it i had to use a brush to fill in the recessed lines. To get an idea of what the green would look like i decided to quickly use a roller and paint it. i was going to fill in the lines with a brush later but decided it looked pretty cool. I also have begun staining the whole thing the same color as the door. The inside is fully drywalled, including the ceiling. I also caulked all the edges of the drywall so no bugs can hide.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Fall Pictures in the Yard

I'm not sure I will ever pay money for a photographer. These were taken for free in ten minutes and I don't think a photographer could do much better. Well maybe, but not one I'm willing to pay for. At least not now when the boys can't sit still with a smile on their face longer than ten seconds. They were completely done after five minutes.











Saturday, October 22, 2011

Alex and I were playing outside while Luke was taking a long nap. Luke has a cold, but not the chicken pox yet. Kris was adding more things to the fort. Alex likes setting the timer on the camera and seeing what we captured. He loves when I swing him around in circles and thought it was pretty funny that we got a picture of it.















So Worn Out



You know you are in trouble when your child falls asleep standing up. This was a few days before Alex came down with the chicken pox.



This is mostly what Alex did throughout his bout with the chicken pox. He only got 25 pox on the back of his left leg. He never really noticed them being there. He was just really tired and had a few nights of high fevers with weird dreams as a result. He kept going on about something dripping in his room, luckily he forgot all about it once the fever went away. Hoping that Luke will have it just as easy. We are still waiting out the 2-3 week incubation time.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Barton Dam

We were suppose to get pictures today, but as you can see Alex's hair is a bit shaggy for that. His usual hair cutter was on vacation, so we decided to stick it out until she came back. We had to get some pictures in on such a beautiful day. The boys love throwing rocks in the water! I love the shot I got on top of the hill that is now our header!