Who Da Man?

Doug's da man! This weekend marked the completion of his deck re-haul project! Yay! We now have a completely finished, sturdy, beautiful Trex deck lovingly built by Doug. This was such a huge undertaking, I am so impressed with what he accomplished. Of course, he will nit pick and tell you about the flaws he sees in his work, but I think it's fantastic.

Here's the before:



And now the after:



The boys hauling out the scraps to go to the dump.




Of course, no sooner then he had it finished something happened to it. Aidan sat underneath the table on the deck and WROTE on the floor with an ink pen! Yes, Aidan, not Sean. Doug was so stunned when he saw him that he froze. He looked like he was going to throw up, or possibly throw Aidan. I ushered Aidan inside and asked him why in the world he did that. He said "I dunno." I sighed and realized this was payback for shit I pulled as a child (I got busted twice for writing on walls at other people's property.) I told Aidan that sometimes our brains just don't get turned on and we do naughty things we shouldn't. I sat him down with a pad of writing paper and had him write, "I'm sorry Dad" several times. I Goggled "removing ink pen" and found how to get it off the deck. Doug was able to get it off, but it left a faded area. I hope it serves as a life lesson and reminder to Aidan.

Making Progress

Doug commented today that I haven't taken a photo lately of his deck progress. This weekend he started installing the Trex flooring and today we had lots of helpers. It's coming along! He is hoping to have a Deck Is Done party on the 4th, so we will see if we get there. Aidan and Mackenzie are wearing tie dye tshirts that the three of us made the night before. Cuties!





For fun, here's Doug and Aidan (age 20 months) working on our last deck, at our old house.


And in case you have a big belly fetish, like my husband, here's my summer project progress!



For comparison, here I am pregnant with Sean at 35 weeks.

Deck Demo Has Begun!

Last weekend, Doug, Aidan and Sean started the deck demolition so our summer project has begun! First, before photos:




You can see that it is very aged, but what you can't see is that a lot of the support beams are rotting and it is really weak in areas. I'm afraid of falling thru it! Plus the kids get splinters often.

Here's our crew:


Aidan tries to haul a big sheet of lattice to the trailer.


Sean sees that Daddy is wearing a hat and work gloves, so he and Aidan ask for theirs.


It took them two days and two evenings, but Doug got that sucker torn down and the boys helped pile the wood onto a trailer to go to the dump. Sean adores the dirt pit where the deck was. We have had to do baths every night this week!