Renaissance Fair

Sunshine and a friend walking the labyrinth

Saturday we went to the local Renaissance Fair.

Sunshine and I went to a much larger one in Colorado with one of my sisters about 7 years ago, and Sunshine and I went to this particular faire a few years ago with some friends (I thought I posted about it, but I can't find the post, so I guess I didn't).

The fair in Colorado was quite impressive: elephant rides, full-on jousting in a full-size arena, lots of vendors, and so on. The fair here is much smaller, and while they have jousting, it's in a much smaller arena and not nearly as impressive. It was still lots of fun, though.

 The queen's procession

River riding in style

This fair is pretty good about having educational demonstrations. One that we all thought was quite interesting was the weaving loom. The lady in the background very patiently explained to each new observer how to weave using the loom. She even let them give it a try. Sunshine thought it was very cool.

We also made sure to stop by the rag doll making booth. Last time we came to the fair she made one, and she was quite excited that they were still doing it this time around.

River was a bit bored while waiting for Sunshine to finish her rag doll. I love the foot up on his knee.

Sunshine and Mr M also tried on some of the armor. Good thing they don't need to fight in it, since neither of them got pieces that were a good fit. And even if they did fit, I can't imagine them being very comfortable.

The last stop was an "attack" on a town by an invading force. Sunshine is in the white shirt by the red and white diagonal sign- she's getting ready to throw styrofoam stones at the invaders. The kids were successful in repelling the attackers and saving their town :)

Enjoying Our Outdoor Living Spaces

After finishing the patio and building the deck furniture, I mentioned that I thought we'd be spending more time outside, enjoying our outdoor living spaces. That's already proved to be the case.

My dad was here for a short visit last week, and while he was here we sat out on the patio and enjoyed the beautiful weather and the sound of the birds.

Our property is beautiful this time of year.

We've eaten several popsicles at the table. Though I have to say, River has not quite figured out the whole popsicle thing and makes a big mess. Which is, of course, why we're eating popsicles outside and not inside the house.

We bought a little rigid plastic kiddie pool and have used it several times down on the patio. Our weather hasn't been quite as hot lately, so the cold well water hasn't been super enjoyable for River, but Sunshine has been enjoying it. Sunshine and Mr M wanted a bigger pool, but I wanted something easy to fill and drain and not requiring any extra steps, like inflating walls. Because lets face it, if there's too many steps involved, I'm way less likely to say yes when Sunshine asks if they can play in the water.

All our trees mean we can't leave a pool filled with water- there's way too much crud and tree poop that would end up in it and have to be cleaned out before every use. Filling it with clean water every time is a lot easier, and filling a small pool minimizes water wasted.

Sunshine determined to enjoy the little pool, River unsure about joining her in the cold water, me soaking my feet.

Sunshine trying to convince River to try the water, but you can tell by his arms that he's not excited about the idea.

Mr M dumped a couple pots of hot water in the pool, so River ventured in, but still wasn't sure about the whole thing. He'll be much more willing when the weather heats up.

While the pool isn't big enough to do more than get wet in, it's better than nothing and I'm sure we'll get a lot of use out of it this summer, especially once the baby's born and we stop making trips to pools and lakes. There's no way I'm taking River to a pool or lake with a newborn to take care of as well- River loves water way too much for that to be a good idea. It's also nice to have a place to set the pool that's up out of the grass and mud, and the patio chairs are conveniently close for adult relaxation and supervision.

Treehouse Progress, Part 2

in the last treehouse post we got the treehouse to this point

Monday we made {yet another} trip to Lowes and bought more materials. That afternoon I installed most of the decking after adding some more bolts to the posts and more joist nails to the joists (I'd run out of both on Saturday). I also propped the slide and stair stringers up, trying to decide on where to put them. The angled 2x4's between the upper and lower decks is the beginning of the climbing wall that I'll be building.

River photobombed the treehouse :) 

the stair stringers are upside down in this picture

After another trip to Lowes Wednesday, I finished the decking and installed two of the 4x4 posts for the railings. If you look closely, you can see the ratchet straps holding the back right post straight. Once I got the 2x4 railing pieces attached, I was able to remove the straps. They were very helpful in keeping everything square as I built.

Thursday I finished installing the 4x4 posts, figured out where the stairs were going to go, and attached the 2x4 railing pieces.

the stair stringers are now oriented properly

Friday I was able to get a lot done. With Mr M home, he was on kiddo duty while I worked. I have a vision of where the treehouse is going, Mr M needs to not be kneeling and putting pressure on his toe,  and he can make doctor appointments and look for a job while watching the kiddos, so I had a good block of time to work on the treehouse.

I secured the stairs (they were just toenailed in before) to the frame and dug in the concrete blocks that support the bottoms of the stair stringers. Then I cut and added the stair treads. It's so nice to be able to walk up the stairs instead of climbing up a precariously balanced step stool. I also started adding the balusters to the 2x4 railing pieces. Those are relatively easy to do, but time consuming since I have to clamp each one in place top and bottom to make sure the balusters don't move while I'm screwing them to the 2x4s.

stairs done, some of the balusters added in

There's two openings on the side of the treehouse with the slide. One is for the slide, the other is for the lower climbing ramp that I haven't built yet. I added 2x4s across the top of the railing posts that frame those openings for increased stability.

I intended to finish the balusters Saturday afternoon, but I was too tired by the time we got home from the Renaissance Fair (more on that in a day or two), so this is as far as I got last week. It's starting to look like a real treehouse :)

Weekly Workout

I didn't hit the treadmill this week, but I did get some good building time in- more on that tomorrow.

Since I don't have any treadmill time or races to talk about this week, I thought I'd talk about my 40 by 40 plan. I'm only a month out from the official start date, so it'll be here before I know it.

The original plan was to incorporate as many different types and distances of races as possible in the two years before I turn 40.

Until a week ago, I would have said that even one race a month was going to be difficult, given Mr M's work schedule and having to find childcare for a newborn.

That changed this past week.

Mr M broke his left big toe a month or so ago at the beginning of his pre-deployment training and his follow-up appointment last Monday showed that he's been repeatedly re-breaking it since then. There's all sorts of bone fragments in the joint and he's going to need surgery to clean everything up enough for it to heal properly. So he was sent home for the surgery (which will have at least a month or two of recovery time) and told he wasn't going on the deployment since he wouldn't be able to go with them. They didn't want him to join them later when he was healed, which is weird when you consider the lengths they went to make sure he was going before all this, but we're not complaining.

It's turned out to be one of those blessing-in-disguise things. We were stressing about him being gone when the baby's born, and all the questions surrounding childcare and who would go to the hospital with me. It would also be a lot of stress on me to handle all the newborn stuff (late night feedings, out-of-whack sleep schedules, etc) by myself while also caring for Sunshine and River. And honestly, we didn't really want him gone for a year, again. This would have been the fourth time, so we're kind of done with it.

There is a down side to it though- we have to ramp up our job search again. We were still looking, but not with the same sense of urgency since we thought we had time. We've got a small amount of time while Mr M has surgery, but we do need to find something soon.

Mr M got home Thursday night (everything moved very quickly once they decided he needed surgery and wasn't going with them) and we've been re-evaluating and changing plans since then.

It'll still be a challenge to train for and run two races a month with a newborn, but at least Mr M will be around to watch the kiddos. And money will remain tight for a while to come as we work on paying off the debt that has accumulated since Mr M got laid off last fall, so there won't be lots of available cash for entry fees.

While I had wanted to do a variety of races, I think I'll focus on 5k's for the first year. Hopefully the second year I will be able to incorporate more variety since the baby will no longer be so young and hopefully our financial situation will have improved.

I'm getting better at it, but I'll continue to focus on going with the flow and accepting my limitations (time, physical, etc). I'll make changes as needed, whether to my training or racing schedule, and keep moving forward.

Sunday Funny

We have this seemingly innocuous counting book about caterpillars. Each page has one less caterpillar, until you get to the end, where they all turn into butterflies:

The only problem is that the butterfly page freaks out River. The first time he got to that page, he squawked, shut the book quickly, and shoved it away from himself. Ever since, he squawks when he sees it and pushes it away- he has no desire to read it again. In fact, the other day Mr M went into the living room and River was squawking and pointing to where the book lay on the floor- he was offended by its very presence and wanted it moved.

We've been meaning to get a video of his reaction, and we finally did it today, but his reaction isn't as indignant as it was the first time. Still funny, but a bit muted.  hopefully the video works- if not, let me know and I can email it to you- it's worth watching :)

Treehouse Progress, Part 1

the last picture I shared of our treehouse, minus the decking Mr M installed

I mentioned last week that Mr M had several days off work, so we decided to buckle down and get some projects outside done. One of those projects was finally moving forward on the treehouse we started three years ago. Since we built the framework, the only progress that's been made was that Mr M got the decking installed on the platform. And there it's sat since then.

We didn't finish the treehouse (and didn't expect to), but we did make good progress.

Awhile ago I bought a slide on craigslist, but it wasn't tall enough to reach the original deck of the treehouse. It is pretty high, but when we started the treehouse, I wasn't even pregnant with River, so we weren't planning for future little ones. Between needing a lower spot for the slide and not wanting the little boys up on the high deck, we decided to build a lower deck that would be more user friendly for small children (i.e., River and the little guy once he's walking). The main portion of the project for Mr M and I was digging and installing four posts to support the lower deck frame. We had planned on building the frame and installing the joists in the frame together, but we ran out of time before Mr M had to go back to work.

While I can do a lot on my own (see my patio and pergola), I do know my limits and wasn't willing to put the posts in by myself. Aside from the post hole digging, it's a lot of leveling and squaring off and wasn't something I wanted to tackle alone. And cement had to be mixed and put in the holes. Ick.

we got it to this point before Mr M had to get back to work

The framing we used to keep the posts square allowed me to put the actual framework up by myself, and then it was just a matter of balancing the joists properly while installing them. I used a lot of the same techniques I used on the patio, so it wasn't too difficult.

I screwed a board underneath the joists to support that end while I nailed the joist hanger in on the other end- it made the process a lot easier.

All the joists installed and the support board removed.

The cooler weather has not held out nearly as long as I would have liked. It got hot and humid all of a sudden and the days we were working outside on our projects were not fun.

All the more reason to hurry up and finish this project before the weather gets even worse. Now if only we hadn't doubled the size of it in the process......

New Patio Furniture

Once I decided to build the patio, I knew I also wanted to move our outdoor furniture around. We weren't using it much while it was on the deck and I knew it would be much more useful on the patio.

looking sad here

But if we moved our existing patio furniture from the deck to the patio, what would we put on the deck? Sure, there's a few toys for River, and the grill for Mr M, but it's a big deck and needs something there. We could leave it fairly empty, but most of my current projects are focused on getting the house looking nice and ready to sell. In other wards, the deck needed to be staged properly. Since it's off the back of the house and the same location as our grill, I decided an outdoor dining set would be a good addition.

but much better here

Sunshine frequently asks to do schoolwork outside on the deck, but without a table out there it's just not a practical option. The coffee table is too short to be a useful table surface, but a dining set would do double duty for outdoor meals as well as outdoor school time.

I wanted something super sturdy, so instead of buying a set, I built one. I used plans I found here and here, and built the table and benches on the deck so they wouldn't have to be moved. They are quite heavy and the epitome of sturdy! I debated between using regular pine and treated pine since the table and benches will be living outside, unprotected from the weather. I wasn't convinced that multiple coats of varnish would be enough to protect the wood from the rain and humidity, but decided I didn't want us in close contact with the treated wood (even if the chemicals are supposed to be safer than they were in the past), so I went with untreated pine.

I got it to this point before Sunshine's birthday party

While Mr M was power washing the patio and decks and felling the tree, I concentrated on getting the table and benches built in time for Sunshine's birthday party. I did stop to help Mr M finish bringing down the tree, but I was able to finish them Friday afternoon. I didn't have time to sand, stain or seal until last week though.

I followed the instructions on the plans, except for a couple things. I didn't put the "X's" under the table and benches, and just left them as "V's". That part was getting too fiddly and taking too long, and it was just decorative, so I just left it. I also drilled a hole through the table top and a little way into the bottom stretcher for the umbrella that I purchased a year or so ago on clearance at the end of summer.

Last week I stained the table and benches, then gave them a coat of Thompson's water seal. The waterproofing was put to the test just 24 hours later (the minimum time needed for it to dry) when we got some pouring rain.

Part of me would like to put an indoor/outdoor rug under the table and benches, but I just can't justify spending the money. Our weather is so damp and we have so many bugs and there's always tree poop falling on everything and I seriously doubt a rug would survive one summer. Or if it did, you wouldn't want to step on it with bare feet :) I might get a rug when we list the house and are actually staging everything, but for now we'll live without a "properly" styled deck. We also need to re-stain the deck, but I'm not sure when that'll happen. Probably not till fall.

While we were moving furniture around, we also brought the blue bench that used to be by the basement door up to the deck and set it near the newly-cleaned-and-re-filled sand and water table. Now the deck is a much more useful space.

Weekly Workout

slightly fuzzy group selfie at Sunshine's birthday dinner not too long ago

Which is a bit of a mis-nomer :)

I'm still not feeling as good as I'd like. Initially I thought it was lingering sinus problems from being sick, but as it's gone on and on and I've talked to other people, I think it's allergies. The pollen has been terrible this year and everyone seems to be suffering from it. Coming on the heels of my cold masked its origins, but after analyzing the ebb and flow of symptoms and realizing they worsen when I've spent time outside, I'm pretty sure it's allergies. The near-constant sinus pressure and sinus headaches have definitely gotten in the way of getting stuff done, especially outside, but I have managed to work on a couple projects.

On the other hand, at least I'm staying well-hydrated. When I was pregnant with River we had a false alarm that ended up being a result of mild dehydration. I'm drinking tons of water to keep my sinuses clear, so I shouldn't be having any false alarms this time around.

I've been thinking about my lack of time on the treadmill, and I'm ok with it. In my mind I've been associating running with staying active and having a better pregnancy than I had with Sunshine. But I can have an active, healthy pregnancy even if I'm not hitting the treadmill 5 times a week.

I've been focusing on my building projects (basement patio, outdoor dining set- details tomorrow, and tree house- details Wednesday), and all the lifting, bending, cutting, drilling, etc is keeping me active and healthy. Initially I thought my lack of treadmill time was contributing to faster weight gain, but that hasn't continued to be the case. Yes, I'm careful about what I eat, but exercise is still important, and I'm getting enough to maintain my weight. These days I'm doing more upper body workouts than cardio on the treadmill.

My body feels better (except when I do too much bending and twisting), so backing off on my workouts has been a good decision. And I'm still able to do my monthly races, so I haven't completely given up running.  I do still want to spend some time on the treadmill, but until I finish the treehouse, it's on the back burner. Spending time on the treadmill takes away from time and energy for building, and I need to finish the building before it gets any hotter and more humid. The temps have already started climbing and the humidity is getting worse, so I don't have a lot of time before it gets unbearable and I retreat into our air conditioned house for the rest of the summer.

In addition to staying active while pregnant, I also think my overall activity level before getting pregnant has been a huge factor in the improved pregnancy experiences with River and this little guy. I was pretty sedentary for a number of years leading up to Sunshine's birth- triggering my celiac on my mission and dealing with the after-effects while trying to go to school and work and have a life didn't leave much energy for exercise. I started running again when Sunshine was about a year old, and ran my first half when she was 16 months old. In the eight years since then, I've run a full marathon, 4 more half marathons, a lot of 5k's, and several races of other distances. I've also managed to run on a fairly regular basis while training for those races. So when I got pregnant with River a week before running my 4th half, I was in pretty good condition. And when I got pregnant with this little guy a few weeks after running my 5th half I was still in pretty good shape, despite my struggles to get back on a training schedule after having River.  

So I'll be hitting the treadmill one of these days, but I'm not stressing about it in the meantime.

Sunday Funny

I don't do too many of Sunshine anymore since she is getting older and I want to respect her privacy. This happened the other night, though, and I had to write it down before I forgot it. I love her made up word.

Me: Quit with the attitude!
Sunshine: I'm not attituding, I'm being logical.

Uh huh. She's nine now, but sometimes it feels like she's already hit the tween/teen years.

no attitude here, just having fun with River at the drive-in theater playground while we waited for the movie to start

Easter Outfits

This post took me a long time to get up, just because it took me quite a while to actually get pictures of the kiddos in their outfits. Between general conference and being sick it took us several weeks to actually get to church with them in their Easter outfits.

We lucked out and found a cute pink lace dress for Sunshine (she paired it with one of my scarves for the picture) and a sweater vest for River at Target. I love one-stop shopping.

I also made a tie for River using a cheap tie I found at TJMaxx, but in the picture above he's wearing a tie I found on clearance on another visit to Target.

I used this pattern to make the tie, but used a pre-made tie rather than making it completely from scratch. If I use the pattern again, I would lengthen the pieces since I think they're a bit short. As long as he's wearing it under a vest or sweater, it's fine, but it's too short to wear on its own.

In the pictures below River's a bit tired and uncooperative- it was after church on another Sunday, and he's usually asleep by the time we get home from church. I paired the tie I made with the vest I made awhile ago.

Here you can see how short the tie is, despite the pattern saying it should fit up to 3 years. It also ended up a lot wider than I thought it would. Making this tie was a good learning experience though, and since we have years and years of tie-wearing ahead of us it's good to find what does and doesn't work. In the end, I'm glad I put the store-bought tie with the sweater vest for their Easter outfit pics.

love his expression here- "are we done yet?"

Sunshine's LEGO Birthday Party

Last year we decided to start doing friend birthday parties every other year, instead of yearly. Since we were in Massachusetts for Sunshine's birthday last year, it was easy to skip the party, but that meant that this year was a party year. Two years ago for Sunshine's last party we held it at the play studio we used to attend, and it was totally worth the money to not have to hassle with all the details. I was pregnant with River then and didn't feel up to doing it all.

Unfortunately, the play studio closed last year, so that wasn't an option this time around, and our budget really couldn't handle the costs involved with holding a party somewhere else. So even though  I'm pregnant again, I decided to plan and carry out the party myself.

A few months ago I brainstormed ideas and came up with LEGO as a theme. It's easy to decorate around and plan activities for, and there's lots of inspiration photos out there so I wouldn't have to come up with original ideas myself. I figured I could do it without too much work on my part, so I checked with Sunshine and then moved forward.

I didn't do a ton of advance planning, but there were some things I ordered online in preparation. I ordered a silicone mold set to make LEGO candies, some YumEarth fruit snacks, a few bags of random LEGO pieces, and some LEGO mini figures.

The party ended up being the same week that Mr M had time off from work, so I was trying to finish up the party planning at the same time we were working on our other projects. I should have changed the date of the party or not procrastinated quite so much- it would have made life a little less hectic.

Most of what I did was pretty simple, but some of it did take a bit of time. I didn't commit to a LEGO Friends theme, though I did include some Friends mini figures; but rather just focused on the bright primary colors of the original LEGOs.

LEGO head water bottles--- I just printed smiles on yellow card stock, cut the card stock with my paper cutter, and taped the strips to the water bottles. Super easy and pretty quick.

LEGO block treat bags--- I cut circles from red card stock and used double-sided photo splits to stick them to the bags (I just eyeballed the circle placement). Easy, but the cutting was a little time consuming. I also cut strips of paper to write the kids' names on since we would be using the bags throughout the party.

LEGO block decorations--- I cut bigger circles from card stock and used the photo splits to stick them to sheets of card stock, again I just eyeballed the circle placement. I taped the pieces of card stock to some string and strung it across the window. Easy, but time consuming.

crappy picture, but you can see the shadows of the circles

I also used some balloons and streamers for decorations.

I bought a gluten free cake from Whole Foods. It wasn't super cheap, but it was fancy and Sunshine loved all the sprinkles on it, and I didn't have to make it, so it was worth the money.

Sunshine and I melted chocolate chips and put them in the molds I bought. We did some white chocolate and some semi-sweet chocolate, and filled both molds. One was LEGO mini figures, one was LEGO blocks. The original idea was to put the chocolates on cupcakes, but since we ended up with the fancy cake I just handed out the chocolates that I'd wrapped in plastic wrap. This was an easy project, but did take advance planning for purchasing the molds and allowing the chocolate to set up. I had also planned on doing some homemade gummies in the molds, but ran out of time, so that didn't happen.

I forgot to take good pictures of the chocolates, so we just have these two- chocolates already wrapped up, and a mini figure with part of his head nibbled off.

The piñata also almost didn't happen. I'd originally planned on using a shoebox to make a LEGO block, but didn't have time, so I had just about decided to just skip the whole piñata thing. Then I remembered seeing paper bag piñatas on a blog, and decided to give that a try. I had a smaller paper bag with handles (not a full-size grocery bag) that I filled with the treats, taped shut, and glued crepe paper to. The finishing touch was to cut out some card stock circles and glue them to the crepe paper. I thought the handles would tear out pretty quick, but that wasn't the case at all. All the girls got plenty of turns to whack on the piñata, and even then it didn't break until I tore a couple holes in the bag. It was a lot sturdier than I thought it would be. I put bouncy balls, the LEGO mini figures I'd ordered on eBay (individually wrapped in plastic to keep the pieces together), YumEarth lollipops, and YumEarth fruit snacks in the piñata. I didn't want junk or tons of sugar, so I thought this was a good compromise.

I think I spent 15 minutes putting together the piñata the morning of the party

Sunshine helped River take the first couple whacks, but he wasn't really interested in the whole thing

love the look of concentration. we ended up removing the pool noodle from the pvc pipe for increased hitting force.

I put the random LEGO pieces I bought on eBay in a tray and then had the kids make "creations". The randomness made it a bit difficult, but I thought they did a good job, and it was an activity that kept them occupied for awhile. When they were done with them, we put them in the LEGO block bags, which were also used for their piñata loot.

I had planned a game using straws to move LEGO blocks and a craft making bracelets out of LEGO blocks, but we didn't have time to do them because everyone was more interested in playing with the sand and water table that I'd set up for the little boys. I wasn't about to complain though, because the kids were having fun and that was the important part. Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow. And I'd rather have too many activities available and not have time for them, than to run out of activities and have the kids be bored. And honestly, it was way less stressful for me to just sit and watch them play in the sand than to try to referee a game and a craft :)

While we were eating cake several of the kids said it was the best party they'd been to, so they had fun :)