A substantial project

On Monday, May 10, this shipment arrived at our house. You can't see it in the picture, but the website, box, and instructions promised a 6-8 hour assembly time. The online reviews said it did take all of the 6-8 hours. So we weren't expecting a fast assembly. Tom and I also knew that it would not be a 2-person job, so we were planning to enlist anyone who wanted to help.


On Friday, May 14, I purchased the rest of the wood (8 4x4x8's and 1 4x4x10).

Then on Sunday, May 16, we started the assembly. I spent literally an hour assembling the slide. Yes, the slide. Yes, two pieces of plastic bolted together with about eight bolts. I should have seen this as an ominous sign. The plastic pieces were warped, the mold had left a lot of extra plastic around the holes, and it was just a pain to get things lined up. But I did it.

After that Tom and I started to assemble the "tower" part of the system. Maybe it's the engineer in me, or the fact that I read the instructions, but I knew it was going to be important to make sure these pieces were square. Little did I know how hard that would be when the wood was slightly warped...

This was about 2-3 hours of work later.


The next Monday, Tom was out of town and my dad came over to help. He and I got the tower portion built and, with Becky's help, moved out to the back yard. This part again was about 3 hours worth of work.


I didn't get any pictures of last weekend's (May 23) progress. We spent about 5 hours on Sunday continuing the assembly process. Did I mention it was 90 degrees that day? Yeah. It was a lot of work in the heat. We stopped when we realized the roof didn't fit on the tower. Darn stackup of tolerances (says the engineer...). So when we were done we had a tower with some walls, a swingset without swings, and that was it.

On Friday I continued some of the assembly - I put some of the smaller pieces on the tower, finishing up the walls and arches, mounting the blue climbing wall, and then I built this part, which is another climbing wall. (Dad says I build a pretty good pallet).


So, yesterday. The Day of Reckoning. The fifth day of assembly. Probably the 15th hour of some kind of work on this thing. Three more hours of work, and it was done. And I have two very happy little boys. In fact, we're heading outside now so they can play on it some more.

I owe my dad so much for his help on this. If it wasn't for him, I think we'd still have just a basic tower.

Last day of preschool

Next fall my little baby boy (sob) will go to Kindergarten. So I had to capture his last day of preschool, and I had to try and make it special.

Here he is with his last show-and-tell (his stuffed horse from Germany).

We went out for donuts before preschool as a special treat. I found out later from my mom that Dad used to take Becky and I out to the donut shop in Grimes for special occasions. I had forgotten that, but it must have been stuck in my memory somewhere since it seemed like such a great idea. We hadn't been there for a year, since last summer.

Of course, since we went out for breakfast we were forced to waste time before school started. For some reason the boys REALLY wanted to go to church and wait there for school to start.

Here's Nile checking to see if the sign was green - they have a sign they hang in the window that is red until 5 minutes before class when they flip it over to announce that you can come in.

And two goofballs marching around.

Superheroes

Nate had a Superhero birthday party on Saturday. One of our friends captured these two videos of the superheroes playing outside. This is Spider Girl, Wonder Woman, and Nate the superhero (he had so many different superhero names, I honestly can't remember one). Oh, and Nile.

First they race down the hill...perhaps for battle? If you look closely you can see Nile coming down behind the three.


Then they return up the hill. I'm not sure why Nile needed the baseball bat.


Thanks to James for capturing this on his iPhone.

Summer Already?

It's still May - not yet Memorial Day. And yet, it's hot out already (the heat index right now is 98 degrees). Nate got a new sprinkler for his birthday - and with the heat, we let him use it on Sunday. He absolutely loved it, and ran around in it for at least an hour. (Thanks Andrew and Alex!)



Nile did not like it nearly as much. So, today when Nate asked for the sprinkler again, I dug out the old baby pool and filled it up for Nile. Of course then Nate had to join in too.
We've also learned we must have a lot of iron in our water - you might be able to notice the orange "ring around the pool" we have in the above photo. The boys' swimsuits and bodies are orange too. Either it's the water or it's the sunscreen we're using - or a combination of the two.

Nate turns 5!

On Thursday, Nate turned 5. My little boy will be heading to Kindergarten in the fall. It's a cliche, I know, but it's amazing how fast time flies. Since we were planning a birthday party for his friends on Saturday, on his actual birthday we just had a family dinner and gifts at home.

Thanks to Gramma Elaine for sending home a giant brownie so we had something to put candles in! :)




Yeah, it was that good.


With Autobot Ironhide.


Looking at a new space book from Gramma.

I mentioned the party on Saturday. We only got one good picture that day - I did get some videos but haven't uploaded them yet.

For Nate's party, he had a Superheroes theme. He invited six friends, two of whom were unable to make it. So we had Spider Girl Emma, Wonder Woman Rachael, Batman Nathan (our neighbor), Andrew, Nile, and of course the birthday boy, who made up so many superhero names I don't know who he was.

The kids had tons of fun playing outside (see here for proof) and then we had pizza and cake. It was a perfect party - low key and laid back. No planned games and just enough guests. (It doesn't hurt when the parents stay too!) Nate had a blast and is already playing with his gifts. Now, the challenge will be to get him to write thank you cards.

And see, we did have a real cake for him!

T-Ball Dancing

This is Nate's first time playing T-ball. Our camera has been on the fritz, so I didn't get any photos, but I did get to try out my new video camera. This moment was more than priceless. Check out what Nate does when he gets to home plate.

Unwanted

For the first time in their short lives (and my short career as a parent), I have two boys who will go play with each other without me (and usually without fights or screaming). Usually what I get is "Mom, will you come play with me? Mom, I'm bored! Mom, what can we do now?" I was enjoying it this morning - actually having some "me time."

Until I went into Nile's room to check on them and I was told, "Mom, you can go away now."

I'm sure there are 100 things I should/could/need to be doing. But right now I'm sitting here at the computer, aimlessly surfing.

:(

Camera shy

This one doesn't like to have his picture taken. But he looked so cute in his hat (which I brought back for him from Germany)!

Gardening

Nate has been doing some "planting" today. Yes, these are bits of grass (with roots) all planted in dirt and watered. He's been learning a lot from us, I guess!