Bird Houses - Home Depot Kids' Workshop

As I've mentioned before, Home Depot has FREE children's workshops on the first Saturday of every month. They give your children dangerous weapons tools to create the project of the month. We've made catamarans, race cars, art caddy's and many other things. It's very simple.

You go, sign in and receive a packet with instruction.

This week the kids got to build Bird Houses.

You're given a little pile of wood pieces to assemble.
Donny gets started on his right away.
Remy has to organize his pieces and tools into nice lines and neatness.
I got to enjoy my Starbucks chai tea while taking lots of pictures,

which is the equivalent of blog material heaven to me.

The hubby came along this week and helped Remy.
I love this next photo...a father and son working together.
Donny's almost done. See that little girl in the background? She was there with her father, and she watched HIM build HER project. What's up with that? The point is for the KIDS to do it.

There were a lot of little kids there with their daddies, you can tell the moms must have needed breaks. lol But, then there are some mommies and some with both parents. There was one little kid, he had to be at least 2 years old or so, running around holding a hammer, sucking on it. Didn't seem very safe to me, but I'm not one to parent other people's children. Made me wonder what those hammers went through though...and made me want to break out the Purell on my children's hands. ick
Here's an overview of the kids' workshop area. It's a little loud with all that hammering.
and the uncomfortable stool-buckets we're supposed to sit on. Don't let that stop you though.

Ta da! A finished bird home.

My First Catamaran

This last weekend, the boys and I went the Home Depot Kids' workshop. For those of you who don't know, these workshops are free and the first Saturday of every month at EVERY Home Depot. FREE and you build stuff. The kids love it. Each Saturday has a certain project. One month is was pirate ships, another month race cars, another time an art caddy, and so on.

This month's project was a catamaran! (Which looks like a fancy sailboat to me)

Usually my mom takes the boys. She's the one who discovered these labor camps kids workshops but this week she was busy, so I took them.

ME: "So, I can just drop you guys off in the parking lot right? At the front door?"
The boys: "Mama!! No! You have to stay."
ME: "Are you sure? I can't just leave you and come back later?"
The boys: "Noooo!!! You HAVE to stay. You have to check us in."
ME: "Oh, ok, I'll check you in...then I can leave?"
The boys: "Mama!!"

Ok, I get the point.

Usually this is held outside to the little heathens adorable children can make as much noise as they want, but today it was inside due to the threat of rain. We followed the extremely ear-bursting joyful noise of children at work to a workshop space where tons of little kids were hammering away with all their might. It was LOUD and echoing.

I checked the boys in and received the kits. We sat on our extremely uncomfortable cute Home Depot themed buckets (see pictures in a sec) and opened the kits to find our instructions.

ME: "So, I'll just drink my Starbucks Chai Tea and take pictures and watch you guys, right?"
The boys: "Mama! No!"
Donny: "I can do my own."
Remy: "I need your help. You have to help me."
Me : dagnabit. (inner thoughts)

Here was our instruction sheet:

All we needed was a hammer and woodglue, which were provided on the tables and we set to work on the mast (the wood pole thingy with the sail).

Then Remy got to pick up long nails and get ready to hammer them. I'm thinkin', "My six year old with a hammer? Oh, boy." To mitigate the possible damage, I offer to hold the parts in place while he hammers.

See my nice manicure? I went to this salon to have it done, and they had men working there! MEN! Have you ever seen this before? A man did my mani and pedi. I don't find anything wrong with that, I'd like to think I'm not sexist, but I was just surprised. It was a first for me. He did a good job too. Anyway, notice the beautiful manicure (my first in, like, a year!) and then move on to our next step. Focus people! :

Me nervously holding the wood and hoping I don't lose a finger...or a hand...or a pretty painted nail (by a MANicurist!).

Ta Da! Remy and I finished in record time. Then I drank my Starbucks while Donny finished up his sans my help.
Did ya notice Donny's shirt? Sing in a deep voice: "There's something strange in your neighborhood, Who ya gonna call?"

When they're done, they both have to hammer every nail again...and again and again and again...you know, just to make sure they're in there well...because we don't want the catamaran to fall apart in the bathtub on the high seas.

Aha, here's a better picture of the buckets cut off circulation in our thighs we sat on.

Then the boys started comparing hammers; whose was the biggest or the better one. BOYS! Everything turns into a peepee war, I swear.

This is the resulting mess that I did NOT have to clean up! Did I mention this workshop was FREE?
Before we made it out of the store, I saw the tractor section, and I forced sweetly asked my boys to sit on them so I could take pictures. They loved it.

And, thus ends our exciting Home Depot workshop. Did you enjoy? Don't you want to take your kids next month? I think we get to make a birdhouse in July. hehe

Cow teats, a coffee cup collection, the Texas dog rabbit & wooden flowers.

I brought my hubby and kids gifts back from my Wisconsin trip. My husband is a huge coffee drinker, so I always buy him coffee mugs wherever I go. Here's the one I got him this time...

Who can resist a hot, steamin' mug of cow teats? hehe He hasn't used it yet...I'm putting it by his coffee maker tonight, so he'll have no excuse in the morning.

This next cup is one the boys and I picked out for him when we went to Washington D.C. last year to visit the treasury (or whatever that place is called that makes all our money). We wanted him to know we think he's worth a million bucks (or 100,000 bucks, whatever).

This is a cup we gave him for Father's Day one year. I took a picture of the boys goofing around on the trampoline. This was a few years ago. I uploaded the picture to Shutterfly and had it made into a coffee cup. I love Shutterfly.

Another Father's Day gift to show hubby we think he's incredible. This was one of our favorite family movies ever!

No need to adjust your monitors or tilt your heads...the cup is kind of diagonal...on purpose.

When I got back from my Wisconsin trip (I know, you're getting sick of hearing about it, but I'm having so much fun typing the word "Wisconsin" because before now I'd never used that word), my boys had gone to a Home Depot Kids' Workshop and made me a "Welcome Home" early Mother's Day gift! I LOVE them!! I put one box by my computer and one on my bathroom counter.

These kids' workshops at the Home Depot are held the first Saturday of every month from 9am to noon at your local stores. It's completely free and they help your kids build the project of the month. My boys have made some awesome stuff...a race car, a pirate ship, an art caddy, and it looks like next month's is a catamaran. The above one that they just completed is a flower pencil holder (and I LOVE it!).


Finally, we made a little excursion to Target today, and it's bad enough I have to limit the spending on myself and two children, I also now have end up buying something for the dog.

We got Sweet Annie a rabbit. And, boy does she love to chew on it. I'm betting $50 it won't last the next 24 hours, and I'm going to find rabbit stuffing all over the house. Don't worry, I'll take pictures.