Park play April 2014

I love that all 4 will still play and have fun together at a playground. Sometimes it's hard to watch them grow up when I love who they are right now...... but I also love every new stage that comes. I miss 5 year old Jackson but I definitely love 10 year old Jackson :) I guess that's why pictures, videos and journals are so important. Every once in awhile you can take a step back in time and visit the kiddos at different ages

They are also very good sports when it comes to picture taking! I need to keep taking advantage of it.

Jackson was a little annoyed that he couldn't do a trick on the zipline thing that the younger ones could so he thought he would try to build more muscle right then and there. Hailey thought it was a great idea too. It didn't Jackson long to learn that it was more about technique than strength :)

4 Kites Up

Ahhh, kite flying. So relaxing...... completely misleading idea when you are trying to get 4 kites in the air that are held by the 10 and under set.

We get the girls kites up fairly easily. Then I help Caleb get his up. Matt is working with Jackson on his..... I tell Caleb to hold on tight ..... a minute later his kite it flying away string dangling. I chase it down and bring it back only to hear Matt yell - Maggie, that's too close! Jackson go that way!
Jackson obeys so well - he goes far enough to tangle his kite in a tree..... I start to head over to help Matt untangle it when I hear more yelling. This time from  Hailey and Caleb who also got too close to one another and now their kites were wrapping around each other in midair. Once we got everything untangled we successfully had all the kites up and flying. We had been there all of 15 min by this point and Matt and I were a little frazzled and worn out :) The kids have been asking to go again - Matt and I might need a nap first......

Caleb was acting out some superhero moves for me while some of the others were winding in their kite strings.

Dining room table

We have been using a plastic folding table in our dining room since we moved out here last summer. It was much easier to get up into the apartment and we figured it would be useful for company later. I decided I wanted to build a table but I wanted it to have really chunky legs. I don't have a good way to make those myself so I thought we should just keep an eye out at the thrift store. After awhile we came across this table for $35 - the legs were great so we packed it up and brought it home. 

 I had only planned on reusing the legs but when we measured it - it was almost exactly the size I had planned on building so we decided to just refinish it and see how it fit. I sanded all the old varnish off the top and stained it darker. I also used some vinyl stencils to paint some arrows on it. I just wanted to add a little extra something :) I tend to do that a lot.

The legs got painted white. I added the word gather. Painted some small stripes around the edge where we realized it was not solid wood and sanding brought out some of the underlying partical board. Coated it with a food safe clear coat and here is where we ended up.  It works great for us for now. I think we might try to squeeze a little bigger table into our space later. We will just have to wait and see :) Now to hunt down some better chairs..........

Jackson is 10

So very hard to believe that we now have one in double digits. This kid gets the worst of us and the best of us as he trains us to be parents at each and every new milestone he hits. He handles it very well and is quite an awesome kiddo. He is still very creative - he loves to make stuff out of anything and everything he can find. He loves weapons of any kind, video games, riding bikes and playing with friends. We are lucky enough to have a boy his age right next door that he gets along very well with.

 One of the video games he loves is called Minecraft. You use different types of building blocks to make whatever you can think of. I found this cake idea online (I really should get better about taking note of the links to give credit where credit is due). It was pretty simple and looked cool. Those are my favorite kind :)

Jackson loved his cake. He also loved that we could invite family friends over. He is opening his electric scooter in the picture below. I thought he would love it since he goes all over the neighborhood to find friends to play with. He only uses it once in awhile.... but Caleb has become quite obsessed with it. Hmmm.

Helping hands......

 I don't think I have mentioned the salvage pile on here yet...... there is a wood salvage pile at our recycling center here that I have found all kinds of projects in..... The kids are helping me paint some beadboard picture frames. The beadboard came from the pile. Free stuff is so much fun to play with :) I was proud of myself for letting them help me paint..... it wasn't long before I started to regret it.

They got out their paints because 1. the white I was having them use was boring and 2. they wanted to make their own projects. I showed them how to put two different paints, one in each hand, then rub their hands together to make a new color. Apparently that alone is not exciting enough. Much more than their hands started to get painted.....

Just so you know - Human Torch is a superhero that turns into a flaming ball of fire as he flies around.

Caleb

So little and so big at the same time. This guy is growing up so fast. He still loves superhero costumes and active, wild play but every once in awhile now you can find him building with legos or looking at books quietly. The batman make-up mask is courtesy of Maggie, I think :)

Play-dough

Wow. I really have some catching up to do. I still haven't figured out my posting from Picasa problems which makes blogging slightly less convenient. 

A good dose of homemade play-dough usually puts the arguing to rest for a little while :) We had a pretty good stash of fun play-dough stuff that seems to have been lost in the move..... I've started to restock a little with cookie cutters. It's a quick and fun activity that we don't do often enough.