February 17, 2014

Play Kitchen

About four months ago I started a project. You know how that goes.
It all started when I saw how much the boys loved playing with the pretend food at our local library. So I decided to make some felt food for the kiddos to play with at home. Benji always wants to help me in the kitchen so I figured this would be a no-brainer toy that would get a lot of use. 
Which it does. I had a blast making pancakes, eggs, noodles, bacon -- and the boys have spent lots of time cooking up many creative breakfasts, sandwiches and pizzas.

After the popularity of the felt food, I started to see lots of cute diy play kitchens on Pinterest and immediately thought I could do that. That's when I came home with this little computer desk from the Salvation Army for like $6 way back in October. 
Travis cut out a hole for the sink (we used a silver bowl), we painted it a fun shade of green and mounted an old faucet - with a bonus detachable nozzle - we also found at the thrift store. 
Ta Da! 
And that's how our play kitchen remained -- for many months...
The boys didn't seem to mind though. I often found them playing with the felt food or pretending they were spraying each other with the sink nozzle or just using it as a hideout. 
But I still had big plans to make this little kitchen even better.

Which I finally got around to doing...a little over four months later...this past weekend. True, we've added parts bit by bit but I think we can finally say we are DONE with it. Maybe because I'm feeling the urge to finish a bunch of half-completed projects before the baby comes.
Anyway, here's the finished product:
a cute little kitchen for our pint-sized cooks
We added screw-in-hooks to the sides (and insides) to hang pots and pans and used vinyl cutouts for the stove range. I also sewed a curtain using one of Travis' old dress shirts and hung it on a tension rod. I'm actually pretty excited with how this turned out as I kept the original button-down front as the opening in the middle.

Our little chefs have had a great time cooking up all kinds of delicious meals for us. 

 And check out those little working stove knobs on the side -- our favorite resident engineer decided we needed actual turning knobs and put these bad boys together using potentiometers (you'll have to ask Trav) and some hot glue.
I'm quite pleased with how it all turned out, despite the fact that it took us so long to finish; I'm blaming it on the pregnancy. That said, the kids love it. Benji got more play food for Christmas and I've been slowly raiding my cabinets for spare spoons and measuring cups. If nothing else, I had fun with this project and hope we will get many years of play out of it. Best of all, we hardly spent any money making on it. Maybe $25? Almost half of which was for paint.
And now, we get to play with our food whenever we like.

February 6, 2014

Color Me Rad!

This past weekend the boys had a big adventure: Travis took both Peter and Benji to run the Color Me Rad race here in town. As running in the race with Daddy was part of Peter's birthday present, he was fully prepared with his very own sweatbands, white T-shirt, and goggles.
 But then right before leaving, Benji decided he wasn't about to be left out of the fun so we had to get him ready to 'run' the race too.
 Which was all well and good until we actually got to the course and Benji completely freaked out. But Travis stuck him in the stroller, strapped on his goggles and off the boys went ready to handle any color thrown their way.
Here they are all nice and clean...
And here they are after the race -- nice and colorful. 
 Travis said at one point people were all but dumping powder over Benji's head -- he was not happy with that, but it looks like he survived. 
 But Peter had a ball. He especially liked throwing the packets of color they gave all the runners at the end of the race and kept pointing out all the different colors on to his clothes to me.

 The boys with some coworkers who ran too.
And even though they have watermarks, here are a few shots taken by the race organizers mid-run.  Can you spot Peter? Yep, those are his green-clad legs sticking out underneath Benji -- it's only a single jogger stroller but apparently they made it work.



Once we got back to the car and started dusting off the powder before going home Benji finally decided it was hilarious...but during the race, not so much. Oh well. Peter had a ball. Travis had a ball. Mostly Travis should get an award for pushing both boys in the stroller for 90% of the race.
A fun Saturday to be sure.

February 2, 2014

Peter Turns 6!

Last week Peter turned the big 6 years old!
For a special treat, I took donuts and juice into his kindergarten class to celebrate. Since I haven't had a chance to volunteer in his classroom yet, it was so fun to see him interact with all his little friends and his teacher. Benji of course loved going to 'Pete skool.'
Here he is with the wonderful Mrs. Larsen. She's got those kids eating out of her hand.

Peter and his best bud Noah -- both their faces here crack me up!
We had a few friends over Friday night to celebrate and this is the cake Peter asked for:
a green Ninjago cake -- of which both he and Benji are currently major fans. Which is all well and good until they start practicing their 'ninja moves' on each other. *sigh* Boys....

 The chaos.

It was a pretty crazy night with lots of little kids running around but I think Peter had a good time.
At least Benji loves all of Peter's new toys.

Then on Saturday for Peter's actual birthday, we went as a family to Chuck E. Cheese.
See this face? He was so excited!




I love my family. 
Peter is just the funniest little man ever. I am amazed at how grown up he has become this past year -- but still love all his sweet requests to snuggle or play with him. I think my heart bursts a little bit every morning when I drop him off at school and he kisses me and says "I love you mom!" I know I'll only have a few more years of that. Don't ever grow up little man. 
Peter is curious and energetic and has never met a stranger. He's an excellent big brother and is constantly surprising us with his creativity and insights.
Happy Birthday buddy. You are so special to us all.