The Bench

um, so all three of my little ones are asleep right now... YES! ALL THREE! This NEVER EVER EVER happens! 

June doesn't take naps anymore, Owen is slowly but surly giving them up and Kate isn't quite on a complete set schedule yet, so having all three of them asleep ay the same time is rare. It's under special circumstances... 

June is sick and I told her to go lay on our bed for a bit while I laid Owen down for a nap. After leaving Owen, I went to go give June her iPad to watch for a while and she was out cold. One kid down. Owen was up and out of bed playing with his toys. He was quiet so I left him. I ate lunch and checked the monitor and he had climbed back in bed and fell asleep. Two Down. Kate bounced for a bit and slowly closed her eyes. Success. It is soooooo quiet. I am scared to move! Our house isn't big, so any loud sounds could wake anyone up in an instant. So what better opportunity to sit and blog. 

OK, so now on to the bench.

Dan and I discussed what we were going to do once Kate was old enough to be in a high chair. Our high chair connects to one of our chairs so we will loose one sitting space. And plus when we have people over there isn't enough chairs to go around so we end up pulling out fold out chairs. So we thought a bench would be nice to have. The kids enjoy sitting next to each other and regularly want their chairs on the same side of the table.

 A bench was the plan. Our little four seated table folds out to fit more people, so we knew we wanted a longer bench to fit the full size table when it's out. 

Then we didn't really talk about it much and it sort of got lost in space. 

Well, when I was gone in Colorado for the week, my handy man Dan decided to take it upon himself and build us our own custom bench. 

He bought some more tools to help with the project, measured cut and of course his precision was right on. Such a math man. 

I really should be having him blog this, but he said that he would get home from work, and work on it for most of the night. 

He finished it up and isn't it beautiful!!?! I know that there was more work than what I am telling you. Lot's of notches he had to smooth out or dig out by hand and grooves that he had to grind down. He sanded all of it and notched out the bottom of the bench where the legs are. 

He then stained it and sealed it with protectant stuff. Varnish?! I don't know. But it ended up BEAUTIFUL!!! I seriously was blown away when I pulled into the garage. It just is so awesome and I love that he made it. I am sure once we move we will be getting a bigger table or whatever, but this bench will stay in our house and houses to come forever.  I seriously love it. 

So it's long for just the little table, but when we expand it, the bench fits perfect and it also means we can fit more people around the table without folding chairs! The kids love it too. Owen has been playing trucks on that thing ever since we brought it into the house. It's also very solid! I tried brining it in on my own and couldn't even get it off the ground. So the kids are stable sitting on it! No rocking. 

Thanks Dan, the most amazing husband ever, for building our family our own little bench. He's simply the best!