Time marches on

As William has been busy growing teeth, his big sister has been busy working on her first loose tooth, which last night, became her first missing tooth.

Savannah's first missing tooth!

It took her a while to decide if she wanted to keep it or let the tooth fairy take it, but she finally decided to let the tooth fairy have it. She was repaid for the favor with some sparkly dollar bills and a fairy dusted certificate of her first lost tooth.

William in the meantime is busy walking everywhere and of all the hobbies to take up, his new favorite is cleaning. Here he is cleaning the top of the wood stove with a clean wet wipe. He also takes toilet paper, wets it in the sink and cleans out the sink basin. Funny little fellow!

Above all he loves to copy his big sister.  Here they are "reading" together on the sofa, a new part of our daily routines.

Floating shelves

For too long I've been working on these floating shelves. I built the shelf arm supports a few weeks ago then put the sleeves on hold for two reasons. One is that my little guy was sick and has needed me 24 hours a day so there was no escaping for mommy to the garage. The other is that I was afraid to get started with rip cuts on my circular saw, mainly because the directions include so many warnings about things that can go wrong...and the saw is heavy, not exactly a girl friendly tool but a necessary one.

 Here are the frames hanging out in the garage on Sunday.

And finally here they are screwed into studs on the first floor, awaiting their sleeves, which were drying in between coats of paint in the garage. The new shelves are intended to display my daughter's artwork and her slowly growing collection of awards. I wanted a way to quickly change out her artwork since she creates it regularly in her weekly private art lessons and I don't have the room (or the intention) to drill holes in all the walls to hang everything up.

Now Savannah has her own "art gallery" and she can display her karate belts and trophies.

You can find these floating shelf plans are from Ana at Knock-off wood. Thanks Ana!

A grownup picnic table

One more item on my "build" list has been crossed off. I started building an adult size picnic table using plans from Ana at Knock-off Wood last weekend and finished in less than a week (that's with two kids running circles around me, allergies, work, and a million other projects that are in various stages of progress at the moment). When it was all done, we hauled it out to the shady area near our largest maple tree and enjoyed our first dinner outdoors together. This was a big improvement for the little guy who, upon finishing his dinner, got to crawl around in the grass and play in his sandbox, instead of throwing blueberries on my oriental dining room rug...

Because we already had the paint, I decided to also paint the adult version in cilantro, just like the Big Kids' version I made last month. Hmm, reusing the outdoor paint I already had, how very green of me. (Hee, hee!)

My mom helped me with the kiddos while I was building and sanding, and also helped me paint the table boards and hold the leg supports in place as I predrilled the holes for the deck screws. I modified Ana's plans only slightly because I thought a 5 foot long table was too small. This one is 6 feet long and a bit of a challenge for little me to move with a helper. Instead of spray painting with two topcoats of Rustoleum's clear enamel for outdoor use, I painted it on this time. I will definitely paint my topcoats in the future, the enamel goes exactly where you want it to and nowhere else,it's faster and easier to handle with less fumes.

Thanks Ana for providing so many great plans! Turns out I love building things and enjoy the smell of fresh pine sawdust, which is a good thing since these days I'm pretty much finding it everywhere... (think of all the places you  find sand after the baby plays in the sandbox and you'll get the idea!)