Building our own swing set

And so it was that the week after Earth Day, and after the kids spent a week watching The Lorax, we spent a weekend cutting down the Tree of Paradise in the northwest corner of our yard. Irony.

I never really liked that tree, and when I'd rather use my yard space to plant edible food for my family, the amount of saplings that tree dropped made it impossible to use the surrounding space as long as the tree remained standing. And after Shad spent some time staring at the tree, pondering upon it, he concluded that we could easily use it to build the tower portion of the swing set we've long been planning to build for our kids. So the cutters and saw came out. Shad did the major cutting, I did the minor cutting once the branches were on the ground, and Tom and Katie, and sort of Dancy, helped haul the little sticks to the truck bed.

The following day, Shad and his friend Tim began construction.

We've worked on it steadily, day by day as we have time and it's not raining.

No blueprints, just making it up as we go, making it what we want it to be.

 The slide was purchased a couple years ago at a garage sale for $5, and the ladder had been lying around in our garage for who knows how long. Shad reinforced the sides with some of the leftover lumber we purchased.

We bought a camo tarp on ebay and used zip ties to secure it. The steering wheels and periscope were scavenged on a Trash-Swap Weekend.

The pirate flag (from Paul Jones) now has an appropriate use, and really completes the tower portion of the swing set. 

We would have built the swing portion last weekend, but when we went to buy a 4 by 6, both hardware stores told us they don't carry that piece of lumber. And they didn't offer to order it in, either.

Snippets of May

I left Dancy too close to a bowl of pancake batter.

Thora loves to chew on fingers. She doesn't care whether they're hers or yours.

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An afternoon of bird watching. Momma bird knew I was there and she did not like it.

Hungry babies!

Hiding behind my palm tree wasn't good enough.

Turkeys!

Pot!

Yes, Dad, I have this stuff growing in my yard. Or at least I did until Shad mowed...

Katie fixed her own hair.

The kids gave me a really wonderful Lego set for me for Mother's Day. It was what they told Shad I wanted most. I wouldn't like the fish cleaning kit, or the Divergent movie, or anything else, they said. "Oh, I just knew that Lego set was going to be awesome for you, Mom!" says Tom, sitting next to me right now.

Thora likes to cuddle with a blanket for sleeping. But when I leave her on the floor too long and she's tired, and towel will do in a pinch. As long as one is left out on the floor...

We went to stake conference (a large area church meeting) in Kearney, Nebraska, because Elder Dallin H. Oaks (one of the apostles of our church), was coming through and wanting to attend. So we drove up on Saturday and stayed in a hotel. Getting ice in our ice bucket from the ice machine was an exciting treat for the kids! We also bought glowsticks!

"Oh, oh! Please don't forget to write our names," says Tom, sitting next to me.

Dancy, Katie, and Tommy

We've been building a swing set (that'll get its own post), and one night Tommy slipped on the slide and knocked out a tooth. It was quite traumatic for a day or two, and we took "emotional health" days to heal. Then I babysat a girl in our ward for a day, and she served as an excellent distraction which allowed Tommy to get over it. And in case anyone wants to talk to Tom about it, he'll tell you with a big, goofy grin on his face that yes, the tooth fairy came, but he knows that his parents pretend to be the fairy.

Thora started eating food (allowing me to feed her food), though only Cheerios and canned beans (black and garbanzo). She'd throw a HUGE fit if I offered her anything else--applesauce, mashed sweet potato, yogurt, banana chunks, canned peach chunks, watermelon off my plate! She developed a diaper rash at some point, and it's been seriously a month of this rash. I've tried different creams. I've tried going off the Cheerios. I thought at that point that it might be a yeast infection. I spent a couple days letting her butt air out on my lap covered with a towel. During this time, I noticed that Thora wasn't doing well nursing, and that I wasn't feeling the way that I should when breastfeeding. We went to the doctor and she said it's just a normal diaper rash, not yeast. Also that there's nothing wrong with Thora's mouth to be causing breastfeeding problems. I thought that maybe I'd just need to clip Thora's lip-tie again in case I didn't get all of it the first time, but there's not much of a tie to be seen. I pumped to see how much I was producing: 2 ounces in 3 hours, which is vastly insufficient for a 7-month baby. So I quit. I quit breastfeeding and gave Thora raw cow's milk. People told me to get off that because it's too difficult for baby stomachs to digest. I dealt with several days of constipation and indigestion. Then I switched to formula--specifically the leftover cans of preemie formula I have from Dancy. That's been going well. She drinks 6 ounces every 3 hours now, and is much happier. I'll be switching on her, yet again, in mid-June when I'll be able to buy fresh goat's milk. Rose isn't selling yet because the nannies are still nursing their kids.

And we had Dancy's birthday! Dancy got Shrek, orange nail polish, bubbles, swim goggles, and Disney princess books. We ate food she loves all day: bagels and cream cheese for breakfast (she got to ride in Dad's blue truck to buy it!), hot dogs for lunch, and Ramen and quesadillas for dinner. We decorated the house with balloons and orange streamers (orange is her favorite color), and we had cupcakes for dessert.

Shad's parents and brother Jimmy came to visit Sunday afternoon and spent the night. We already had plans with Jimmy, and Shad's parents came to crash the party because Pris needed to get a temple recommend interview, and the stake president lives in town. Jimmy and Vern helped Shad put up a fence around the garden to protect it from rabbits and obnoxious neighbor dogs.

Shad borrowed a nail gun from a coworker and was able to finish installing the trim for the dining room and kitchen floor. It looks so much better being finished!

Also, I finished my grammar class a week early, with an A! Class ends on Sunday, I turned in my final exam on Saturday. The next class starts on the 22nd.

We went to the state park for the nature walk, which now has a story walk incorporated in it. They've got protective display cases for pages from a book so that as you go around the walk, you get to read a couple pages at a time. Dancy got really into it when I tasked her with finding the next display case. She excitedly ran along the trail, saying, "Super Why! Super Why!" Apparently, she felt like she was playing Super Why, which is her favorite TV show. It's a PBS show that teaches reading skills and she loves it! That was our best nature walk yet, and we've been doing it regularly for 3 years. Thank you, library, for adding this story walk. We also enjoyed this gorgeous sunburst.

Master Bath Decorated

A while ago I finished decorating my bathroom. It has officially become our "cruise" room. We didn't plan it that way, but once we saw the color on the walls, it just fit. I bought the clock at a garage sale, and it reminds me of a porthole.

I acquired this candle and holder collection at the end of a garage sale when they were giving everything away. I painted the holders (and used the same paint on the towel holders), and glued on snail shells. There's a creek bed behind my house and it's covered in all of these snail shells.

We googled how to roll the towel animals and I bought this white towel and hand towel at a thrift store. Admittedly, the elephant's head needs a bit of work. I haven't tried any other animals yet.

I compulsively buy pictures frames for dirt cheap at garage sales, and also claimed a bunch from my grandpa when he was downsizing and moving. I scooped up a bit of sand from our lake and used homemade Mod Podge (the commercial stuff is INSANELY overpriced!) to cover the frames in glue. I gave them all a spray with clear coat paint out in the garage (this was back in December!) to seal it in. I haven't had ANY problems with grains of sand falling off. Then my nephew Ryan made the shell arrangements and I glued them on with the glue gun.

Look at how the color of the wall and the color of the water are an exact match! We love it, and we didn't even do it on purpose!

Ryan is an awesome 8-year-old. I mean, he designed these frames for me AND he knew what DIY means when he saw it on one of my baskets.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I find these shells in a ravine behind my house. There must be loads of snails inhabiting that small, wooded area because the ground is littered with shells all over!

Spring Vacation, Part 3: Driving Home

There's really nothing to tell here, but I separated it for the sake of not overloading the Kentucky post with all the extra pictures.

Kentucky is a gorgeous state with rolling grassy hills and "mountains," and many purple blossomed trees. 

And tons of rock walls on the side of the highway.

The kids all had fun goofing off in the hotel room.

This is Dancy's relaxing pose. She does this every night when she lies down for bed.

She showed us how she can use her feet as phones to call Nana and Bumpa.

She had good conversations with them.

Oh, yeah, I like to chill out with my leg in the air like that, too.

We stopped at the LDS visitors' center in Independence, Missouri on our way home.