Daniel's tunnel

The boys have been having a lot of fun playing in the wood chips. Daniel has been working on digging a tunnel through one of the piles. The other day he triumphantly drove a toy digger through. It was a big day. :)

Daddy would be so proud!

Wood Chips!

A few months ago I signed us up with the Seattle Tree Preservation society for a free delivery of wood chips. The way it works is if they're in your area taking down a tree, they'll drop off a load of wood chips for you to use as mulch. I wanted the mulch to cover the bare dirt area under the play structure in the backyard. Yes, for a cushion under the structure, but mainly because every time anyone steps back there a cloud of dust blows across the yard.

Anyhow, we hadn't heard from these guys in months and suddenly a few weeks ago they called saying they'd be in our area the next day and would we still be interested in a load of mulch? YES! I would LOVE some mulch! They made sure we knew that the load would end up being the size of a small car (I figured we'd cover the ground in the back and have a bunch left over to cover garden beds in the fall), and they'd drop it in our driveway. Now, the week before this, Chris started his new job which entails a bit of travel. The day the wood chips were coming happened to be a day Chris left for work for a few days. Hmmm. I didn't think it would matter, so the chips would sit in the driveway for a few days. The next morning, the guy with the truck calls and says he's outside the house and it looks like our driveway is quite small. I told him it didn't matter if some went on the grass, that Chris had left me a tarp to put down. The guy looked at my tarp and laughed.

Then this happened:

And this:

 

 So, of course, the "small car" of wood chips is WAAAAY more that I thought it would be (I was thinking more like VW Beetle-sized) and the guy tells me that it's illegal to have the wood chips spilling over into the street or on the sidewalk. Of course this pile is way into the street and on the sidewalk. Did I mention that Chris was out of town for the next three days? And it was 90 degrees this week? And we only own one shovel and no wheelbarrow? The boys told me they would help move the wood chips, so I put them to work.

Posing by the mountain of wood chips.

"Helping"

Not so much helping as playing. Funny how that works.

Some very good friends and our sister Laura came and helped after dinner. They brought a couple more shovels and another garbage can, and my neighbor loaned us a wheelbarrow. Three hours later the pile looked like this.

And our back yard looked like this. So many wood chips that the boys can't swing. We've since moved things around a bit, and the play structure is functional again. And a few days later, after talking with many of our neighbors and offering free mulch to all of them, a nice lady down the street hired four men and within an afternoon the rest of the pile was gone. Thank goodness!

Cucumber Love

Aaron loves cucumbers.

 His patented "cucumber thumb" joke.

 Tough bite.

 Aaron's new smile.

Singing their praises.

Garden stones

For another one of our "stomatitis quarantine" projects, we decided to make garden stones. Everyone got a turn to mix up the concrete, then we poured it in aluminum pie pans and decorated with sea glass and decorative stones. The decorating part got a little crazy so we don't have pictures of that, but the finished product turned out nice!

Pool Party

We have really been enjoying these sunny Seattle days! It's been especially nice since we've been stuck at home for the past week while Matthew recovers from his bout of stomatitis. And, I hope the weather continues to be nice because as of yesterday afternoon (2 hours after we got the green light from our doctor to see other people again) Aaron and then Daniel started presenting symptoms of full blown hand, foot and mouth disease. So, we'll be on our own until next Friday. :(

In the meantime, we'll continue to chip away at my list of fun things to do this summer, and keep playing in the pool...with sticks, rakes, and cups.

Sidewalk Races

Yesterday we spent the morning out on the sidewalk with our many different vehicles. It was a big day: Aaron learned how to use Matthew's scooter by himself and Matthew finally figured out how to pedal the tricycle (steering while pedaling is the next goal). The boys have so much fun riding from the corner of our block to "the jungle"--an area up the street from us with bamboo and overgrown plants lining the sidewalk.

And they're off! 

 Daniel laps Matthew in the cozy coupe.

 Matthew doesn't seem to mind.

 Here comes Aaron on the scooter!

As usual, Daniel takes it to the next level: towing the wagon with the glider bike as cargo.

This may look like a sweet moment, but don't be fooled--Matthew was escorting Aaron back to the garage so that he could have a turn with the scooter instead.

There he goes again!

Climber

Aaron loves climbing. A lot. Yesterday he discovered he could climb up our fence. It does resemble a ladder, but unlike the bunk bed, there is no nice soft platform when you get to the top...

He had to be pulled off the top of the fence multiple times yesterday. I'm pretty sure he's just doing whatever he can to keep up with and/or outdo his brothers.

Aaron conquered the ladder in the play structure a long time ago. Recently, though, he discovered this:

 I can't believe he's only 20 months. Talk about trouble!

Pom Pom Poppers

We are all about weapons here, lately... :/  Everything in our house has been turned into some sort of gun, and things outside are now being used as catapults. So yesterday, I decided to cater to this new obsession and create some fun pom pom poppers for the boys to play with.

 Daniel models the apparatus. It is basically a plastic cup with the bottom cut off and a balloon taped to the rolled edge. 

 Just shooting the pom poms around the room was not fun enough, so we created targets!

 Figuring out how best to shoot the pom poms.

 Matthew takes the easy way out.

 Aaron contemplates using bigger ammunition.

Daniel finds that the smaller the pom pom, the farther it goes.

 Good thing we're only shooting pom poms. This would be dangerous.

Aaron takes a snuggle break.

 Getting serious.

 

 While his younger brothers took a nap, Daniel decided to kick it up a notch. Here's his modified shooter, complete with handle, scope, laser, and sight. This kid does not mess around.

Again, I'm glad we're only using pom poms... Daniel has now asked if we can take the targets outside so he can shoot rocks at them using his home-made sling shot. Oh dear.

Bird Feeders

I have a pretty long list of activities to keep us busy this summer...problem is, we've been SOOO busy that we haven't made much of a dent in my list. I'll take that as a good thing. Here's one of the projects we did get to: bird feeders!

 It's so hard to get a good photo of all three of these boys, but here they are making the feeders. We kept some stale bread (the ends of the loaf, go figure), poked a hole in them and threaded a piece of twine through. Then spread some almond butter on and sprinkled birdseed over that, and voila! A completely edible bird feeder!

 Daniel was very meticulous with his seed sprinkling. 

We hung the bird feeders on the tree outside our kitchen window so we could all watch easily from the table.

 Our first visitor.

 I thought we had put the feeders far enough toward the ends of branches so that squirrels couldn't get them, but...

 Squirrels are tenacious little guys! This one kept running and jumping off the fence onto the bird feeder and would hang by his back feet trying to tear the bread off the string.

Within a few days, this was all that remained. It was a fun project, and super cheap and easy, so we'll definitely do it again. Even if we are just feeding the squirrels...