Playhouse!

Reported by Beth: This was a big Memorial Day weekend for us. We had a crew of family in town to construct a playhouse like the one that we had when we were kids. If you can make out the date, these photos are from 1976. I was apparently napping at the time while my sister Jen and my cousins Jamie and Mikey were enjoying a refreshing glass of Kool-Aid on the front porch of the playhouse. My grandfather built this playhouse for my mom and her three siblings and then it was moved over to the house that we grew up in in Cleveland. I think I played in it just about every day of every summer when I was a kid.

We started discussing the idea of a playhouse about 6 weeks ago and my dad agreed to take on the project and quickly started planning; and my Uncle Glenn (my mom's brother) immediately offered up his services. In between many scintillating conversations about decking and the ideal slope of a roof, my dad spent a lot of time cruising hardware stores (including a three-hour marathon at three different stores to procure all of the screws, nails and other hardware needed).

On Wednesday afternoon the lumber arrived. And on Thursday Grandma and Poppy arrived. That afternoon Jamie and Poppy made the first of five trips to Lowes/Home Depot-- this first one to buy the composite decking.

Caroline had a fever Thursday night so she stayed home from school on Friday and got to "help" a little. By the afternoon her fever was gone and she seemed fine. Dad and Jamie got right to work figuring out the exact floor dimensions, while Mom and I got things in order inside. By about mid-morning, I was finally ready to put on my new work gloves and join in. Later on Friday Glenn and Ellen arrived from Michigan and after lunch we quickly got to work on the decking, which turned out to be the worst part of the job. We started off a little overzealous with the screws (two per board on all of the joists). Because of Glenn's commitment to quality ("This is for our princesses and I would know if we didn't finish") we continued on the path we'd started and installed all 350+ screws.

By the time we picked Katie up from school we had a "stage" completed. I think Katie thought the whole thing would be finished, but she was happy to see progress and stand on the platform. We enjoyed our summery dinner inside and Glenn had fun playing with the girls' toys. That night as she was going to bed, Katie asked "Why is Uncle Glenn so silly?" (I told her he's been that way as long as I can remember!)
Saturday was a much nicer day weather-wise and while the men got to work on the walls, Ellen, Katie and I went off in search of a new compound miter saw for Glenn and some donuts for all (a construction site necessity). The walls went up quickly and soon we were working on the roof. Once construction was done for the day, both girls enjoyed stomping around the playhouse.

Sunday was another beautiful day and the girls were busy with bubbles while they waited for Jen, Buddy and Hannah to arrive. Once they were on site we put Billy to work, too. We attempted to get all of the girls to nap at the same time, which was not a stunning success. Once they awoke, they enjoyed the kiddie pool for a bit, while the construction continued. By the time Glenn and Ellen were ready to head home, the roof was completed.

At about this time we noticed that Caroline's eyes looked goopy, so in a repeat move from Mother's Day weekend, one of the little ones was off to urgent care to get pink eye checked out. It turned out that Caroline had pink eye--and a double ear infection (sound familiar from your December visit, Jamma?) She had been her usual happy self, and gave us no indication that she wasn't feeling well--other then not wanting to nap, which is not an unusual occurrence. With all of this it was a hectic end to Sunday as we tried to cookout and get Jen & Billy on the road so they could get a home at a reasonable time.

Monday was a much quieter day. It began with a trip to Home Depot for a few more roof-related supplies, a ladder and paint. Mom kept Katie and Caroline busy for most of the day while Dad, Jamie and I tackled shingling the roof. So that's where we left off on Monday. Dad continues on with the project. He got rained out on Tuesday, but made some progress on the walls and windows. We'll post another update soon-- hopefully with pictures of a completed playhouse!

Before we sign off we want to extend a big thank you to Poppy and Grandma and Glenn and Ellen for coming down here to build the playhouse for us. I am sure the girls will have many fond memories of their playhouse, and we all will be able to reminisce about the weekend that we built it. And Jamie may be right, while it is for Katie & Caroline, it may be a little bit for me, too!

The Latest

Hello, everyone. We would like to start by wishing Jamma a very happy birthday! Wish we could have been with you to celebrate your day. And happy day to Uncle Buddy on Tuesday!

We had a good week, but no major events. I am starting with a few funny pictures that Jamie took of the girls as they amused themselves after school while I was making dinner. You might notice that Caroline's pigtails are getting just a wee bit thicker, and they continue to crack us up! Katie is busy showing off some of her moves. She certainly likes to dance and sing. And I love her made up songs, which often include the usual stream-of-conciousness lyrics.

And speaking of her entertaining words, one day on the way to school Katie was reading a "book that she wrote" (some pages taped together) to Caroline. Here's what she read: "Jesus died. And God died, too. Then on Easter they came back to life, which was really fun." From there the story covered all kinds of things from baseball to bunnies, but the highlight for me was just how "fun" Easter is!

As I mentioned, Katie has been interested in baseball so we got her a t-ball set, which debuted Friday night. She enjoyed hitting the ball, but then when I took her out on our culdesac where there are bases painted and let her run the bases in the street, she really had a terrific time. She got five "homeruns" in a row and was exhausted after doing all of that running.

Saturday brought us another soccer game and Katie's team did well. It seemed to be the battle of the big kid on our team (Jared, who some people alledge is 7, but he's really just a big 5) and a bigger/older girl on the other team. I was able to get a picture of Katie running through the tunnel that the parents make after every game, which is certainly a highlight for the kids after they shake hands . Most of them like it so much they loop around a second time.

That night we went out to dinner and Caroline was quite enamored with her sippy cup, and Jamie appropriately dubbed her "the gerbil". Unfortunately she drank so much water out of her cup, she didn't want to eat much, which always makes for a true restaurant adventure, but we had fun nonetheless.
Sunday morning we got to work planting our flowers around the house. Katie enjoyed digging holes and getting dirty and Caroline liked putting on the gloves and raking, during which she would say "rake, rake, rake."

Thankfully we got most of the flowers done, and we hope to tackle the new vegetable garden in the next week or so.