Playset

The playset is taking shape now. I'm pretty happy with how it looks so far.
The kids have been using it, even though there is no ladder yet. After all, aren't slides for going up too?

Already I have given many lectures about hard and heavy items going down (and up) to such heights carefully. Hopefully they get the idea.

Already Daniel fell down. I had figured there was no way he could fall from the top of the slide. I was worriedly watching that he didn't fall down by the big opening where the ladder will be. But being Daniel, he didn't do as I expected.

Down he fell, from the top.
I saw him when he was half of the way down,
and I was one step too far away.

He was quite winded and upset; so was I! Now he has is a bruise on his cheek to remind me of his close call. And now my safe yard has become another source of worry for me!

Deck and Fence

The fence and deck were finished yesterday. Or was it the day before that already? I can't remember anymore.

Here are some pics for you, Mom D:

Starting with the view from the kitchen window

Maybe I'll get in the habit of leaving the blinds open, since it actually looks nice through the window now.

This is the west side of the property, going left out of the kitchen. There used to be a chain link fence up to the far left corner.

The fence isn't allowed to be higher than 6 feet, but lattice doesn't count, so we had that put over the fence where it is joining the deck.

The deck ended up higher than we'd hoped--but we felt it needed to be above the basement laundry window, and not halfway through. It's rather darker in that room now! O the right side of the deck is stairs coming down, and at the top there is a gate, also with railings. I wanted the deck to be closed off on this side so that I could let some of the kids out there while doing school--as another place to play--but without them going all the way around the house, or on the road...or who knows where!

This is from the east corner of the house. The 6 foot high wooden gate is open for the picture, and you can see where it shuts--just where the river rock and grass meet. The kids playset and sandbox is beside me. It turns out that if the kids climb over the air conditioning unit (Not allowed!!) or squeeze through the space between the steps, they can go under the deck and get out of there...without having to open the gate. So....I'll have to watch out for that...and Phil said he could always cover those gaps with lattice if necessary. The chain link fence continues from where the gate is, to go round the rest of the property--we left that untouched.

This last pic is to give you some idea of the size. You can see the biggest part of the deck, and it extends two more fence panels to the right--getting narrower in that direction. It's not big enough for a table and chairs to eat dinner (not with our family size anyways), but it should be nice for sitting and chatting and perhaps even a small fire. We'll see. And why is the farthest fence post so high? That's to mount my clothesline onto. That just got mostly installed this evening. Some tightening is required yet...after it's been tested/stretched with the first trial load! It shall be more enjoyable doing laundry off the deck instead of going round the front of the house, and balancing on a stack of cinder blocks, and bending down to my feet to reach the basket and the clothes pins. I'm looking forward to laundry tomorrow! ;)

Supervisors

Our old rotting deck has been torn down, and a section of our chain link fence is gone. A wooden fence is in the process of being built, and a new deck is planned too (otherwise it'd be a big drop out of the kitchen sliding door into the yard ;) ). Before the deck is worked on they'll be putting in a french drain, so we can keep that corner of the house a bit dryer when it rains (hopefully).

The kids have been supervising.

There are more supervisors than workers most of the time.
The kids will be staying out of trouble for most of next week!

On the subject of big projects, I finished my curtains yesterday!! :) Now I have one sheer panel to redo (made it too short) and two curtain panels to redo the pleats of (not wide enough). Once that is done I have oodles of ideas of future drapery to sew: Roman blinds for the bathroom, curtains for our bedroom closet, bedding set for our bedroom with window curtains to match, curtains for the boys room, linen for the baby cradle, windows downstairs, shower curtain...
(We'll see if I can even get one of these done before baby comes.)

I noticed in my curtain planning book, that I started this sewing project early 2009. I guess I did take an entire year off after Daniel was born, but even then, two years for three windows, and still needing corrections?!?! Oh well...this way I'll always have a project, since by the time I finish all the windows in this house we'll have moved and I'll have a whole new house to drape up!

Keeping the kids in line

When kids are particularly troublesome, there are always simple solutions.

Although, they don't always solve much for long!


The kids like playing in the sandbox even more, now that it has a sort of covering over it. Makes it more interesting again, and they can imagine all the fun they'll have when the rest of the fort gets finished....some day.

Helpers and Projects

Matthew and Daniel helped me grate cheese for dinner. They both did a lovely job, AND stayed nicely out of trouble for a while too! Even Daniel managed to grate the cheese--which all fell onto the chair he was sitting on. In the end, he decided eating it was less wasteful. Matthew did a very careful job, but got tired and pleaded for me to help him. He was so concerned that the job should be taken over!


The latest project of Phil's (though I get to help if I behave) is making a playset for the kids outside. I thought, baby coming and all, that this would be the summer I'd be going out less. So having the playset this year, instead of next was high on my priority list. (Isn't it lovely how it gets higher up on my husband's then too? ;) ) It's built right about the sand box, if you look carefully you can just see the lid (which is on and shut). It looks rather imposing, and perhaps a little too close to the house after all...but once the posts get trimmed, etc. hopefully the overall look is good.

And how is my less exciting old project going? (Curtains, you mean?) Coming along ever so slowly. Even slower like when I make mistakes like cutting it 7 inches too short. Funny thing is I measured it about 5 times, and was very sure on it. But unfortunately I cut it at the first marking I had made, not the second important one. Fortunately, after a bit of work, I think the material will be salvageable, only it'll hang an inch higher off the floor than initially planned. Too bad!

City

For almost a whole week Nathan was busy working on his city.

Sometimes he enjoyed help, other times he tried restrict his siblings to audience only. (They don't always do what he tries get them to do!)

Every time we had to eat, I'd have to disassemble as carefully as possible, then move it back when the table was clear again!

Did you notice the electrical wires? He had it running to every house in the city, and future house locations as well-but they had to be taken down for each move.

"Mom, is there anything you'd like redone in here? 'Cause we're workers who are working on a building, only on the outside of it, and we need something else to do when it's cold."

Trouble and the gang

Introducing TROUBLE

As our friend would say, "He's a good boy!" And "What do you expect for someone named Daniel?" I'm sure he spends all his free time contemplating ways to complicate our lives.


Daniel's favorite word is "Uh-uh", and that's(above) what he looks like when he says it. He really is a lot of work right now-he's not happy unless one of his siblings are playing with him or I am holding him. If he's being ignored by his siblings he'll wreck the game/toys they're playing with. If I'm ignoring him, he'll open up cupboards, and try anything else he can think of to get that attention (even frustrated mothers are better than ignoring mothers). And yes, it doesn't take a whole lot of thinking for him to succeed!


Just to show off-here are two of my kids sharing peacefully! (They are always like this. ;) )


Matthew's thinking of what sort of trouble he can get into next time he's sitting on the potty...




And a smile-to keep me from going crazy (smiles restore sanity-everyone knows that-especially the kid!)


(Even weird ones count.)

An explanation

of why we might seem a little preoccupied over here.
(Well, one small reason of what seems like many, anyways.)

Matthew is doing the potty training thing.

"I'm a daddy."

(You are a getting big!)

Jack-o-lanterns

After planning to do this last year (and maybe the year before too?)

Daddy decided to help the kids make jack-o-lanterns.



Apparently this was a bit of a Halloween tradition for him, as a healthier (and more pleasant) alternative to trick-or-treating.

Our church has a dinner and sing thing planned for that night, and since the pumpkins I bought were rotting already, the pumpkins were carved early.

Daniel and I missed out on the fun,

but we found a bit of solace in each other's company.


The eyes on Matthew's jack-o-lantern don't let in enough air to keep a candle lit when the lid is on. But he doesn't mind. As long as it has a candle too, the lid can be off!


Whose face is the cutest?

(Of the pumpkins, not the kids.)


Despite the protected table, there still was some cleanup involved-mostly pumpkin seeds which were quickly tracked through a few rooms upstairs.


They're all lit!

(But only for as long as it took me to take the picture.)

Daniel learned a new trick yesterday;

he managed to get quite a few of these up the back of his shirt.
And this morning he had five peg puzzle pieces stuck in his one piece pajama. I'm sure that was fun crawling when the pieces were working their way down his pant legs!

Another down

One more window is done.

That leaves one last window of sheer to do.
Then one to redo completely.
And two to redo the heading.
Maybe I'll finish this year.

So much for my wishful thinking four months ago.
But we're making progress (we being the royal me) so it's all good.

Presenting Their Royal Highnesses:

In majestic attire.


Prince Nathan

The heir to the throne is pleased to show you his outfit.
He was rather disappointed when we got home
when he found his ribbon was hiding under his vest.
"Too bad nobody could see my pretty ribbon hiding under my vest"
says his majesty.

Princess Melanie

This beautiful girl blended in nicely with the other beauties at the party.
However, her intellect was noticeable lacking,
and she didn't follow everything that happened.
It was a five year old party after all, and she's only 3.
But she had fun anyways.

Prince Matthew

As is not uncommon with royal children, this child acted as one royally pampered.
After putting him down on the floor (he would not refrain from injuring his mother)
he still wanted to be held by her.
When denied this most reasonable desire of his,
he banged his regal head up and down on the floor.

Art project

We got invited to a birthday party on Wednesday.
A PRINCESS birthday party.
A dress-up in princess (or prince) clothes party.
Should be interesting.

The kids had fun painting, anyways.
We'll see if their crowns last 'til we get to the venue or not.
Tomorrow we'll decorate them...maybe with stickers or glue some stuff on them.
I don't have anything fancy...but hey, so far, so good.
Melanie even has a fancy dress in her clothes box that I buried deep in the closet thinking
"huh, when are we gonna use THAT?"



Nathan is excited to wear a vest...since he isn't allowed a dress. Poor guy.


Melanie has no idea what a princess is.
But she's thrilled with the fancy dress I found.


Matthew is just happy he gets to paint too.
He'll love ripping his crown to pieces later too.

Maybe I'll post them all dressed to the nines later.
If I remember to do a photo shoot before we head out the door.

Nathan was wondering what I would be wearing.
My fanciest dress with extra ribbons and bows, I'm sure.
Plus an expensive silver bejeweled tierra.

Sheer

So this is what I've been working on. 1 out of 6 almost done. I only made two mistakes while doing it. One was sewing the heading tape on the wrong side--which I had to remove ever so carefully without ripping this delicate fabric (which makes me wonder just how long it'll survive around the kids--what were we thinking anyways??) and then sew again on the other side. Also, I chalked it on the wrong side...but from these pics I don't think you can see it.


I still need to pinch the pleats at the top, but that'll be way way easier than the other panels, since I can actually push a needle through it no problem. You can't even see on this picture the blue dressmaker's chalk. I was tired last night, and chalked on the wrong side. Oops! What's the best way to get it out without washing it?


I'm still not sure on the length. Is it too much shorter than the drapes? Or is that good? Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.

I can't believe how easy it was to sew that sheer fabric. I was pretty worried about it, and still took ages to do it, but it wasn't even traumatizing! I don't think it bunched up any worse than the regular fabric. Yay!

Now if I get one panel done a week (or less) and if the baby is overdue (quite likely) then I still have time to finish it before the baby is here.

BUT this panel took me two or three weeks...and I'm not likely to go any faster...I can try fool myself anyways. ;)