Work and Play

We FINALLY have some spring weather around here. It snowed 2x this week, no exaggeration! I seriously thought I was going to cry. When we woke up Thursday morning and there was snow on the ground- again, Ashlyn looks at Brad and says, "This is going to make Mommy really sad when she sees the snow." I just happened to be walking in from the gym as she said it. I was really sad. But it was soon forgotten with the beautiful weather we had yesterday. We went from coats on Thursday to sunburns on Saturday. I didn't even think to put sunblock on the kids... oops!

Our backyard is becoming my "summer sanity saver" as I call it. I love when the kids are able to play outside. It makes them happier, they get fresh air, they wear themselves out, they get really dirty, but in return they're not messing up the house and watching TV. Completely worth it in my opinion. Thanks to Brad- we have all this. He is AMAZING! I always wonder when I see him complete a project how he knows how to do so much. It seems to just be natural instinct for him to build, fix, create whatever we might need. He is the brains and the muscles behind all the work!

So as he worked all day Saturday, the kids and I played all day. I felt a little guilty eating ice cream and basking in the sunshine while he worked... but atleast we were out there keeping him company- right?

This is our fun little playground- complete with shredded rubber for the ground, a retaining wall to keep the rubber from spilling onto the grass, a nice little fence to keep the rubber out of the garden, and all the pictures of Brad working is him setting the footings to do a walkway from our back porch through the playground and into the garden. Brad did this all himself- from hauling in the rubber, to building the wall, putting up the fence, assembling the playground... the list goes on and on. Lucky us, wouldn't you say?

Tanner was a really great helper! He would run away from the power tools, but loved the dirt! This kid needs to learn how to walk if he want to keep playing outside though. I can't afford him wearing holes through every pair of pants he owns when he crawls on concrete!

The shredded rubber serves many purposes. Tanner thinks it tastes pretty good and cleans out between all the retaining bricks looking for some treasure to eat (he decided dirt wasn't too tasty though). Ashlyn fills any kind of container she can find and pretends the rubber is anything from rain to breakfast cereal! So I had to add this last picture of Tanner's messy face and hands after eating an icecream sandwich. Anyone who comes to our house with kids knows we're kind of anal about washing hands and sticky fingers. Ashlyn doesn't even have to be reminded after she is done eating to go wash her hands before she does anything else (she even does it after eating pretzels) and we're just as bad with the kids wearing bibs. So we were outside, I knew the kids were going to get filthy in the dirt anyway so I handed Tanner a chunk of an icecream sandwich that I knew would drip everywhere and make a mess, but we're outside so who cares right? A few seconds after I did this Brad just looked at me and said, "You are amazing." The tone of voice he used wasn't that of real admiration, but rather complete disgust. He really couldn't believe I was letting Tanner get that messy and sticky! I thought it was kind of funny and as you can see Tanner thought it was pretty great too!