Old pictures...new stories (otherwise known as "I'll catch up some day...")

Disclaimer: These pictures are old.  Like, it still looks like winter around here, but in real life, it's full on spring with lots of leaves, grass, flowers etc.  But, there are some gems in here I just couldn't help sharing.

Two years ago Ryan built a really nice swing set for the girls, from scratch, without plans (well, he drew up the plans himself) and with just a little help from his dad and mine.  When we moved here to Marengo, the swing set was actually the first thing we moved...a few weeks before closing (thanks Pam and Gary) and we're so glad we took the time to bring it along with.

Now that Abby's a little bigger, and braver, and Hazel is pretty independent, the kids will often take their little Jeep out the swing set and play together without a ton of supervision from us.  Abby loves to push Hazel in the swing, and Abby has even figured out how to use the adult sized swing...though it's a little too tall for her to get on by herself.

One of the many Spring projects we've been tackling around the house is getting the mulch and sand set for the swing set (finally!).  You can see the timbers laid out in these pictures from the frame of the swing set box and in real life the sandbox has already been built and sand poured.  The box for the swing set has already been built and there is a huge pile of 10 yards of mulch poured right near there just waiting for me to stop feeling lazy and start shoveling it into place (and waiting for the dang rain to stop!).  Hopefully by next weekend we'll be able to check this project off our to-do list as well...and maybe, if you're lucky, I'll take some pictures to show you how it turned out!