today, when we were rained out of our plans, the kids and i decided to visit the hardware store. more exciting to wyatt than “plain old” craft supplies, he thrives in aisle after aisle of drawers filled with nuts, bolts, nails, screws, hooks and eyes, wire, and so forth. while browsing the endless selection of supplies, we decided on three projects: a ladder, a dollhouse/tree-house and a train.

once home, we raided two great wood sources: cris’s leftovers from all of his man projects and the wood pile. we found pre-finished floor boards, hemlock, pine and maple in his stash and a few small logs in the wood-bin. wyatt got his tool box from the basement, and we were set to build! while we didn’t get to the train today, we did finish a small ladder for dolls, as well as this house. once completed, wyatt decided we should nail down the crane he just built from a thrift store kit. so much better than the dollhouse we bought, and there’s still room to add more to it!

now, back to cleaning and unpacking from our weekend away! more on that later this week…