Fall Activities

Micah has been gone for the past four days and we are all going a little crazy. It's the first time the youngest babes have been away from him.....oofta! We are in the final stretch so to help pass time we are taking tons of deep breaths, spending lots of time outside and attempting a fall craft to keep our minds distracted. 

Our Summer Projects

With grad school and extended work hours, we tried to take it a little easier this year on summer house projects. Our work kept us outdoors, which was enjoyable since winter can sometimes last 9 months. These were projects where we could all help out too (not much help can come from the little man on the previous projects unless it had to do with destruction).

We landscaped the front corner to eliminate some grass and fill in around the Little man's tree.

We had the driveway widened and repoured. Once it was finished we landscaped the patch of yard next to it. M even has a little garden growing onions and garlic.

After putting in the dog kennel we took out some more grass so we could landscape and add a path from the patio to the kennel. We also stained the fence this summer.

Chore and Responsibility Boards

Way back in June I started dreaming up this idea while having a brainstorming session with Beth on the drive down to Fort Collins. I knew that I wanted to create something for the little man that would help him move toward independence in his responsibilities and eventually address chores and allowance.

After a lot of thinking and dialogue about how we wanted this to look and work, we came to a few conclusions:

1. Everyone has responsibilities when in a family and those are not things that you earn money for. They are things you do to simply help out your family. In M.'s case his current responsibilities are primarily getting himself ready and taking care of his room.

2. A job is something that you make the choice to participate in and there are natural consequences if you don't - you don't get paid. For right now, M. can choose to complete up to five different chores and get paid 5 cents per chore. The money will be paid once a week and will go into his various money jars, which you can read more about here.

So M. and I took a trip to the store and picked up two cookie sheets and he was able to pick out letter stickers and ribbon. We then returned home and took pictures of the various things that he needed to complete out of responsibility or for chores.

Then it was my turn to get creative........

We hung the boards in our hallway so he sees them easily. We also went over the boards a week ago on Friday and he instantly got to work! I went to tell him that it was time to get ready for bed and he had already put pj's on, his dirty clothes in the laundry and cleaned up his toys! I think that I could get used to this!

He does love giving himself a tally mark below each picture once he has done that, and even shouted at me one morning, "Don't make my bed, I want to do that!"

As of right now, he could care less about the money. What he really wants to know is when he gets his special date with Aba!

*M. was able to redeem his first date with Aba! Micah gave him the choice of going for a hike or watching a movie and eating a special snack. M. chose going for a walk to get the movie and then stopping by a restaurant for a tasty treat. As we sat down to watch the movie, he kept saying, "This is so great. This is so much fun!"

Project Time - Cork Letter

I have been keeping wine corks for the past several years in a mason jar. In the last few months, the jar has been overflowing and I was getting annoyed with constantly moving them around - thus began my scheming to create a wine cork letter to hang by our desk area.

I think that it turned out okay, but I definitely recommend putting some kind of backing behind the corks. I didn't the first time and it didn't hold together very well. Other than that I am pretty happy with my zero dollar project - well zero dollars if you don't count the initial price of purchasing wine!

Project Time - Travel History

For a long time I have been wanting to create a way for us to mark all of the places that we have traveled to over the years. I have seen lots of neat ideas in books and online, but I didn't have the patience or money to make any of them happen. So after a lot of late night thinking (I haven't been sleeping very well for several months, so I often lay in bed and spend those hours doing a lot of thinking and attempting at creating) I came up with the idea to put some cork board in a picture frame, glue a map on the top and then mark it with pins. Here is the end result - minus the pins.

Little Saturday Project

Project Time

Got this for two dollars and recovered it with some already purchased fabric.

Found this and wasn't in love with it, but knew I could make it work after I took out the lace, cut out the lattice, and sawed off the molding. It holds our stereo perfectly and keeps all of our table linens nicely organized!

Patio Touchups

If you will recall in this post, we finished the majority of the patio but still had some things that we needed to finish up. So how should M. and I spend our first day Micah free? Working on the patio of course! It took the majority of the day, and a little extra muscle and entertainment from Sarah and her two kiddos (so thankful they stopped by), but we got it done! Right before bedtime M. helped me plant the remainder of the plants that will grow along the border - he keeps calling it his garden and is so proud to address each plant by the correct name. We are very excited to enjoy our morning bowl of oatmeal and cup of coffee outside tomorrow morning!

Project Time - Dining Chairs

Took care of this project this afternoon

Still need to refinish the table, but that will be for another day.

Money Jars

I don't know if other parents are as crazy as I am and lay awake at three in the morning contemplating the things that I do, but sometimes I just can't turn my brain off. So here is what has been running through my thoughts lately:

So, I knew that at some point we would want to create an allowance system for the little man, but I wasn't too worried about making that happen anytime soon. Then we started having a lot of conversations about money in regards to the current adoption, and the importance of saving and giving.

I knew that we would want some sort of system that would emphasis these points (saving and giving - not just spending), the problem was I couldn't find anything piggy bank wise that worked (unless we wanted a four slot piggy bank that included investments - don't think we are ready for that one yet). So at some point during an early morning thinking session, I realized I would need to find some simple glass bottles to do the trick. I have kept my eyes open whenever recycling or at a thrift store, but couldn't find anything of the same size or small enough. Then while grocery shopping one day I found the perfect sized bottles - just had to get around to drinking the contents and then put the thoughts in my head into action. Thus we have this for the little man and he is already choosing to put most of his money in savings! :)

If You Build It....

We will sit on it.

We've had a little dream to create a lovely little space that helps us to enjoy these beautiful Laramie summers (and beefs up our landscaping). If you remember correctly our backyard previously looked like this:

So it comes in really handy to be a dreamer and have a planner of a husband.

I would show you his fancy graph paper sketch and chicken scratch math, but those things remain top secret. See this post if you feel like you need to know more about the exciting delivery.

Basically, after a lot of digging and leveling we finally made it to the point where we could start laying stones (my FAVORITE part)!! After a long days work, we...well mostly Micah, were able to get all the stones put into place, minus the twenty-five that need to be cut.

Can't wait to get back from our travels to enjoy this. I think that it will be my new favorite place!

Maps

So today Micah and I celebrate our 9th anniversary. I would post a picture of us or about all of the exciting things we are doing to celebrate this special day, but he is currently at the library studying for his Master's program. Don't worry - I plan on doing the next best thing - hanging with the little man, enjoying a glass of wine, and painting.

Thought I would share the homemade gift that he will be opening up once he returns home. It was a super easy project and cost me a total of .... well very little, which in no way reflects what I think he deserves.

Map coasters.

I just took an old atlas, several cork coasters, traced the maps (I cut out all of the places that we have lived), glued them to the coasters and then put a layer of modge podge over them to keep them protected.

Like I said, super easy and super cheap. I like that it is also unique to us and very personal.

A Hard Days Work

After the morning was spent giving haircuts, we headed outside to get some housework.

This is what we started with:

This is where we ended:

Still need to tackle this:

Ugh.

A Special Delivery

We had some patio stones delivered today from Home Depot. The little man was so happy that this big truck and fork lift pulled up to his house. He didn't want to miss a minute of it so we hung out on the steps and watched them unload the truck. M. showed me his BIG muscles and explained that he could do that if he wanted to. After bragging about his muscles, the gentleman making the delivery let him sit on the forklift. He was pretty happy and stated that he plans on driving a fork lift when he gets bigger. We'll see how that goes over once he starts driving.

What Happens When I Don't Have Work...

The first week of summer should be spent sleeping in, reading, enjoying extended warm cups of coffee or tea, taking many strolls around town by bike or foot, and enjoying the calmer moments of life right? Well, apparently not for this family. Micah started grad school on Monday and the little man and I have been entertaining ourselves by doing some house projects and garden work.

M's. room was the last room to have the carpet pulled up, so how else should you spend Tuesday morning? By pulling carpet right? All the furniture was cleared, well except for the things that I couldn't lift by myself, by 8:30. By 11:30 I had everything pulled, cleaned, swept, mopped, and dusted and put back in the room. Despite the face in the lower left hand picture, M. was pretty happy to have the carpet out (and so was I).

Fenced In

For the past month and a half we have been working on a house project outside. We anticipated that this project would take us about a week at the most, but the weather prevented this from happening. Winter weather was very hesitant to leave, so between the incredibly rainy, windy, and cold days we putted away on our project.

On April 16th we began our project by tearing out the old chain link fence and wooden fence. Both fences will be reused for different projects (the wooden one a neighbor took and the chain link fence will be used for the garden at my school).

Two weeks later the weather was nice enough to get post holes dug and posts set in cement. Micah did this with the help of a friend while I was on kid and food duty.

The next weekend, between rain showers, Micah worked on getting the stringers put up and into place.

The following weekend brought with it another nice day snuck in between some extended rainy days, so we got to work right away once we figured out how to occupy the little man.

After working all day, we were able to get all of the pickets up leaving only the gate to be built and hung.

So this morning when we awoke to the sun shining again, Micah took the opportunity to get started on the gate in hopes of finishing it before another storm rolled in.

We aren't sure who is more excited about the fence finally being finished, but either way we are all excited to have this house project completed and checked off our to-do list.

The Little Man is SO Excited.....

That we have a new mailbox. We have been working on a house project for over a month and part of the house project required a new mailbox. For whatever reason the little man is estatic about this new mailbox. He has been announcing this news to anyone and everyone that is within yelling distance. He has also been caught gazing out the window dreamingly in the direction of the mailbox. There have even been a few times where he announces that he is going to go see his new mailbox, let's himself out of the house, and is found standing with one hand on the mailbox and attempting to engage in a conversation with it. Who knew it could be this exciting?

It's Getting Hot in Here!

Another house project was accomplished just in the nick of time as we anticipate another few days of colder weather.

Our furnace was the original for the house, so it was well over 60 years old and running well below 60% efficiency. We have been saving up for a newer more efficient furnace, and with the help of a friend, we found one for a fabulous price at a scratch and dent place.

So Micah got busy tearing out the old beast of a furnace and over the course of the day they installed the newer furnace. We had to wait a few days to get it up and running while waiting for a few things to be finished up. The wait was well worth it though, and despite the tremendous amount of dirt and dust that came shooting out of the vents once we finally turned it on, we were rejoicing at the amount of heat. Another huge excitement was that the little man's room has always been cold and extremely hard to heat - not with the new furnace! It has much more power and gusto to get that warmer air where it needs to be. Wahoo!

We have been reminded how thankful we are for a warm home and feel so grateful for the new furnace so bring on the cold weather.... well actually please don't - we are getting sick of the winter weather in the middle of May, so bring on the warm weather please.

Keekaroo!

The little man has been boycotting his booster seat for several months now. Apparently when he turned four he also turned too big to use a "baby" seat. Needless to say, any meal time becomes a battle to get him to sit at the table - and we already struggle with getting him to actually consume food and not just look at it. So, after a little bit of researching and a lot of hype we ordered a new chair for him. The chair fits our requirements as parents (spans several age ranges...and others that I can elaborate on if you really want to know...email). Anyways, the little man was pumped that we got him a "present" and the sitting at the table battles have ended! Now if we could just get him to eat some food!

Tackled

Our hall closet has been taunting me for the past six months. Daily I open it and remind myself how disgusted I am with the clutter and chaos that has made it into the hall closet.

I have been telling Micah repeatedly that I am going to tackle the closet, pull everything out, get it organized, give everything a spot or get rid of it..... Then I open the closet door and instantly become overwhelmed and drained of what little energy I have left in the evenings.

Well not today! Today I am home once again from work - only this time the little man is the one feeling ill. I don't feel 100%, but I also don't need to be confined to the couch anymore so let the cleaning begin!

First I started by pulling everything out - and I mean everything - and sorting it into piles of like items.

Once I had that finished, I wiped down all of the shelves and then laid down a rubber shelf liner to dress things up a bit. Finally I purchased some new storage bins and if something didn't fit or we hadn't touched it in the past year, it went bye-bye.

I realize that it is probably ridiculous to be posting photos of my hall closet cleaning, but I absolutely love getting things organized. It makes my heart happy - and I enjoy opening the hall closet door now. Ahh, yeah for organization!