How to build a water table.

My son is always making messes in the bathroom sink. The kid literally goes for the water everyday. I decided it was time for a water table. Both of our boys are having birthdays soon, so we thought it would be a great joint gift. Water tables run anywhere from 30 dollars to 100's of dollars for big fancy ones. I looked online and it seemed I could do it myself. So I did.

Go to your favorite lumber type store. And get the following:
1) All purpose square or rectangle tub with lips around the edges. *
2) 2x4 8feet to 10 feet long
3) 2x6 8feet to 10 feet long

* Word of caution. Make sure your tub is not very deep. This will discourage the kids from climbing in and such. My tub is 6 inches deep with fits perfect with the 2x6 wood. Also never leave kids unattended when playing with water.

The tube should tell you how big it is. For example, mine said 26x20. So i cut the long pieces 26" and then measured for the short side pieces. For the legs, just figure out how tall you want the table. I measured chest high on my smallest kid. It was 21 inches. So that is how tall I made my table. The just screw the legs to the sides of the table. Viola!

There is no bottom to the table. The four sides make a frame and the tub just sits in it. You can easily remove the tub for cleaning. If you really wanted to you could drill through the plastic tub and screw it in place on the table. We are planning to paint this to seal it. You could also use a varnish sealant if you had nice looking natural wood.

Costs: I spent 7.50 on the tub, 3.50 on the wood 2x6 and had free 2x4's from a salvaged pallet.

Jameson Picnic

This past week was the 119th Annual Jameson Picnic. It is a small town festival that my hometown has every year. It is becoming a tradition with my kids as well.

Every year since 3 Gioia has performed in the talent show. This year she sang "In a world of my own" from Alice in Wonderland. The difference this year, was it was the first time she didn't win. This year she was in the 7-12 age group and she is 7. I sang also this year "You were meant for me" by Jewel. There were only two people in my class so I won second, $15 dollars.

Luca was also in the baby show contest and Dominic was in the Little Mister contest. Luca won, Dominic did not. I was super excited though. All my kids have now won the baby show once in there lives there. Gioia won when she was 13 months. Dominic won when he was 11 months. I don't have picture of Luca with his trophy because it was raining. In fact, the rain was pouring so hard they had to postpone the baby show for an hour. Then when it got started again it was under the food tent.

My mom was having some work done on their basement wall. So there was heavy machinery and construction going on. The boys found an awesome pile of gravel to have a great time in.


We took Max with us. He and Jackie (my parents dog) get along great. Jackie keeps him in line and loves to wrestle with him. Max was an awesome traveler in the car. He made no noise other than playing with his toy. He also didn't puke or potty in the car. So we were happy.

New Doghouse!

Every since moving out here to the country, we have needed a doghouse. At our last house we had a dog door in the garage, but this garage is brick and concrete so there is no where to cut a dog door. Besides, we are in the country, they are dogs, GO OUTSIDE!!! HA HA!! Now that my husband has found a free supply of great pallets, (some pine, some even hardwoods) we have a large to-do construction list. First up was the Doghouse.

Basically, it is two solid pallets for the floor. Two for each side and back. Then the front was pallets cut into the appropriate size sections. A couple pallets for the roof (again cut to fit). Then some miscellaneous boards for the trim pieces. Finally tin and a tin roof cap for the roof. Every bit of this was free (pallets and tin). For paint we did purchase paint. We got a 5 gallon bucket of Red Barn paint. The trim paint was also free, leftover from our house trim paint. So total cost around $5-$10 for paint.

We will be doing something similar on a larger scale when we build the chicken coop.