The Evolution of a Swing Set

Today we built a new swing set for the kids!  My parents and Steve's dad came this morning to help assemble the new swing set.  I bought a kit on Amazon that included instructions, brackets, swings and a canopy and then I purchased the wood and screws separately as well as a glider swing.  I took photos of the entire process and wanted to share :)

Mom and Molly sitting on one of the piles of wood.

I had two little boys who "helped"the entire day.  The past week they have been telling everyone that someone "sole our old swing set so we are building a new one."  I actually sold the old one on craigslist, but whatever :)

 Starting to put the "fort" area together.

Getting there, but so much more to do!

For those of you who know my dad, you won't believe this photo...WHAT!?  He's actually reading the INSTRUCTIONS?  Maybe he was just posing for the picture :)

The boys helped me screw on the deck boards and then we paused for a photo op.

Putting the swing hangers on the beam.  Oh, and the kids decided they didn't want to wait any longer.  Who cares that the ladder to get up isn't built yet...just climb up the slide!

SWINGS!!  I still need to buy one more set of swing hangers for Molly's swing, which will go between the boys' swings.

Almost there!  Just need to finish adding the safety boards around the "fort".

Finished for now...just need to hang the glider on the cantilever area (I forgot to buy the hangers for it), add Molly's swing, stain and add the sand.  Oh, and you can't really tell from this photo, but the yard kinda goes downhill towards the fence, so I need to dig some holes for the A frame brace to go into to make it level...right now it goes uphill.

Oh, and just to compare, here is a picture of the previous swing set.  It was similar except it was about 20 years old, wobbly, leaning and it only held 3 swings.  It's hard to tell with the different angle but the new one is much bigger, sturdier and will hold 3 swings plus the glider.

It was a great team effort and I'm so excited to have this project almost finished :)

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What's a Mom to do?

So, I've been to a couple of "girls nights out" in the last couple months.  At a couple of these outings, we have played the game, "What's a Dame to Do".  It's a fun game, kinda like "Apples to Apples" except you are given situations pertaining to women and then everyone picks a card from their hand and the person that has the situation gets to pick the card they like the best.

Anyway, I've had a few of these "What's a Mom to Do" situations in the last couple months and thought I would ask our blog readers..."What's a Mom to Do?!"  This is a blog post I would LOVE to get some responses to, because I really want to know what you would do!

source

Situation #1:  At a family gathering, an electronic device is stepped on and the screen is cracked.  No one saw what happened, but the logical explanation is that one of your children had something to do with it (probably unknowingly, though).  What's a Mom to do?!

Situation #2:  A friend tells you that they have been avoiding hanging out with you lately because they think your boys are too rough for their little girl.  You didn't even realize there was a problem...What's a Mom to do?!

Situation #3:  Your 4 year old starts acting out and regressing in behavior in an effort to gain attention since you are spending time with the 2 year old potty training and with a baby who needs more attention.  What's a Mom to do?!

Situation #4:  A "friend" that lives near you and you run into around town all the time suddenly "un-friends" you (and a couple others you know) on facebook...you are not really sure why.  Talk about awkward the next time you run into each other.  What's a Mom to do!?

HELP!!  If you've ever faced any of these situations, I want to know what you did (or what you wished you had done)!

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Elf on the Shelf....failure.

No, the actual "Elf on the Shelf" isn't a failure.  I am.  Sheesh.  After reading Lesley's post about "Elf on the Shelf" and talking to my neighbor, I decided it would be a fun tradition to start.  If you are new to the "Elf on the Shelf" stuff, it's basically a kit with a book and an elf that you buy and the Elf reports to Santa every night while the kids are sleeping.  They can talk to the elf and tell him (or her) what gifts they want him to tell Santa to bring.  He also watches them during the day to report on whether they were good or bad.  So, your job as the adult is to (1) read the book so they understand they have to be good, and (2) move the elf to a different spot every night after the kids go to bed so they can find him in the morning.  

Easy, right?  Well, for starters, I didn't make it to the store to pick it up to start on December 1st like you are supposed to.  But, my kids are only 4, 2 and 4 months, so they really have no idea what December 1 even means.  So I introduced it to them on December 5.  Yeah, well on the FIRST NIGHT of trying this, I forgot to move the elf.  In my defense, I fell asleep in the chair nursing Molly earlier than I usually go to sleep and then the kids got up in the morning before I did.  And the first thing they noticed?  "The Elf is in the same spot, Mommy!".

So, a couple minutes later, I asked them to look out the front door and see if it was snowing, raining or really hot outside (or some nonsense along those lines) and quickly moved the Elf to a new spot.  You see, the other rule is that you can't touch the elf or he might not come back to your house again.  So, they couldn't see me touch it.  Somehow he magically moved from the fireplace mantle to our bathroom light fixture.  They loved it and at one point during the day Tyler hit his brother and I told him to go in and tell the elf what he had done.  He went in and mumbled something about a toy he wanted for Christmas, but Ryan went in behind him and said, "Elf, bro-bro hit me" and then turned around and looked at Tyler and did an evil "ha, ha, ha" laugh.  :)

Anyway, here is a picture of our elf, "Thomas the Elf" in his spot for tomorrow.  You get to name your own elf, so Tyler picked Elf and Ryan picked Thomas (after his favorite train) and we combined it to make "Thomas the Elf".  Here's to mommy remembering to move it from now on...

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Oh, crap. Literally.

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I thought it was cute and
I didn't take photos that go along with the content of this post...for obvious reasons.

Lesley totally jinxed me with her post about poop last week!  I'm totally going to steal her disclaimer...If you are easily offended or disgusted by poop stories, then stop reading.

First, on Thursdays I work at a local church helping with childcare during the Ladies' Bible Study.  It's a great setup because we go for 2.5 hours every week, the boys get to play with other kids and different toys that we don't have at home, I get to go and spend the time with another lady in the room (watching kids, but we get to talk, too!), and I get paid.  Not much, but enough to cover the gas to get to/from and a little extra money for my home improvement fetish.  I also use this as part of my "not sending my 4 year old to pre-school plan" as they do a lesson, craft, games, snack and free play.

Anyway, Tyler was in the room with the older kids.  He loves his teachers, Miss Dee and Mrs. Macrina.  They are wonderful ladies, and I now love them even more.  Because at the end of the shift, I went to pick Tyler up from his room and they told me he had gone to a corner, pulled down his pants and pooped.  Um, really?!  This kid has been potty trained since March of 2010.  We haven't had any issues with pooping in his pants for over a year.  And to top it off, because he didn't have any toilet paper, he used his finger and wiped it on the wall.  Ugh.  The teachers were great and told me so I could have a talk with him about it.  I told my husband and he spoke with him when he got home from work.  I guess the reason why he did it was because they don't allow the kids to go to the bathroom by themselves (it's down the hall and through a couple sets of doors) and he didn't want to have someone go to the bathroom with him.

So then, the next day our puppy, who isn't really a puppy anymore because she is almost 1 year old, pooped on the couch.  WHAT?!  Fortunately, Ryan was there and started yelling right away, so I was able to put the dog out.  Thankfully we have a leather couch and so I was able to disinfect it right away.  Our dog is usually pretty good about not going in the house and typically only goes when I am busy and don't see her standing at the back door waiting to go out.  But she has never gone on the furniture before.  And hopefully never again.

And that same afternoon, Tyler pooped in the potty and then ran out and kissed baby Molly while she was sleeping.  Which is fine except he didn't wipe or put his underwear/pants back on and so he got poop on our chair.  SERIOUSLY?  Steve just happened to call right before I discovered this (and right after the dog pooping incident) and I told him I was going crazy.  Really, if I would have known that poop was in the "job description" for being a mom, I might have reconsidered :)

To top it all off, the next day Ryan (my 2 year old) complained about his belly hurting.  About 20 minutes later he had the most disgusting diaper I think I have ever changed.  I literally almost threw up while changing it.  I really think that we are going to do some potty training in the next few weeks.  With Tyler, Ryan and the dog!

Thanks, Lesley :)

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Photo Tips for Kids

This is the time of year I start going back through the photos I've taken since January and preparing my yearly photo books.  When I get my book done I'll show it to you, but I'm pretty far from completion at this point.

As I was going through my photos, I thought of a couple of tips to share.  Again,  I am far from an amazing photographer, but I do enjoy taking photos of my kids and learning how to make them better.

Tip #1:  Get close.  I notice that sometimes I get stuck in a rut of taking whole body shots that all end up looking similar.  Some of my favorite shots are the close-ups of my kids' faces.  When you compose your photo, remember a basic rule of composition called the rule of thirds.  Basically, you do not want your subject's eyes centered right in the middle of the photo.  Divide your photo into thirds, and place the eyes at the 1/3 mark (either horizontally or vertically) rather than the half.  I'll try to find some examples of that later, or you could google for lots of tutorials.  But the placement makes a huge difference in the shot.  Here are some close-ups.  I use a 25-70 mm lens and at 25 mm you do get some facial distortion (most notable in the first picture).  I personally like that look for this purpose, but for a more formal portrait it might not be desirable.

This one could benefit from a little cropping to bring his eyes up a little.  They're too centered here.

 Tip #2:  This is similar to my first tip, but for this one focus on things other than faces.  Toys, hands, feet, hats, zippers, boots,etc.  As I go back through some of these pictures I've taken, I'm amazed at how many memories about my child from that age come back to me by looking at the photo.  For example, this first picture -- my oldest son used to beg for cookie sheets full of snow to bring inside so he could drive trucks through it.  By snapping a picture of that it enables me to remember forever something I may not have otherwise.

And this one- we spent hours watching The Polar Express, driving his train, and listening to the Polar Express soundtrack.  He is out of that stage now, so it makes me smile to remember that.  And I'd forgotten how he used cotton balls to represent snow.

And although this one isn't the greatest quality, who doesn't love a monster truck bus driven by a toddler in pajamas with green marker on his chubby little thumb?

#3 - change your angle.  Experiment with different angles to make more interesting photos.  The following show my son in the same spot.  I just changed positions.

4- Be creative with your location.  I'm mixing snapshots and portraits in this post, so hopefully that isn't confusing.  With a snapshot, you are taking photos of life as it happens.  You're just capturing the memory.  Don't try to control what your subject is doing or where they're standing, don't ask them to smile, or even look at the camera.  Just focus on capturing the moment.  You can still change your angles, composition, play with your camera settings, etc.  Just don't try to pose your kids.  So this tip is for when you are trying to take a more posed portrait type picture.  I am planning another post on locations for photos, but since I had the above photo up I wanted to show this example.  In the version above, the background isn't so desirable at first glance.  But with cropping, the shape of the buildings disappear and you just get the pops of color.  I should add that technically, it is not a great photo because the junction of the concrete and base of the buildings forms a line that goes across the top of his head.  I am terrible about noticing those things sometimes, and other times I just don't really mind it.  Here's the same photo above but cropped and edited with more of a color pop,

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Fall Bucket List

I just found this printable, and I thought I would share.  It's really cute and ironically most of the things on the list were on my "to-do" list anyway (though she does have a blank version if you have different activities on your agenda)!

There are tons of these online, but this one is the cutest one I've found!  I've printed one and will hang it on our door to the garage...adding a little color to the plain white door and reminding us of the fun to be had this fall.  Instead of checking off the squares, I'm going to write the date that we complete it and then save it for our memory box.

Visit her blog, Funky PolkaDot Giraffe to download and print this for yourself!

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Milestones!

We have had a fun past few days celebrating a couple milestones.  First, Tyler turned 4 on Saturday!  I can't believe that just 4 years ago, Steve and I went from being a "couple" to a family!  Time has flown by and it's hard to believe that Tyler has gotten so big already.  I was teasing him and telling him that I didn't want him to grow up and I asked if he could stay 3.  He started to cry and say, "But I wanna be 4".  Love this kid!

Here's a photo of him with his cake.  I kept asking him what he wanted for his birthday and he kept saying, "A cake with fire on it."  We finally figured out he meant candles (not icing flames!) so I decided to do a baseball.  Not my best cake ever, but have you ever tried to put icing on a ball?  It's hard!

Sunday night we had a fire in the firepit in our back yard because Tyler has been begging for one all summer.  The boys LOVED it!  I had a difficult time getting the fire started, so I used some lighter fluid.  Here is a photo of the boys reaction when I would add more lighter fluid to the pit.

Then they thought they would be cool and try to blow it out instead of helping me try to light it.  Obviously they didn't realize that we couldn't eat the hot dogs until after we got the fire going.

Steve finally came to the rescue and got the fire going without the aid of lighter fluid.  Good thing, 'cause there was no way I was eating hot dogs with a fire that had the lighter fluid.  Yuck.

Molly and I hung out in the chair watching the boys make the dinner.  The way it should be.  Of course, then that meant we were on cleanup duty, though.  Which doesn't mean much until you see the photo of Ryan below after s'mores :)

Cutie watching the fire!

Ryan was all about roasting the marshmallows.  He actually did a good job and got his nice and brown.  He only caught one of the marshmallows on fire and we caught it soon enough that it wasn't burnt to a crisp.

Ok, so you knew it was coming.  Here is a photo of Ryan actually eating the marshmallows.  For some reason, he decided his s'more would taste better without the chocolate and graham cracker, but rather smooshed up in his hand.

And yes, I got stuck with bath time for the kids after he was finished.

Here's a photo of Tyler's s'more.  Yummy!

Great ending to a great weekend celebrating my Big Boy!

So the other milestone we celebrated was that Molly turned 2 months yesterday (Tuesday).  I can't believe that she is 2 months old already!  She has been such a joy and a great addition to our family.  The boys absolutely adore her.  In fact, we were all sick this past week and the hardest thing about it was trying to keep the boys from kissing her so she wouldn't get their germs!

Her shirt says it all...her daddy does love her!  She is such a good baby, so it would be hard not to love her :) In the past couple of weeks, she has started to smile when she sees me or when I make faces at her.  Molly has a cute smile and I just love toothless grins :)

This next photo isn't the greatest because of the light right above her head, but I just love her expression!

This past week, Molly slept 12 hours two different nights last week and then 13 hours another night. Now that I say that, she will probably want to eat 3 or 4 times the next few nights!  But, needless to say, I think she is the worlds' best sleeper at 2 moths old!  The boys were always good sleepers, but they didn't consistently sleep through the night until after around 12 weeks or so.  Yesterday morning, we needed to go to an appointment, but Molly was still sleeping so the boys volunteered to go snuggle with her to wake her up.

Can you tell they ADORE her?  I feel sorry for any of her future boyfriends...they will definitely have to make it past the "brother test" before taking her out :)

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All About Me Albums

Beth's white chicken lasagna looks so good!!  I can't wait to try that one.

Today I want to share one of the ways I try to record some special things about my kids at each age.  I have mentioned here before that I am a huge fan of Photoshop Elements and digital scrapbooking.  I abandoned paper scrapbooking some time ago, because it just wasn't for me.  I used Photoshop Elements to create this project, but I really want to focus more on the concept because it could be done with paper scrapbooking or using a service like Shutterfly or Picaboo to create a book.

Starting about 18 months ago I decided to create a photo book each year for each of my kids.  I began a yearly family book with pictures from our trips and adventures when my son was born 7 years ago.  I used to dedicate a page for each kid in the yearly book to talk about their personalities, but I decided that I wanted to do a better job of recording more about them at each age. They change so much from year to year.

This was the first one I made, and I have since made one for my older son.  I am behind, of course, and need to finish up two more.

First gather your pictures.  I like to use the same "photo session" for the book since I have random snapshots galore in our family books.  But you could use whatever you wanted.

Then, I gather a list of questions to ask them.  Those will vary according to age, and I'll give you some ideas below.  They may not answer all the questions, so I choose from those I've asked when I'm putting the book together.

Next, I try to think of other things I want to add.  In this book, I took some washable paint, coated my son's hand and foot, and pressed each on a blank sheet of paper.  Then I scanned the prints to include them in the book.  Other examples would be art work, writing samples,  etc.  As they get older, have them answer some of the questions in their own hand writing and scan those in.

Finally, I assemble the book and print it.  The whole project really doesn't take that long, and it's such an amazing keepsake. 

Obviously, at two the ability of a child to answer "interview" questions is limited.  Between 3 and 5, kids give some really cute answers to questions.  And at my older son's age, 7, the answers are very thoughtful.  For this book, I had a couple pages I left out that contained more of his favorites -- songs, shows, books, etc.

I printed my book through a company called WHCC; the print quality is very high and the paper I chose was very thick.  Other options are shutterfly, picaboo, mixbook, and blurb to name a few.  I only have experience with a couple of those, so read some online reviews before choosing and wait for the sales.

And here are some questions to start with:
Favorites -- food, movie, song, tv show, book, toy, game, color, animal, smell, place to visit, etc
What job do you want to have when you grow up?
What is something your mom always says to you?  dad?
What makes you happy?  sad?
What is your favorite school memory this year?
What is your favorite class at school?
Who is your best friend?
What are you good at?
What does your dad do at work?  your mom?
What do you like to do the most?
What is the best gift you've ever gotten?  given someone else?
What do you worry about?
What makes you special?  What makes your family special?
What are the things you can't live without?
If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?
What is the hardest thing about being a kid?  The best thing?
What 5 words describe you best?
If you were in charge of the world, what rule would you make everyone follow?  (the answers to this question are sometimes amazing and usually really sweet)


Add any questions you can think of!  Ask your child if there is anything else they want to add about themselves.

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