peelosophy

One of our new favorite time killers family activities lately has been obstacle courses.  Especially in the 4 o’clock hour, my least favorite time of day – it’s usually melt down city around here, but lately we’ve been doing some fun stuff.   JJ loves putting the courses together and then I time the boys to see of they can beat their last times.  Here’s our latest one…

Go under the chairs…

Across the “moat” via cushions…

Across the tightrope…

Slide down the little slide and shovel 3 scoops of rocks into a truck and push it to the other side…

Hop over the bricks to the clubhouse…

Run through the clubhouse and down the turbo slide…TIME!

Now another dozen times until dinner.  I love my backyard.

I heart my backyard.  It’s mostly the nature thing- being outside is so therapeutic for me. The kids are entertained for hours out there. The size of our backyard is just manageable for us, but there is also room for ideas.  And of course, we have lots of ideas.

There are those things I would just like to update…

• grass that is plush and perfect
• a fence that matches on all sides, but not a privacy fence – I love our neighbors too much and there is something about being able to look up or down four backyards that says community to me.
• some new plants in some of my established flower beds

And then there are the other ideas that I get when I am out there…

• For sure, we need a PATIO.  I’ve been going back and forth between patio and deck, but I think patio is what would do it for me.  It would need to be big enough to fit out patio furniture and grill with extra room to spare.  I like flagstone like this, but way bigger…

(Sunset magazine)

or a stamped concrete like this…

• I would LOVE LOVE LOVE a hot tub too.  The problem is privacy.  I know it would go at one end of the house.  Maybe something like this with a little more tall foliage…

• A water feature, later I do want little pond, but for now I want this fountain – I just can’t find one that’s not under $200.  I even have a place for it! I am totally serious.

There are a couple of things I would want to add to the playground area.

• A couple of these diggers like these, of course John wants to build them with his new welder…

• a kids size picnic table like this one, of course I would want to build it…

• some sort of fort on the ground.  I love the idea of a living willow fort like this one, but I can’t find where to buy willow in the States.  I love how natural it looks, like the forts my brother and I used to make down by the creek.

But I would settle for some sort of camouflaged tee pee or barrack similar to this…

• An outdoor shower attached to our house, just a simple teak shower, more for when the boys come into the house to hose them down.

• It should be said, that John wants to make some sort of man-made creek that drains and a half-pipe back in the play area as well.  I’m trying not to think about that too much.

That’s about it for now. Feel free to enter me in whatever backyard sweepstakes/makeover you can find!

Pop Pop Pop! – katherinemariephotography: I don’t remember how I came across this blog, but before you click it, if you are having serious feelings of inadequacy as a mother, save it for a later date.  Seriously, these themes of the week that she does with her kids are gorgeous and totally off the hook as far as I’m concerned – that’s a compliment from afar.   She is clearly an amazing designer and photographer and I have become addicted to the beauty she is creating, but have allowed myself to only take a peek when I can  admire without feeling bitter.

Back to the Basics: Batch Cooking – SimpleMom: I have been waiting for something like this post to get me exited about batch cooking again.  I used to do it here and there a couple years ago, but lost my rhythm.  I thought this post was great to jog my memory and to encourage ideas that I haven’t tried before.

Before/After Chad’s Filing Cabinet Planter – Design Sponge: I don’t have time.  I have so many unfinished projects.  But I want to do this – I know exactly where it would go and what I would plant.  Oh well.

Dirty Little Secrets: The Riverside Church Blog: I  love this post that Kim wrote.  I loved reading the comments that people wrote about it.  I have read this book too. There are so many ideas from this book that really resonated with me, but I could never put it into words and this book does a great job.  I’ve always wondered where parenting righteousness comes from and why is it so hard for moms/women to be honest with each other;  this book addressed alot of this for me.

Do you ever come up with ideas and then next thing you know someone is marketing it?  I’m sure this was not my idea to begin with, but JJ and I have been making masking tape “race tracks” and railroad tracks for years and then I see this…

this is a picture of one of ours JJ took, circa oct 1998…

Oh well, what could have been right?  What is wrong with their marketing person anyways? The Mini is totally not proportional to the road and I’m assuming the Formula One car (go Ferrari!) is racing in Monte Carlo because it wouldn’t be on a lined road otherwise.  And what, no toilet paper roll tunnel? Weak.