Growing Up

Well yesterday was a big day in the Nickel household...Daddy finished the bunk beds that he was building for the boys and got them all set up in their bedroom.

They were very excited boys!  Daddy builds strong furniture -- "beefy", he calls it -- so it will survive any beatings they can dish out.  And the older they get, the more they are able to dish out the beatings.  To their toys and furniture, not one another.  At least not yet. 

Of course the real goal in building the bunk beds for them to actually sleep in them...we have been playing "musical beds" as a family for quite some time, and Daddy and Mama are more than ready for a good nights' sleep, in their own bed, without any little visitors.  And we did get that last night.  Whammer didn't come into our room until 5 a.m., which was not too bad.  And Benner didn't come in until about 6:30.  So then we were all together in the Parental Bed until nearly 7 a.m.  Then Mama decided that attempting further sleep was useless, and the coffee was probably ready by then.  I cannot get out of bed unless I know there is coffee waiting for me.  It is just not done.  And my boys know that the first thing that Mama does is get her coffee.  Well, after doling out the chocolate milk.  Which I learned to make the night before, so all I have to do is take the sippy cups out of the fridge, shake, and hand out.  And I grab my yummy coffee creamer while I've got the fridge door open, and then immediately commence the coffee making.  There is nothing like that first cup

But I digress.  (oh, yummy coffee...I am enjoying the second cup right now...)

My husband is a wonderful father. He knows how to include curious boys in his work. He remembers being a curious boy, and how he enjoyed working with his father as a boy (who is now a wonderful Grandpa, by the way) -- so he tries to include them in what he does, as much as is safely possible. So Benner can say that he helped build the bunk bed - and he really did. There are not many 3-nearly-4-year-olds who can say this! But Daddy let him do some drilling, and I-don't-know-what-all-else, and Ben is quite the proud little boy.
Working hard in the garage, just last Sunday.

Putting the bed together in the bedroom, yesterday.

Bry does plan to stain and varnish the bed, but he will wait until the boys and I are in KS for a week next month.

Is it wrong of me to envy him that week, home all alone?  Well yes.  He "lets" me go scrapbooking with my girlfriends -- one weekend each year, one Friday night a month, and they all invade our house one Sunday a month.  My girlfriends and I are scrapbooking addicts and we love it.  And Bry is patiently tolerant of it.  And he never goes mountain-biking (though I keep telling him to do it), or target-shooting (also keep encouraging him to do that), or camping anymore.  So hopefully he'll get some good "me time" while we're away.  In addition to the finishing of the bunk bed. 

What an amazing man. 

I am digressing again.  But at least it's about my hubby, and not coffee this time.

Which, by the way, is now cold.  So I'm gonna go re-heat it.  And get some make-up on my face.  Though Amazing Man tells me that I don't need it.  But he has to say those things.  ;)