Handy Dad... Rope swing

My parents got Keith a Handy Dad book so as soon as we got home from Mandeville Keith was ready to build something. The rope swing did not look that hard and they only thing we needed to buy was the nylon rope since we had the hose and board. 

The scary part for me was how the book told him to hang the rope.... which is to climb the tree. I was getting really nervous about now and had a talk with Grady about going to get the phone inside if I told him to. Can you find Keith in the tree?

going higher...

tying the knot

then he had to go to lower branch to saw off a branch. This part took the longest.

We all had to try it out.

It is a lot of fun.

Reece did a really good job holding on.

Grady LOVES it. He woke up the next morning ready to go outside and swing.

Playing the Natural way

It was suppose to rain all day today so we went outside to play right after breakfast.  The boys had a wonderful time.

 Reece playing with his wheelbarrow he got for his birthday. 

working on Fine Motor Skills... picking up

 Carrying

 dropping

 Reece wanted to try 

it took two hands but he got it

"hot chocolate Mom?" 

blowing hot air on the thermometer to watch the temperature rise

"Kidscape" your backyard

After looking around on this Montessori website I found information about Natural Playgrounds.  They say Natural Playgrounds allow for open-ended, multi-age, sensorial play. It allows for children to explore nature (watch birds and bugs build homes), as well as plant, nurture and harvest living things (flowers and vegetable gardens).    

I fell in LOVE with the idea and knew it would be prefect for the clubhouse that the previous owners built in the back yard.  

all images found on Pinterest 

After researching it more and finding more inspiration on Pinterest I came up with this photo college of things I want in our Natural Playground.  

Here is the clubhouse before we started with some of the logs and table I asked Keith pick up on the side of the road.  The logs are going to be our border for our dirt pit.  

These are the stumps I picked up from the side of the road.  I did this alone one day I filled my SUV with as much as would fit and then the next day I drove Keith's truck for the day so I could get another load.

Then I asked friends and family for Loose parts like buckets, baskets, crates, stones, dishes, pots, and pans & kitchen utensils.   I also started looking at antique shops for baskets, wire baskets and other loose parts.

Then we made a HUGE trip to HomeDepot to buy supplies, just FYI lumber is pricy.  We maded a wall to hang tools.

Here are the boys starting to explore the logs and stumps while we were working.

Wall is up and the border for our dirt pit.

While we were working on clubhouse we decided it would be a good idea to extend the steps to the wall so they would not have the big space that we were worried the boys would fall from.

Here are the updated steps.

Dirty boys after "helping" us all day and this was before we even got the dirt for the dirt pit.

Then we started to put up a wall inside of the clubhouse so we could paint it.  Here is the before.

After we primed the wall.  Then the boys and I painted the wall on day when Grady was off school.

 These colors are some the colors our house was painted when we bought it.  We left Grady choose which colors to paint each wall.

The completed natural playground and mudpie kitchen.

We picked up two loads of dirt in Keith's truck.

Always Safety First!!                             Before we added the slide.

The slide Reece got for his 2nd Birthday from my parents!!  The boys are LOVING it and it goes fast.

We added a pulley yesterday... will post picture soon.