You may remember me mentioning my kids painting with colored ice recently. I was surprised this week when a “postcard” arrived for me.
He had a bit of help from mommy, but his message warmed my heart.
He calls me “Big Fella” all the time now. The kids on Bluey called their dad that once and it has stuck with him. I started calling him “Little Fella” now, which makes him laugh.
One morning he had crawled into bed next to me and said, “Time to get up, Daddio!” That had me cracking up! All of a sudden he’s a 50’s hipster!
Now, to be clear – I’m not necessarily sharing my tools. Recently I went out to the garage looking for a pair of pliers and they were gone. They were in HIS tool box. Also in his tool box was a hammer, my crescent wrench, about 6 screwdrivers and my box of drill bits!
I had meant to blog earlier, but I got preoccupied with a spur of the moment project. I spent almost all day in my garage.
I was going to change the oil on my riding mower, but before I did that, I knew I had to give myself some room. This led to me emptying almost everything out onto the driveway and sorting.
My son is forever playing with my tools. So I made a pile of all the tools I found throughout the garage. I have been wanting to get the tool boxes reorganized anyway.
I had Christmas boxes that were in the back of the garage, but I finally put them in the loft. I also was able to rearrange things so all the Christmas stuff was in the same area.
I moved my table saw from the way back up to the front. It seems like I’ve been using it enough to warrant the move.
I made space for the snowblower and rototiller up against the back wall. This allows for me to pull the mower in a bit further.
I put up some nails/screws to hang things. I have all these yard tools that were always being thrown in a corner. It’s nice to have them, and my extra extension cords hung on the wall.
With the back and forth from the garage to the curb for garbage day, I hit my step goal long before late afternoon. My Fitbit says I got 195 minutes of exercise today. No surprise there.
As silly as it sounds, just having a clean floor out there is worth it. I feel like my garage collects every possible leaf from the fall, and enough dirt to fill a huge hole!
I have an area cleaned for the kids bikes, scooters and wagon. I also have room for their battery operated car. I still need to “clean out” some stuff in tubs and boxes, but I will do that another day.
It is clean! It was well worth the work I put in. Now, I’m exhausted. It will be a VERY early bedtime for me tonight!!
Today was one of those days I wish I could have stayed home with the kids! It was such a beautiful day. Spring is straight ahead and today was a small tease for us.
This morning, we got up and had some errands to do before I had to head to work. The kids saw the neighbor girls out last week on their bikes and roller skates. Neither of the kids has a bike, and they asked about them. While we were out, we picked them each up one with training wheels.
Before work, I grabbed the tools and began putting them together. Andrew got a cool Paw Patrol one that I have to add a couple pieces to.
It didn’t take him long to figure out the pedals. I think he’s going to be doing a whole lot of riding this spring and summer.
Ella got a Frozen bike. I felt bad because I got the whole thing together and there were two “left” pedals in the box instead of a left and right. So I called the store and asked about just swapping out one of the pedals, but I’ll have to return the entire bike and get an entire new one and rebuild it. Of course, she still had to see if she liked it.
I’ll head back to the store in the morning and get hers all set!
With the nice weather, Sam and I were already talking about things that need to be done in the yard. I have to re-do the stone walkway to our front door because the construction fools did a shoddy job putting them back in place. Sam wants to do something with the flower beds in the front yard, so I may have to look into some sort of barriers for that. She’s also wanting a garden – she will find out how NOT green my thumb is!
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If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know my son Andrew is all about tools. He’s always right there with something to help me and my father-in-law when we work on a project. He still carries around one of my cordless drills (with out the bit, of course).
He has a few “tool boxes” but my father-in-law has a tool bag. I guess He was trying to put the cordless drill in his boxes and it won’t fit. So he asked his Pa about a tool bag. You can only imagine his excitement when Sam’s folks dropped by the house the other night with a nice new tool bag for Andrew’s drill and other tools!
We had quite a few people at the house this week to look at his education plan. We’re hoping that he will be ready for preschool (and they are ready for him) soon. We were going over speech, occupational therapy and physical therapy goals and how to best get what is best for him.
Our Ella turned four last month and we were a week or so late in getting her four year old pictures. We once again took her to see our photographer friend, Beth, at Enjoy the View Photography. This time I did not go with them when the session happened. So they were a surprise to me when I finally got to see them.
This session truly showed her personality. There were pictures of her making silly faces, laughing out loud, and even sticking her tongue out. I joked that we paid for her to make silly faces, but I love that we have them. It is really what she is like right now – silly and sassy. At the end of her session, they had her sit on a swing. There were some fantastic photos there. This one is one of my favorites:
I had the day off yesterday for my son’s birthday. It was such a great day with the family.
He is all about tools and the construction vehicles that have been outside, so that was the “theme” for his birthday.
My dad sent him a tool box earlier this week. It had some cool tools in it and he was loving it! Without seeing one Three Stooges movie, he’s already showing me he’s going to love them.
When I came home Tuesday, I put together his birthday present so he could get it first thing in the morning. It’s a cool Mickey Mouse Tool Bench.
He also got some “power tools” that we got from Sam’s Club. They really look like Bosch tools and they all make noises. The drill actually lets you drive a screw in and reverses to get them out. He figured that out on his own. He is loving this!
Sam’s coworkers told her about a cool place north of us. It’s like a big McDonald’s Play Place. Slides, zip lines, and more. He was in his glory going through the tunnels.
They even had a rock wall for him to climb.
We played long into the afternoon and then made our way home. Sam’s mom picked up Andrew’s birthday cake. We were going to go pick it up and bring it home, but then Sam’s sister said she had a gift for Andrew and she’d meet us at their mom’s. We wound up eating cake and ice cream there before finally calling it a night.
We don’t often get days together as a family, so Andrew’s birthday was extra special. It was a really great day.
In my blog yesterday, I posted on of the photos from his 2nd birthday shoot. Our photographer captured this amazing candid that I cannot wait to hang on the wall. This very well can be one pose that I have them do every year ….
I am thankful that the Lord blessed me with my wonderful children. I am so happy to be their dad.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 