Hmn, it's been a while...

Okay, wow, it's been more than a week since I last blogged. The time has flown by!!

Last Saturday we headed out to Walnut Grove first thing. The place I work at has this internal Craig's List type deal. And I managed to score an outside play structure. All we had to do was dismantle and remove it from the owner's property. While we drove, Davey entertained himself by drawing.

This is it. Yes, I agree, it looks a bit worse for wear right now. But a good pressure washing, some stain and a bit of elbow grease (oh, and a new roof! We want to put some plywood on and then shingle it) will make this better than new!

I love how it has four differnt levels to play on. There's a handle on every level for the kids to help pull themselves up and one of the levels has a steering wheel as well. It's going to be a pretty cool addition to our backyard. The kids keep asking to play on it, and we have to keep telling them we have to wait till our house is finished before we can put it back together. Luckily, Andrew's pretty smart and took LOTS of pictures as we dismantled it so that we'd remember how it goes.

It was a GROSS job. It was raining and the structure was very slimey. The previous owners don't have children so it's never been cleaned since they bought the house. We only had one pair of work gloves and since Andrew did most of the wrecking work (I pulled a lot of nails and helped with some of the trickier demolition jobs) I was covered in yucky slime from face to toes. And of course we had to make several stops along the way home. Everyone had to comment, "Oh you have something on your shirt!" THEN we got a phone call that there were people looking at our house so we couldn't go home for showers/change. Luckily this play structure is worth the minor discomforts ;P

On Sunday we had another showing, so we decided to go look at all the show homes in our neighborhood. It's a good way to get ideas for building your own home. Mostly though, I just got ideas of what NOT to do in our new house. But that's okay too. We did spot some mouldings we loved and we're hoping to use them in our house.

The kids were obsessed with all the soaker tubs

and window seats.

This is Tuesday. Monday Andrew was home with a cold and we could tell we were getting it too. Tuesday Elisabeth was miserable and cried just about the whole day. So I decided to stay home today and let her have a low-key day. With all the construction and repairs being done in and around mom's house it's not exactly a peaceful place to be these days.

But, it was a gorgeous day so we spent part of it colouring on mum's balcony.






Oh, and while Davey and Jade were in preschool, me and Kat went to Superstore to get some stuff for my mum. While Kathi shopped, I looked through the kids' section and found these AWESOME rubber boots. Perfect for keeping Tinker's toesies warm while we trek through multiple pumpkin patches and drizzly Christmas displays this fall/winter. What a great invention: Water and Mud proof AND warm! Yay :)

Today was low-key day. So we painted Christmas decorations. Tinky painted a wooden mitt.

And Davey did a nutcracker.

Check out the concentration there!

We all loved painting so much we kept going on old scratch paper.




And I decided to do hand prints of the kids. Ellie didn't quite get that painting your hand isn't something you should be doing just cause.


Once we were all cleaned up, the kids had a snack while I snapped pictures.

I think maybe they've twigged that my favorite pictures are of them hugging...

(kissing her hand, not eating her cheese)

You think?

And this is them watching a movie. Heh heh.