boys and bark

You may have been wondering what the boys were doing while they were waiting for their new club house to be finished. Let's just say, they got creative....

Does this look like a good idea to you?

Emerson's turn...

Steamroller....

How many ways can they come up with to play on a bark hill? Maybe we should have skipped the play house and just bought more bark...

The Club House...

Today was the big day! We put together more of the club house. It was freezing here and super windy-- not the best day for working outside but we couldn't wait. The process was long and cold but we got a lot finished.

The boys set the deck (which was the hardest part).
Once everything was nailed into place it was time to move the house.
I think my Dad would use this thing to brush his teeth if he could. Thanks Dad, it was so much easier with the skid steer.
The kids couldn't resist testing it out while the men took a lunch break. We've still got a lot to go but it's looking pretty good.

Preschool Boys...

I get a kick out of our crazy boys every time it's my turn to drive to school. They are so excited to see each other, it's a spazy ride! They love to have me play their favorite songs while they each pick an "air instrument" and of course the lead singer is usually Rugby. Max loves the air drums, Em is the air keyboard and Rugs prefers the air guitar. It's priceless!

Our little goobers livin' large in Timmy's truck. (That is their vehicle of choice-- way more manly than a sissy minivan.)
Max in rare form...
Rugs enjoying window privledges...
Emerson just glad to be included with the big boys.
Z lost another tooth. This time she lost it to a sandwich at school. She thought it was a seed (cause you know how bologna usually has seeds...) so she spit it on the lunch room floor. (another topic for another time) When she realized it wasn't a seed she freaked out and had her class looking frantically all over the floor. Her friend Will found it and her crisis was averted. Thanks Will!

Problem Solved....

Problem solved! Not exactly what I was looking for but I ran out of red paint. I'm pretty sure it's because half of the gallon was used on two little boys.

Spring ROCKS!!!

Today was another beautiful spring day. I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on the new club house and then the boys came home from school.

Grandpa broke out the go-carts and spring is now officially here.
The boys are so ready for school to be out and summer to start. They just look so stinkin' cute on this thing (little guys in a little go-cart-- it's just cute).
We found a turtle and kept him as our prisoner until Breckyn got home from school. We knew she'd want to play with it and she did. She let him go in the pond and watched him swim for a while.

Like I said, I painted the rest of the club house this morning and it went pretty well. The boys were asking if they could paint too and I thought, "Yeah, I could be a cool mom and let them paint." So, I decided to let them help me paint the swing set because I was going to do it anyway. Besides, what could they really do to the swing set? (It's like I was a rookie for one brief moment-- duh!) Well, they painted alright... the swing set, the bark, me, themselves and everything in between. It was oil based barn paint--RED oil based paint. I had gotten a little on my hands when I was painting the club house and it came of really easily with some soap. Little did I know that on a bigger scale, it wasn't that simple.

It was the biggest mess I've ever cleaned up and that's saying a lot coming from a mother of four. It was sticky, water repellent and it never dries!!! That means that when I took them up to the tub it smeared all over my white white tub. When they sat down in the water it got smeared on their bums, between toes, on their backs and covered their little hands. It took me over an hour to clean all of us up. When I touched them to scrub it off, it would get on me and back on them-- it was ugly.
I started out without any paint on me but that quickly changed because of my painting companions. I made a rule that no kid could paint higher than their head because I took a serious hit to the back when Em tried to paint too high. Then they dropped my paintbrush all the way into the paint gallon. There was flicking and dripping-- did I mention this was not my best idea. The only thing that made me feel better was the boys had a great time. (Still not worth it!)

While I was cleaning up the boys Tim painted this little gem on top. I'll be fixing it tomorrow...

Happy Birthday Rugby!

Today was Rugby's birthday and he partied it up big time. He started out with a special trip to the Bakery with Dad for some birthday donuts. Then he was off to preschool to pass out his push-ups and gum packs. After preschool we went to pick up an ice cream cake for the big party and of course....

...what would his birthday be without a trip to his favorite place. He says, "The happy meals come with toys you know mom!" (yeah, I know and I still don't like them)
He picked a Spiderman themed party (of course).
Aunt Jodi gave him the one thing he truly wanted for his birthday-- a Webkinz! It was the talk of the evening amongst the kids. (thanks Jodi-- I think...)
Gram gave him this super cool swim shirt that shows his muscles really well. He will be sporting it for swim lessons tomorrow.
Little Miss Thing tried to keep up with the big boys by putting on any one's shoes and making a quick break for the doors. She really wanted to be outside but it's amazing what a dead bolt will keep inside. (Although, I'm not too sure how much longer that will work with baby Houdini.)

Happy Birthday Rugs! You have brought our family so many adventures. I know our lives would be dull without you. You are amazing and definitely growing up far too fast. I love you my little man!

Family Fun!

We had the most fabulous family weekend ever! We took the kids out of school at lunch time on Thursday and set off on our journey. We made it to the Dells with only 362 bazillion questions of "are we there yet?" (...and that's an exact figure too) But the bonus was, they were too excited to fight in the car-- yeehoo!

Here they are all ready for some watery fun.
The girlies all ready to swim...
This one is for you Cassie... (It totally attacked him-- it's gnawing his little face off!)
This is moments after we told them it was time to go home. It wasn't pretty...
Afterwards we checked out the outlet mall. It was sweet. It even had a Disney outlet which I had never seen before. Z is trying to reenact our Disney pictures in Cali.

If you've been with us to the Dells this picture needs no explanation. We had to go back just for him to do this again. He was pretty proud of himself.

The next morning after arriving home the party continued with a much asked for "Barlow Family ride." (Only we are Taylors so it was the Taylor ride) We took the bikes and the kids to the cemetery for a really lot of laps. Then we headed to the park, back home for a quick lunch and then we started putting together this little beauty. Santa brought this for the kids way back at Christmas but we've had too much snow to put it together until now.

They thought it was pretty cool. (especially Mr. Chuckles there...)

Next, we moved on to building the summer club house. Tim put this together for the kids. We are going to add a floor and put it up on stilts to make it an official club house.

Tim has visions of trap doors, zip lines, rock walls and that's just the beginning. It was getting late so we will be finishing it next weekend. We were all pretty excited about this one. I'm picking up some paint for it on Monday. I'm thinking red and white... any suggestions?

This made me giggle...

Like father, like daughter....

We celebrated Zoey's birthday with the gang tonight. Her birthday is tomorrow, Rugs is Monday and B's is right around the corner so we are celebrating, as a family, at the Dells tomorrow. It's our first venture to the indoor water park solo (without the entire Magill gang) and we are pumped! It's an "all you can swim" buffet that our kids can't wait to sink their teeth into!

Z got a new kitty from Grandma (Sorry Cass, Meow is finally showing her age).
She also received this EVIL makeup set that she was thrilled about.
Aunt Jo dazzled her with a sweet HSM purse, glam head band and a much needed fabulous swim cover up.
Gram is showing her the ropes...
The glitterier the better! (go big or go home)

Cass, I thought you'd appreciate seeing her open your present. She put the shoes on right away and she is planning on wearing them tomorrow with her birthday ensemble.

Happy Birthday baby girl. We love you!

More Capes...

This time it was Rugby's turn for a cape. I was sewing yesterday and he was whining about not having his own cape (never mind all of his capes in the basement) so I came up with this...

It's a glittery smooth metallic material that was right up his alley. The Zorro mask was a bonus add on.
Super R is what he prefers to be called. (or Guido Bandito)
Doesn't he just look cool? At least I know he feels pretty cool. Look out ladies, there's a new sheriff in town!

Wonderkid...

Just in case you haven't had enough Wonderpets-- here's the little man in all of his glory.

New Templates...

I've found a new free template site for everyone interested. There are a bazillion trillion (yes, that is a technical term) different kinds of templates. There is something for everyone. It's really easy to do-- give it a whirl! Check it out on my newest "links" list down and to the right on your screen. It's called AWESOME FREE TEMPLATES. Happy downloading!

Wonderpets Jr....

Do you know what would go really well with a wonderpets cape?.... Emerson did, another cape for your little friend. Em kept trying to have his stuffed animal wear the cape. It was obviously too big and had technical difficulties when trying to fly. So a request was put in again (this time to me) for a smaller version for puppy. Back to the drawing board...

I took the easy way out and kept the emblem the same size so I could crank it out in a few minutes.
Boy and his dog-- it's a beautiful thing. Now they are off to "save the day!" I have a feeling this will not be the last cape I make....

Wonderpets...

As you know, Tim failed miserably with his China present picks for Emerson. All Em wanted was a Wonderpets cape and Tim still hasn't heard the end of it. So yesterday Tim says, "Where do you think one would get a Wonderpets cape, if one wanted to-- you know hypothetically speaking..." So I looked online (you can find anything online) and came up with a pattern from nickjr.com and set off for the fabric store. Here are the results...

He was thrilled! Tim told him that he forgot about it in the bottom of his suitcase. China had one after all... what a nice Daddy (with a great butt-saving wife).
He was all smiles and has yet to take it off.
Dad got so much love over this one. He was so lucky.

Books...

So the girls bring home books every night according to their reading level. We sit, read and enjoy learning about new things-- most of the time. Granted I know there is only so many things you can write about at each reading level but come on people-- "My Worm Farm!" PLEASE! I've read books about bugs, animals, snakes and my personal favorite, "Mammals and their young." The book explains how each animal cares for it's young and it comes to the part about humans-- I'm thinking, this ought to be good. It says, "Humans are the most dependent mammals. The young cannot do anything for it's self. (I'm painfully aware of that one...) Each parent has to dress, feed, clothe, bathe, and care for the human child." Why didn't they tell me that when I was in school? What they failed to mention in their short synopsis of the human species is that the human child will quickly gain skills that it will then use to torcher it's parent with. It will learn to speak and start to say things like, "She swallowed my Lego! or My poopies are ouchie!" It will then learn to run which it will use as a quick escape from it's parent. (Hmmm, I'm not sure why they left those details out of the book....) I'm feeling so educated from our nightly reading times. I have to say the "Worm Farm" almost made me hurl. I was also a little woosie with the "All about Spiders" book. (If you must know it's the beady spider eyes that really get to me.) I'm not asking for much, just something nongraphic like trees or something. Who doesn't like a good tree book? Anything but another book explaining the disgusting habits of some little creepy thing. Tomorrow we are lined up for a riveting book called "Pig's skin." Yeah, I know, I'm lucky...

Biker Babes...

Today was the day we dusted off the wheels and brought them out for the summer. All of the kids had out grown last years models and so we were on to new things. The girlies got some hand me downs from the Barlow kids and Em got one from Rugby. Rugby scored a new bike because the girl's Barbie bikes just wouldn't do.

The men all gathered together to assemble the new ride. It's called "Major Damage," very suiting for Rugs I think. This is Zoey's new bike (thanks Maddie).
This is Breckyn's (thanks Caleb).
Emerson is right at home on his crocodile bike.

Here is the first attempt at voyaging the Major Damage...

Take 2...

He's BAAAAACK!!!!

Tim is officially back! We were bouncing off the walls excited for him to be home. The kids hounded him for the presents as soon as he walked in the door. Let me tell you that he did not find nun chucks, Chinese stars or ninja outfits-- oh well.

This was my last delivery that arrived Friday afternoon.
The kids were glued to him when they saw him.
Here are the girl's presents. Note the special writing on the hats. They were very impressed with the new kind of spanish Dad found.
Emerson got a super spy telescope. I think Tim had visions of Jack Bauer when he was picking this out but Em was disappointed that he wasn't thinking more Wonderpets when he bought something. Em was less than impressed because he had his heart set on a Wonderpets cape. What can you say-- he's very three.He was even thinking of you Melissa. He brought these back for you (one full and one empty). I'm not sure how I'm going to get these to you but he thought you had to have them. He thought it would be a cool addition to your collection.
The big guy even managed to find a few things for himself. He was so proud of his sweet finds. He found a place that does really good knock offs. So he bought himself a pair of Ray Bans and even a Rolex. They look really really real and they even have the right packaging. He also found some ipod video Nanos for the kids for $20 each. He was so excited to show us his big shopping scores-- it was really cute. This was his first shopping venture for the whole family without any help and he did pretty well. Thanks big guy-- we missed you! We're so glad you are home.