Here are Carolina and my mom in front of our tree on Christmas Eve. It's blurry but sweet.

Grant's parents and brother/sister-in-law, Blake and Jenny, went together with us to buy a swing set for the back yard. We had a little slide/climbing toy and a swing for ages 0-4, but Finn and Carolina always wanted to swing at the same time, and Maggie didn't have a swing at all. The new swing set is solid wood with EXCELLENT construction (more on that in a minute) and is somewhat basic. We'd love one of the ones that's practically a treehouse, with a fort, twisty slide, rock climbing wall, etc, but those are thousands of dollars, and therefore out of our budget. Anyway, this one has three swings on it, with room for one more (I want to get one of the double swings where two kids ride back-to-back) and we're hoping to add a slide soon. There's a little platform with two ladders leading up to it, which is where the slide will go.
We ordered a kit which contains all of the hardware and the swing seats, and then Grant bought the lumber specified at Home Depot. He put it together in one day with the help of our neighbor, Chuck, whose wife sent him over to help. He's extremely handy and very sweet, and even came back over on Christmas Eve while we were gone to add a few reinforcing bolts.
On Christmas morning we opened all the gifts, ate our special breakfast, opened stockings, and then Grant suggested we all go outside to stretch our legs. You can see their reaction here.
On the video you may have noticed Maggie asking when Grant built it; she was so surprised! He actually built it the Friday before Christmas. I left the house with the kids around 8am and returned in time for lunch at 12. They thought he was at work all day. We closed the blinds and I turned music on, and also ran the dishwasher to help block out the drilling/sawing sounds. I think that, combined with them thinking he was at work, helped them to not notice the backyard activity at all! It worked way better than I thought it would.
Here, also, is a photo of my adorable nephew, Charlie, wearing the sunglasses onesie I made him for Christmas.

He lives in Miami so this shirt is always seasonally appropriate :) Isn't he so handsome?
I have several other fun Christmas blog posts in mind so check back in a few days.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.
1 comment:
Ok, so I FINALLY am on my computer instead of my IPad and got to see the video!!! So fun! Love the surprise and it looks AWEsome! Yea Grant! You did an awesome job putting it together. Now I need to drop by and see it "live". I'm sure they will have hours and hours of fun on it. Way to go!
Post a Comment