Our first major outdoor project at the new house was building a deck. It was a big mud area with a giant step down from the house before we built the deck.
The boys used this time to learn to hammer stakes in to the ground and they are now pretty good with a screw gun.
I got a bunch like this because they were working on it for quite a while.
Alex
Alex crying. Him crying isn't the cute part. You can really see his chubby little kid hands.
I buy discount Halloween costumes after the holiday for them to play in. They have ignored the outfits and would only wear the hats, but they started hanging out in their superhero gear. Here's tired Hulk Alex.
Ben
Cody dug these giant holes basically to the center of the earth for the footings of the deck. The boys use the dirt pile to dig with their trucks. Alex black Ben blue hat.
Easter. This is from the Easter bunny when the boys woke up. They like candy. We did an egg hunt at the house later, but they mostly stopped to eat candy once they realized the eggs were full of candy.
Eggs. These are not as fun as the dinosaur ones we did a few year ago. I got the boys set up with stickers to put on the eggs and crayons to draw on the eggs before putting in the dye... but the boys were not that patient. It mostly turned in to moving eggs rapidly from one cup of dye to another.
Cake I made. Pretty awesome. Easy and delicious. They boys kept trying to pet it and announcing that it was "SOOOO Cute"
Legos in the hallway. They like to build giant Lego rocketships and then destroy theirs and anyone else's that happens to be nearby. Alex stripes Ben in red in the back
Truthfully, Cody gets a little more in to it than they do most of the time. For a while, Cody and I were competing for best rocketship, but he convinced a kid to destroy mine. He is pretty cutthroat.
Alex at the park
Ben and Cody on horse.
This was parked at the end of our street for a while doing some work. The boys would ask all day every day to go see the sky truck. They would talk about how cool it is and all the things it does. At first Cody was taking them to see it every night. I had no idea it was there. So for a few days they were constantly chattering about something and I was very confused. I thought they made up sky truck. I was like, "Yeah, okay. Sky truck. Ok. Sounds awesome." I still don't think it is for sure called sky truck. Whatever. When it was finished and moved, the boys were devastated. They still ask to go see it sometimes.
Another project outside: Stupid downspout design. They poured our sidewalks before putting a tube of some sort down for the downspout to properly drain. When they put on the gutters, they just set it up to drain on the sidewalk. Seriously. This created quite the ice mess between the driveway and front door in the winter. We tried to fix it on our own.
We know they have equipment that does this, but the distance looked short and Cody was convinced it wouldn't be a big deal to dig out. HAHAHAHA. This went about how all projects go. After 4 hours and about 18 inches of progress, Cody stopped to brainstorm. Our neighbor kindly let us borrow a pressure washer. This was the result. It took about an hour to finish the hole. It took another couple of hours to figure out how to get the black tube under the sidewalk and up the hole in the sidewalk. Being a small town, the gutter guy drove by while we were doing this. He stopped to tell Cody how impressed he was with Cody's determination. He said all the houses around here were done by the same builder and have the same problem. They just usually hire him to come back out to move the downspout to a more ideal location. yeah. So he offered to send someone over to finish putting fitting on our downspout/hose connection.
Ben. I've been working so hard on keeping them from being naked outside. It seems like the few times they outsmart me and strip down is the few times we have neighbors come over to chat. Gah.
Cody. This was a very messy process.
Alex muddy
Ben grey Alex orange. If you look, you'll see a lot of kitchen tools. Spoons and tongs and stuff. Digging out the hole from the top of the sidewalk down under was a bit difficult. I brought out a variety of household scooping things. I'm glossing over the giant pain in the butt that this was. The boys used these scooping items to play in the mud hole.
They also used it to play with their trucks and tractors. Lots of mud to clean up.
Finished project
This is a small order of onion rings from a place nearby. They are really thin like onion strings and they give you an insane amount. Delicious.
Alex
Ben
Ben
Alex with a stick
Our backyard/outdoor situation is not as awesome as the last house. The lots are quite a bit smaller and there are more neighbors. Not many mature trees. Our lot actually has 0 trees, mature or otherwise. This means Ruby park is not what it was at the old house. We can't have all the outdoor stuff we used to have because then our yard looks a bit like a hoarder lives here. Our gravel pit was built in, so we left it there. This is what the boys have been downgraded to until we figure something else out.
I'm not really complaining about our new house. It is good in its own ways. It just doesn't have the big yard and privacy that the other house had.
Alex green Ben blue
Here's Ben.
You don't often get to see them this up close. He painted his nose and then played with my phone taking pics of himself.
Our deck built. We built these privacy screens instead of traditional railings. Both to add a bit of privacy and to deter boys from climbing over railings. At the old house they would stand on the back of the chairs and lean over the railings. The drop is too far to risk them doing that here. The screens are awesome. It goes to the end of this side and half way across the front side.
I'll try to get finished pics up. I'm having technical difficulties getting pics off my phone and on the blog site. I've been doing this enough years that I can confidently say I don't think it's my fault. Apparently the townspeople are chattering about Cody and his outdoor projects. At least we are consistent!
Our yard is full of weeds. That sentence is a drastic understatement that implies our grass has too many weeds. In reality, our weed and bare spot outdoor area has some spots of grass. I started digging out/pulling out weeds. I know they make chemical for that, but I was outside anyway and there are reasons to pull weeds instead of relying on chemical. Cody does not necessarily agree, so we have done both methods. Really this has created a yard full of holes and half dead weeds... but whatever.
This is one of the weeds I pulled out. It has a root that is 17 inches long.
Alex watching ants. These ants were pretty badass. We watched them battle a beetle and carry the beetle back to their home.
When I meet people: Them: "Nice to meet you, Courtney. What do you do/What do you do for fun/ What are your hobbies?" Me:"I dig for worms, watch ants battle a beetle, and unsuccessfully try to keep my boys from being naked outside." It's really hard for me to talk to adults now...
Ben sneaking out in to the street. You can literally see the sneakiness dripping off of him. The no playing in the street rule is not as strictly enforced here, which has led to some moments like this. There is very little traffic on our street and they have been conditioned to watch for kids, so almost everyone goes slow.
There are 22 homes in the neighborhood. Only one street in to the neighborhood. There are 3 houses with kids under 5. All 3 of those houses have a set of twins. Both other set of twins are older with a younger kid.. but still. One other house has kids but they are a bit older. Interesting.
They still occasionally try to ride this together, but they no longer fit. It's sad. We're going to take these away soon so they have to ride their bike instead. Sad.
Doing my pepper garden again. My jalapenos are just not taking off, but the other ones are doing ok.
A truck load full of old, broken, and outgrown toys. Now we don't know what to do with it. Most are not good enough to donate or to sell.
Ben. I took just Ben to the grocery store the other day and the cashier would not stop talking about how pretty his blue eyes are. Thanks lady. Please focus on scanning my groceries before my blue eyed kid destroys your candy area.
They like to play with my mandolin. They call it a guitar. Ben.
This cat is sort of a stray sort of a neighbor's cat. It is the best cat. It puts up with all the crap the boys want to give it. Not that they torture it, but if they are a little too rough with its tail or paws the cat just accepts it. The boys named it Radar. It will come hang out with us outside and walk around with us for a while. The boys look forward to it all day.
Ben
Ben
Alex
Ben taking pictures of himself on my phone again. This is basically what he does in a mirror. It is the camera on the front so you can see yourself while you take pictures of yourself.
Ben and the footer before it was in the ground
Ben using this chip clip as an eating utensil
I had to crop this one because Alex was eating with no pants apparently. I don't even notice their nudity anymore.
Ben in the footer hole. It actually got deeper than this.
Before the deck
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