DIY Play Kitchen

Along time ago, like at least a year ago, I was looking at random websites and came across one where the family had made their own play kitchen for their children. Being the planning type of mom that I am, I bookmarked those sites and filed them away for when Henry would be old enough to have a play kitchen. Fast forward to this summer, when Gabe and I teamed up with my family to make that play kitchen a reality. We turned the garage into a workshop for a weekend, and tackled Henry's birthday present from all of us. And I'm pretty proud to show the step-by-step of the finished product here!

It began with this entertainment center find from Salvation Army for $ 15.

We had some left over plywood from another project and cut it down to make a backsplash (the saw was a gift for Gabe for Father's Day, knowing we would be tackling this project. )

We built up the shelves from additional wood.

And then added a working oven. By working, I mean the door opens and closes, with a magnet lock. It does not heat up food. :)

Paint can lids became burners with knobs that turn, and a real bathroom faucet and a bowl for the sink.

We took a shelf from the entertainment center, added legs, and made a countertop.

The finished product! The refrigerator is a little refrigerator that we had gotten as a giveaway from some other purchase. It is for like six coke cans. And actually, we can plug it in and it is a real working fridge! :)

About a year ago, when I began thinking about this play kitchen, I found some play food at Target and put that away for a year. Here, Henry finally gets to enjoy it.

Found some cute dishes then too!

And the true test? Birthday boy gets to try out his present!

We're pretty proud of ourselves for our first craftsmanship project! It hasn't broken yet, so we're in pretty good shape so far.....and Henry likes it!

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Blueberries for Henry

In July, we went blueberry picking with Henry and my parents. The blueberry farm was right around the corner, organic, and delicious. Henry quickly figured out that you could pick the blueberries right off the bush. We encouraged him to put some of his blueberries in the bucket, but he only wanted to put them in his mouth, of course! He ate his weight in blueberries that day, and didn't eat any lunch, that's for sure. We enjoyed blueberry muffins, pancakes and ice cream, and still have blueberries frozen. We're keeping them until winter when we can't buy fresh.

"kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk!"

15 pounds of blueberries, later!

Blue "trucky-truck" (tractor), blueberries, Papa and Mimi and Henry

Delicious fun!

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Birthday boy!

Yes, this post is long overdue. Yes, I am that person who starts every post now with something like "it's been awhile" or "we've been really busy so I haven't had time to post" or something of the like. And while I did promise to be better last month, I haven't come through on that. So, better late than never, I guess.

Henry's birthday brought in family to help celebrate and we had a blast! We did a trucks theme party, since Henry is really into trucks and points them out whenever we are driving. He might have gotten a truck or two for his birthday.

Also, a new lawn mower, which he tried out the morning of the party with his daddy!
More trains, hurray! Please ignore the sweaty picture of Gabe. He just mowed the lawn, and the above picture proves it. Sorry, Gabe - but look how happy Henry is!
With a morning of preparations, Henry decided to help out too, by washing Aunt Allison's car.
And then it was time to get dressed for the party! Hardhats and tool belts for all the construction workers!
(this shirt was an internet find after scouring the city for a short sleeve truck shirt that I liked. It even said Henry on it!)

And our favorite part of the party - besides celebrating our love for Henry and the day of his birth of course - was the cake! Aunt Allison and I worked off an idea in our heads, and made a construction scene come to life. We were pretty proud of it. Dark chocolate cake for the dirt, chocolate frosting for the road, oreos for the unpaved road, green coconut for the grass, graham crackers for the sand, trucks from Walmart which became toys for the kids who came, and two cones for candles. Henry loved his cake and couldn't wait to "dig" in.

Happy Henry to you!

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I'll have a hot dog, please

I wish I had a video of Henry lately at a restaurant. He's really funny. He'll look at the waitress or person behind the counter and say "um" and add in his order:

At the ice cream stand: "um...mom....(random words we can't decipher)...mom.....(more random words)

At Red Lobster: "um a daj-daj (water). Sip, my sip"

At another restaurant: "um, a ice tea" He's never had iced tea, but we swear that's what he ordered.

At home: "Henry, what would you like for lunch?" "um, a hot dog"

On campus:
lady behind the counter to me: "what kind of wrap?"
me: "plain"
Henry: "I want plain too"

No kidding. Cracks us up every time. Tell the person what you want, and they bring it to you. We don't even eat at restaurants all that much, but

At the icecream stand: “Um, mom, (random words we can’t decipher), mom, (more random words).

At Red Lobster: “Um, a daj-daj (water). Sip, my sip.”

At another restaurant: “Um, a ice tea” (he’s never had iced tea, but we swear that’s what he ordered)

At home: “Henry, what would you like for lunch?” “Um, a hot dog”

On campus:

Lady behind the counter to me: “What kind of wrap would you like?”

Me: “a plain, please”

Henry: “I want plain too”

No kidding. Cracks us up every time. Tell the person what you want, they bring it to you! We don’t even eat at restaurants all that much, but by golly, he’s got it down.

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The Fed

Henry doesn’t have an R sound yet, so according to him, we went to the fed. For everyone else, that would be fair. The 4H county fair, to be exact. It. Was. Hot.. But it was fun. I took Henry last year, and we mostly looked at all the animals. This year, Henry was really excited about seeing the animals, trucks and tractors, and he even got to ride some rides.

As we were talking about what he would see before we went, I mentioned goats, which he loves when we go to the zoo. I think the conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Henry, when we go to the fair, we’ll probably see some goats. Are you excited to see goats?

Henry: Doat.

Me: yep, goats.

Henry: one, dew, one dew!

Me: You want to see two goats?

Henry: yeah! Yeh-yo.

Me: Do you think you’ll see a yellow goat?

Henry: Mink.

Me: And a pink goat?

Henry: Yeah. Doat. Dew. Yeh-yo.

We looked hard for the two yellow goats, but alas. We did find these goats though:

Henry really wanted to touch them, but when he gets close, then he doesn’t want to. He’s funny like that.

Henry also got to ride some rides this time. He wasn't tall enough for many, but will be next year! So he got to ride the carousel with daddy (who's never ridden with Henry before):

And the ferris wheel with both of us

And a fire truck with mommy!

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parade!

This past weekend, we took Henry to his first parade! In fact, I don't even remember the last time I was at a parade. He LOVED it! The College Football Hall of Fame had their Enshrinement Weekend, and have a parade to honor the inductees. Along with plenty of firetrucks, horses, cars, marching bands, and balloons. The firetrucks were by far his favorite. He's in a huge truck phase right now.

He sat with us the whole time (which is a little uncharacteristic of him) and was really engaged in what was going by and he was very interested in looking at what would be coming up next. So fun!

We were laughing hysterically at this. A high school marching band went by, and Henry got up to march. His marching, however, became an entire body affair, with his arms moving and side bends and everything. The pictures are funny, but of course I wanted to get it on video, but realized I wasn't recording. Darn.


We saw Henry's friend Anna at the parade. Anna is a baby from the Lamaze class we took, and we've hung out with her and her family a few times. Anna made a big impression on Henry. We went to her house to swim, and now every time Henry goes swimming, he asks about Anna. Anna also swims like a fish (on her belly), so now Henry swims like Anna the fish in his bathtub. And....his stuffed gorilla is now named Anna. Henry and Anna at the parade:

Trying to corral two two-year olds for a picture!

And one last close up look of the firetruck with mommy at the end of the parade!

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catching up

Geez. I can't believe I haven't published to this blog in OVER a month. I knew it was getting to be a long time, but I didn't realize it was that long. For what it's worth, I have lots of post ideas stored up in my head. I blame my lack of posting on our trouble with cameras. We went for a bike ride for Father's Day, brought water in a lunch box that leaked, and it got into our camera which won't turn on. I hate not having a camera. We've been able to revive our old one, but I haven't taken the time to upload pictures from that camera or the other one. And blog posts without pictures aren't that much fun. But, I will do better. I seem to go in waves anyhow.

We've had lots of visits from Grandma and Grandpa Swan and Uncle Bryan, and while my mom was here at the beginning of summer, we made Henry a sandbox! Two baby pools nested inside each other provided a cheap, non-permanent option until we decide where we want it. Plus, it keeps the critters out. Henry has really gotten used to the sandbox and spends more and more time in it, which makes me happy. The first couple of times he was nervous and not very confident with getting in the sand, but now he sits right down no problem. In fact, he calls the beach a BID (big) sandbox.

Brushing off his hands like mom taught him!

What a fun start to the summer!

We even found some cars to hook together like a train. We've always got to have a train!

More fun summer adventures and pictures coming soon!

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