Halloween

by Ruby went as a "City fashion girl", Lucy was a spider witch and Keaton was a puppy dog. We had dinner with our friends the Jensens and then went trick or treating with them.  Poor Haley was home doing homework, but she scored tons of candy when we got home.

Fall colors!

The fall colors are blowing me away this year!

Witchalina

Even if it means my kids sometimes have cotton candy for breakfast... We still LOVE Witchalina!

Field trip

I went with Lucy's class on a field trip to the science museum.  It is such a fun place and the kids all had a great time. I'm not sure why I thought going with Keaton would be a good idea... it was a little crazy.

Clubhouse tour

The clubhouse (AKA Eric's Hurst Castle) is finally complete. The longer Eric worked on it the more things got added. When all was said and done it has a wrap around porch, a balcony off the second floor, functioning windows, electricity, air conditioning, a TV and wood flooring.

 Eric made sure the porch light matched the one on our real house (the one we live in). 

He built a custom bay window

and made the doors

Downstairs

The stairs

The top of the stairs and door to the upstairs deck.

Keaton on the deck

This is were the girls watch TV and eat all the stuff they don't want me to know they are eating (but I find the wrappers).

Ruby sewed all the curtains for the house

Other side of the upstairs room

Side note... these are the colors the girls choose to use in the clubhouse. I was worried they were way too bright but I held my tongue because this is their house. They decided what would get painted with a lot of passionate debate and discussion and tears (of course my girls would never fight). The only thing I encouraged was painting the doors red instead of green. Overall they did a great job decorating and Eric did an absolutely amazing job building it.

Building the club house

If Eric were not a doctor, I'm sure he would be a woodworker. If he were not a woodworker, I'm sure he would drive a bobcat. 

He rented a bobcat for the day and he was just giddy. He leveled the ground and dumped in all the gravel for the foundation.

Eric had been cutting and building pieces and assembling the framing in the garage all winter (2010). When he finally started putting his pieces together outside it was the rainy season so we had to keep it covered with huge tarps. It was quite a challenge to keep it covered when it got windy, but we did.

He was able to put the core of the house together fairly quickly (a few weeks) but the roof was a killer. There are so many angles and difficult roofing skills needed to roof this, Eric spent a lot of time on Youtube learning how. The roof took several hours and days to do. I was pretty sure he was going to fall and die so every day he was roofing was very nerve racking.

We paid a painter to come and spray the entire house inside and out with primer. He also sprayed the inside white, the front bright blue and the back the same color as out real house (so our neighbors would not complain). All the other painting the girls and I did.

Ruby and Lucy helped paint the inside and Haley helped paint the gingerbread on the outside.  There was so much painted and so many cans of paint I thought it would never be done.

The girls picked out the color scheme they wanted in side. Haley picked out all the fabric to cover all our mis-matched body pillows, bean bags and the futon. Ruby even sewed all the curtains.

We picked up several pieces of clubhouse sized furniture. This one we bought from a friend and painted it neon yellow. The other pieces Eric scored at a garage sale.

Most of the windows he ordered on line, but he made the bay window, front door window and windows on each side of the door.  

Eric put a lot of time and thought into everything. He wanted to make sure the kids would love it and use it. I'm sure they will.

To think that all this started with a 2 1/2 in stack of papers (the plans) and 5 pallets of supplies from Lowes.  Eric was able to negotiate a discount on the supplies by purchasing them all at the same time and having it delivered to our house. 

Since the clubhouse is all complete now, I will post the after photos soon!