I went back to the garage Friday night to create some more Muppet magic. I had such a surprisingly good time painting Floyd, Animal and Dr. Teeth a few weeks ago that I decided to do it again and paint the rest of the Electric Mayhem band. I was just sitting out in the garage drinking a couple beers, listening to some good music, had my baseball on MLB.TV with the volume down, and just went to work on Janice, Zoot, and Lips. Several hour later I emerged with these gems. Not to zoot my own horn (ha ha) but Zoot turned out really dang good. Lips looks pretty good too but he sorta looks dead or passed out. But hey, that’s pretty much what he looks like. I have intentions of doing six more of these… Kermit, Fozzie, Piggy, Gonzo, Scooter, and Sweetums. I thought about doing six more after that (Sam the Eagle, Bunsen, Beaker, Rowlf, Camilla, and Rizzo) but Lauren thinks 18 paintings for Johnny’s bedroom could be overkill.

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Janice, Zoot, and Lips. Several months ago I definitely would not have known the names of Zoot and Lips. But I kinda got into the Muppets as much as Johnny lately.

Johnny’s birthday presents just kept rolling in this week! He received cash from great grandma Bell, an awesome ride-on CAT digger from great-aunt alice and great grandma Joyce, a Cubs t-shirt, coloring book, and jean jacket from Lauren’s uncle Dave and aunt Jodi and cousins Brian and Jenna, and a Step2 playhouse from Daddy and Momma. We are fairly overwhelmed by the number of gifts coming in and have decided to put away a bunch of his older toys for a while!

I was able to come close to putting the finishing touches on that playground area. Let’s take a moment and try to remember what that area looked like previously. Not too horrific, but those above-ground planters were of no use to us, and the wood was very rooted. They needed to go.

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The previous back corner of the backyard was inhabited by two rotted above-ground planters. Nice at one time, but no longer very useful.

After ripping those planters out by hand and clearing a ton of dirt, I was able to lay down some mulch. And now…

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My hard labors have paid off… Johnny has a nice play area!

This is the first true self-accomplished home improvement. We had the hardwood floor put in and lots of new appliances installed and rooms painted, but this one I did by hand and worked my ass off doing it. May not seem like that big of a deal but it took 3-4 hours per weekend for 3-4 months!

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WIPEOUT! Johnny gets a little carried away going around the corner on his new Harley trike.
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Momma and Johnny easily fit together into my comically large shirt I ordered on Macy’s for less than $5 just to get my order over $50 in order to save over $20.
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Johnny loves his new CAT digger! Just needs to grow into it. Give it a month or two.
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Ride-on-toy overload. John Deere, CAT, beagle, and Harley Davidson. What’s a boy to choose?
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Typical… Saturday morning driving practice. If this was rural SD I’d totally let him try. But… it’s the 12th largest city in the US, so no.
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I STUPIDLY let Johnny do this to me. Yes he let go and it snapped me in the eyes and it HURT. What was I thinking…
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Johnny, Baxter and Momma all try out the new playhouse we picked up at Toys R Us today. I wanted to go for a bigger playground type thing but this won out!
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Dude loves his new outdoor play area.
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What else are you gonna do sitting in a shopping cart for an hour? Make us laugh!