Nesting?!?

With this pregnancy "nesting" has taken on a whole new meaning, and not only for me, poor Tim has been drug along for the ride.  For whatever reason my "nesting" this time doesn't have anything to do with cleaning or really getting ready for the baby in any way, it has to do with projects... lots and lots of projects.

First I decided to quick trim the bushes in the yard.  Fourteen 40gal trash bags and a full 60gal garbage bin later I was done.  Then there was painting Olivia's room in our new house, and removing the boarder/ painting over the nursery in our old house (part of our purchase agreement.)  And of course then there were the couple repairs the inspectors pointed out like replacing a faucet in the kitchen, caulking around the tubs in the bathrooms and repainting around the front door with rustolium.  All seem easy enough, but since Tim and I are not exactly what you'd call "handy" every little project has it's challenges  :)

My last genius idea was to purchase a new swing set for the back yard.  I had been watching them over the past year and I knew Menard's would run a big sale in the spring... I didn't know it would be a month before I was due, but thanks to "nesting" it probably worked out for the best.  So on April 2nd we purchased a new swing set, or the 'ready to assemble' version of a swing set. 

Some assembly required does not quite explain this project.  Six giant boxes of wood and a slide later we had gotten the "kit" out of the van  :(  On April 3rd we took all the wood out of the boxes and filled our 3 stall garage with 27 stacks of wood, all organized by size and kind... until Graham got up from his nap of course and it all went down hill from there.

After a weeks worth of pre-drilling and partial assemble 5 nights a week we were here:

As you can see, Graham had to be intricately involved in every aspect of the project.  While I am proud that he takes after me, a 3yr old isn't all that much help  :)  Thanks to help from my brothers and Tim's brother we finally constructed the second level.  Our next phase looked like this:

And we decided it might be a good idea  move that bad boy outside before we can no longer get it out of the garage.  So 6 adult men helped carry it to the back yard (maybe we could have done that step a little sooner, but we are beginners so adding challenge is expected.)  Then last week Tim and I worked 'til nearly 11pm every night constructing the attachments, swings, monkey bars, picnic table, rock climbing wall, tunnel, steps and slide.

It's a good thing we did this project before we got to know too many of our new neighbors because I can only imagine what they were saying as they watched us attach the sections in the dark 3 of those nights  :)  Anyway, we got it done and by Sunday all we had to do was attach the roof, yay!  Here's the finished product:

One Happy Little Boy!