Modern Marvel of Engineering, Part 1

Evidently Cousin Marcia and I had the same idea last weekend... new swing sets for the kids! Reagan got a new swing set as an early birthday present so she could enjoy it before the July heat/humidity makes Mommy miserable. And she found out first hand how handy it is to have a handy Daddy! David got to put that mechanical engineering degree to good use, with me as his assistant. Man, I bet he was wishing some of his other friends had been free to help! This thing is a BEAST! So, it isn't all the way finished... I'll have Part 2 up with the finished product.

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Here on our back porch table is the assortment of hardware... screws, bolts, etc. There are thousands. I know that none of these pics are going to do it justice. The manual was actually a BOOK!

This was my major contribution... opening up the 3 boxes and organizing the wood pieces. Had to measure each one, categorize it, and label with a postit. We did it together, but it took almost 2 hours alone!
Here's the box with all the plastic pieces.
The beginning!
R was already so excited... she thought it was an obstacle course. She enjoyed just stepping over the beams.

Here, you can tell that she was REALLY helping Daddy. Too bad this piece was to go near the roof!

Sitting on the piece she helped with.
I think she was pretending the slats were a raft because she kept laying on them and telling me she was swimming.

You can tell this was an all day thing since R now has on a jacket!
Day 2: big helper.

Daddy hard at work with the instructions. I was so proud how he actually followed them! :)
R having a picnic with some snacks under the fort. Sharing with Gloria of course.
This set is so cool because it has a playhouse! It is just so cute, and I would have LOVED this when I was a kid! Unfortunately for David, it was like building a log cabin log by log. He had to put in each slat with 4 screws! It took forever.

R standing on the roof.

She had so much fun outside for 2 days straight. Made huge messes with Gloria's water bowl creating mud that she obviously sat in. In 2 days she went through 5 pairs of pants I think! Fun times!

Before she was allowed inside, she enjoyed the shade underneath a lot.
I couldn't resist this pic of David drilling into the floor of the house! :)
The house is so cute... has a mailbox, chimney, even a doorbell. Here, R found the doorbell before it got attached!

The bell is blurry because she was having a BALL with it!
She ate lunch outside, then fed her baby too.
This was the first time she got to play inside the house. I think I was even more excited than she was though!

A little peekaboo...

Somehow I never caught a smile... but she does love it, I promise!
She was FREAKING OUT over the ladder. It is quite the big kid ladder, and we both thought we would have to help her up all the time. WRONG. This little monkey has no trouble at all with it! I don't even stand back there anymore... she so doesn't need me.
Lovin' the slide!!!

The swing set will be out to the left of the fort section. But for now, she doesn't care!
She had to have help with this maneuver.
Not this one though. She went up the wrong way all by herself!
Then the baby got a fast ride!

I'll put up swinging pics next! But for now, here is a glimpse of her in action... before we were brave enough to let her climb the ladder by herself. She runs like this all the time, but even worse when she is excited. SO CUTE!