Goodbye, September.

I don't know where the month went, but the last post I wrote was saying hello to September, and here we are, waving goodbye to the month.

I usually blog on my lunch break; I may take a day, close the door to my office and leisurely eat my lunch at my desk and type up a few posts at one time and schedule them to go out automatically throughout the week.

Unfortunately, my co-worker resigned late in August and we have not yet replaced her.  I was devastated on a personal level, as we had become great friends over the past 5.5 years of working together. She took a position that put her back into a field she really wanted to be in, so while I'm happy for her, I'm sad for me!  The office is lonely, and she happened to leave during one of busiest times of the year...the start of the new school year.  There were only 2 of us in the department, so it's down to just me....needless to say, my lunch breaks (if they exist at all) have been very short and I'm normally reviewing a resume while I eat, instead of leisurely  writing blog posts. I'm not complaining, and I'm of course happy to have a job, but I am SO ready to have someone else in here!  That process is slow going, so I'm just taking it one day at a time for now.

So there's the catch up on my work life, I'll try to get caught up eventually on our home life, too!

Liam started Preschool 2; he's still in the same center and same classroom, but this year will be more focused on kindergarten prep.  He is always talking about how excited he is to go to school and ride the big bus with Jake next year, so let's hope that excitement holds on when next August rolls around!

Speaking of school, Jake has managed to have 3...yes 3....sick days already.  2 for a random virus that involved a sore throat and swimmer's ear, and one that was a stomach bug.  Let's hope that he got that out of his system and that (maybe!) we will have a healthy cold and flu season!  Here he is, during a healthy time, being silly at a friend's Oktoberfest party recently:

 Other than trying to get back into the swing of school stuff and after school activities, we've been outside a lot, enjoying the warm temps and lack of rain!

A bonus to your dad building you a treehouse and having leftover wood is that you can make some sweet bike ramps :)

Jake had "favorite team jersey" day at school---Hail to Pitt!!

 

 

He likes to keep the front porch of the treehouse free of debris.  A kid after my own heart.

Sometimes we head inside to dress up like Pirate Cowboys or play a board game....

 

Our neighborhood association put out flags for 9/11, and I had a little helper for my block:

 

Brian and I had a few hours to ourselves at a recent wedding...it was at a farm and even though it was a bit on the chilly side, it was a gorgeous day to be out!

And then we celebrated our own wedding anniversary last week!  Thumbs up to 9 years of marriage!

The boys are back in Sunday School after summer hiatus, and I'm always happy to snap a picture of them looking so spiffy on the way there:

Earlier in the month, we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday together with my parents and Nate, Katie, and Luke.  It was so nice to spend the day with everyone...we had good food, played some games, and got to love on baby Luke!

 

Uncle Nate, showing Jake how to fly a drone

It's all fun and games until the drone gets stuck in a tree!

 I always thought I was a baby hog, but I have some stiff competition with Liam around....this kid would hold Luke all day if we let him!

 

Brian finally got a turn....

And in swooped Liam, trying to steal him!

And just in case you needed a little heart-melting today, here is a video of Liam singing "You are my sunshine" to Luke.

Happy 60th birthday, Pappy!!!

So, that's been our September!!!  I hope everyone is enjoying fall so far!

August: how are you almost gone??

We are just a few days out from September, so I figured I should do some type of wrap up post to salute the end of summer!

As I've already posted about excessively, one week of August for us was spent in Montana, which you can read more about here.

We've kept busy, but we've had plenty of downtime for just playing and hanging out, too.  As you can see, when Liam wants to play Jake and the Neverland Pirates, he fully commits to getting into character!

 

We've made our rounds this month to various doctors, including the orthodontist (for Jake-he got expanders put in!), dentist (both boys), and eye doctor (both boys, Liam's first time)  Liam was so good for his eye exam, the doctor couldn't believe it was his first time.  And when it came time to do the drop for dilation, the doctor said both boys handled it better than some grown men he sees :)

The dilation was so strong...they had to wear shades. (sing it in your head, it sounds better)

We've had a few hot weekends, so we busted out the slip and slides and sprinklers, always a hit:

 

 

 The boys have been anxiously awaiting a treehouse camp out all summer, and that day finally came last Saturday!  Obviously, it's not a camping excursion unless s'mores are involved:

 

 

 

"Boys, can we get a picture together??"  Gee, thanks.

We played on the swingset while the fire died down and Brian hauled all of the stuff up to the treehouse:

 

Then it was time!!

 

 

Not pictured: Brian on the floor, in his sleeping bag :)

I hung out for a few minutes, then gave goodnight hugs and kisses, gathered up the dog, and retreated back into the house :)  Hey, someone had to hold down the fort inside!  It worked out well, because the premiere of this piece of work happened to be on that night....

 I had the remote to myself, and my dog by my side...I was all set for the night! The boys loved the camp out and slept all night; Brian slept off and on for a few hours.  Apparently, he was on high alert what with being outside and all...and the sound of swishing sleeping bags and boys snoring/talking in their sleep throughout the night kept them up.  But they had a good time, and I'm sure they will do it again!

Also, this pretty much sums up my thoughts on camping....

And last, the big thing we had going on in August was the post-summer camp shuffle. Summer camp ended the first week of August (which is mind-boggling to me, but that's a post for another time) so once we came back from vacation we didn't have a camp option for Jake.  Fortunately, he was going to camp with a few of his friends from preschool and baseball, and I happen to be friends with those moms, so we had worked out at the beginning of summer a schedule where one mom would have all 5 boys for 2 days....10 days without camp would then be covered by all of us.

Overall, this worked out really well...obviously, it was more convenient than trying to figure out what to do for those two weeks and/or burn a bunch of vacation time between me and Brian.  And the boys had a blast for the most part..they even did a few sleepovers, which they thought was super cool!  During week 2, some of the sibling-like bickering kicked in, but on the last day they were all sad to leave each other.  We'll see how next year goes and what we'll end up doing, but it's definitely so nice to have other parents to rely on and be able to offer help to as well. It really does take a village!!

August is nearly gone, which means we are one step closer to my favorite season...

image courtesy of thebuckheadbetties.com

Operation: Treehouse 2015 - COMPLETE!!

I've made a few mentions of the ongoing treehouse project at our house, and I'm so happy that I can finally reveal the finished product!!  After a LOT of hard work, long hours, and a ton of sweat, I am proud to present to you our family treehouse!!

We'll take a tour, then I'll give you some details about the project:

Front of treehouse

backside of house with cargo climbing net (purchased from Amazon)

Bunk beds (Smile banner from target)

bunk beds with view of front window

view from inside looking at front door, chalkboard saved from being thrown away at my office!

bunk bed with view of back window (Dream Big sign from Target)

Front porch sittin' space :)  (chairs from walmart, but purchased a few years ago, similar available on Amazon)

bunk bed testers, kids not for sale

Jake and his buddy Ben, testing out the top bunk :) 

Ok, let's break this project down:

The Plan

 There are a LOT of free treehouse plans out there (thank you, Pinterest) but we were looking for something very specific, as we did not want to build the house IN a tree, but rather, between 2 trees.  So when we came across this free plan on www.woodworkcity.com, it was perfect!  Link to full plans (with LOTS of pictures of their project) can be found here.

Time Commitment

Brian started this project back in May, and it was a much bigger undertaking than he had bargained for.  Essentially, it took him from mid-May through mid-July to finish it (and he still needs to add on a few finishing touches, like putting trim around the windows and installing the door) He was; however, working with limited time, considering he doesn't get home from work until 6:30pm and was often coaching baseball at night for much of May and June.  If you are hoping to do this project and could devote more time to working on it, you could complete it in less than 2 months.  He was working on it by himself for the most part, though we did have a lot of help from my father in law for 2 weekends and some random help from neighbors and friends a few times (thank you to everyone who was willing to lend us a helping hand and/or tools!)

He said that in hindsight, it would have been helpful to have (weather-permitting) scheduled a few vacation days all in a row to get a lot of the project done at once, rather than doing bits and pieces here and there at night and the weekends.  He still wouldn't have completed it in just those few days, but at least it would have been more efficient than having to drag out all of his tools and supplies for just an hour or two here and there in the evenings.

Supplies

Most of the supplies were purchased at  Lowes.  We lucked out in that we hadn't cashed in any rewards from our credit card in years, so we had a lot of points saved up to be able to order gift cards to Lowes...score!

Brian also made a trip to Construction Junction, which is kind of a thrift store for hardware and wood (it was about 30 minutes from our house, but he said it was well worth the trip there, he was getting stuff for about 1/4 of what it would have cost him at Lowes)  Since it's like a thrift store, there's no set inventory, so it's hit or miss, but he was really happy to at least be able to get a bunch of his stuff from there.

I also posted on Craigslist and local Facebook yard sale pages that I was seeking free or low-cost supplies for a treehouse...I threw it out there figuring it couldn't hurt, and got a number of replies!  One person responded that they had an entire deck they had just replaced and that the wood was in pretty good shape....Brian picked it all up, sent the wood through a planer, and that is what you see as the siding of the house (and what he's building the door with)  Good as new!  I had the same response from someone with shingles from their roof they'd had replaced....gotta love upcyling! 

Links to additional supplies:

Cargo/Climbing Net: Amazon
Kids Adirondack Chairs: originally from walmart, similar found on Amazon
Dream Big sign: Target (dollar spot, not available to link to online)
Smile Banner: Target (dollar spot, not available to link to online)

********************************************************************************

The boys are so excited that it's done, and can't wait to have a sleepover up there! :)  We're looking forward to them making lots of fun memories!