Glosser Chronicles: April Review

April was a flurry of fun events for the Glosser family. We were SO. BUSY. But, as usual, it was all worth it and we had a great time in the midst of it. My husband celebrated his induction into a new decade -- yep, the big 3-0. We had two family weddings to attend -- my brother-in-law and my husband's cousin -- and we had children involved in both! My baby seester had a birthday, we started prenatal classes at the hospital where I'll be delivering, there was a school musical, and, of course (and certainly not the least), Easter. All that on top of the regularly scheduled chaos happenings made for busy & tired; however, they were landmark moments that deserve attention and reflection. I want to share a snapshot with you:

I LOVE our local public library! We try to attend preschool
story time about once a month (sometimes more in the summer),
and the kids & I check out our monthly allotment of books afterward.
Recently, they've made a lot of changes to the children's section
and it's just incredible. I know I'm a little biased, but if you
haven't checked out the South Side Des Moines Public Library
you should!

Buddy Boy likes all things aquatic right now, so he was way
excited to play with the shark & octopus puppets in the puppet theater!

We just learned that our big girl is old enough to have her own
library card! She was super pumped to take it home with her.

We had a blast once again with our monthly Nature Club
at the Brenton Arboretum in Dallas Center. It's quite a drive for us
but it is so informative and fun! It's been well worth it so far. April
had us checking out the pond there. We found insects, larvae, snails,
small fish, and even some tadpoles!
 

This girl and her shoes... I think she was meant to be a woodland
creature of some sort. She is definitely most happy when she's outdoors.

My brother-in-law's wedding was a wonderful day. I'm so proud of my two little flower girls & my handsome ring-bearer! (My husband did a pretty outstanding job as a groomsman too... and dang, doesn't he look good all spiffed up?) We are so happy we could be a part of such a special day. (photos courtesy of Austin Day @ Photography by Austin Day)

A fun roadside display put up by our Des Moines Public Works Dept.
downtown for Earth Day. This mom was just a little excited about it...
"It's the Lorax!! Everybody out of the van!"

Catching our first baseball game of the season with the I-Cubs.

Just one of the fun Easter activities the kids got to participate in:
Easter egg hunt at Grandma & Grandpa's.

Here's my big girl with her cousin, the ring bearer, at my cousin-in-law's wedding...
Ok, I can't get over how beautiful & grown up my sweet little Bubbaloo is! I mean, come on. Aren't these just adorbs?
This was her second stint as a flower girl this month, and I truly believe she'd do it every month. She has such a great time! (photo courtesy of Meg Blunk @ Capri Photography by Meg)

Spring! The best look of the season is all of the life sprouting
and blossoming. Ahh, just breathe it in.

Obviously, I'm a tad behind in posting... Just getting April's review up when the end of May is right up ahead? Yikes. I hope to get May up soon (like before June), but we'll see what happens. :)

In case you didn't know, I'm currently 9 months pregnant with our fourth child! Our new little ray of sunshine is due to appear sometime around June 11th, but I feel like she (yep, GIRL) might make her debut a little sooner. Hence, I have been all rush, rush, rush to get prepared. For some odd reason I haven't had the drive to get things done this time around. With only two weeks to go, I literally just packed my hospital bag yesterday. (Well, it's mostly packed anyway.) And we don't even have a car seat yet. (Don't worry! It's on its way & should arrive by Friday... at least that's what I keep telling myself.) Maybe it's because this pregnancy has flown by so quickly? I always feel like I have more time... Well, not always. That feeling is definitely gone now!



I'd appreciate your prayers as we finish getting ready for our little one -- there's still so much to do! Pray for a smooth & safe delivery, a peaceful transition from three munchkins to four, and strength & energy for this mama to pull through those difficult first few weeks of adjusting to a newborn's schedule.

DIY Lego Table {with IKEA LACK}

You may remember back in my March Review that my hubby & I took a trip to Minnesota over spring break. On that trip we stopped at my shopping mecca: IKEA. We were purchasing some smaller organization items and decor for our kids' "new" rooms... and of course a little more than that. I mean, if you only get one trip a year to shop at your favorite store in the world, you have to make the most of it, right? :)
Along with the rest of creation, our kids are really into Legos right now, but they're not allowed to bring them downstairs (because the dog likes to eat all things toy-related). But, in case you've never tried it, it's really difficult to build on carpet! So we had this great idea to create a Lego table like this one here: Lego Meets Lack, but on a smaller scale to suit our space.
They've not been collecting too long, so we don't have massive quantities of little blocks all over the place, nor are there tons of any one color -- just a few kits here and there -- which actually translates into millions of the tiniest bricks and buttons known to man. (Thanks, Lego, for all those ridiculous teensy squares, circular pieces, & flowers to "decorate" with that are now the bane of my existence.) But we don't need a ton of storage space for Legos... yet.

For our intent & purpose, we decided to go with a smaller, inexpensive LACK side table. We have a couple white ones in our home already and have used them as living room end tables, coloring tables, kids' dining when we have guests over, etc., so we new they'd cut the mustard for this project too. We picked birch effect for the kids' space.

LACK side table, birch effect ($9.99)

After our mini-spree at IKEA, we crossed the road to the Mall of America to visit the infamous Lego store. My husband picked out a small bucket of blocks in specific colors (not sure if these were more for him or the kids...) and I grabbed some baseplates for building. The plates are 10"x10" and four plates fit perfectly on the top of the LACK table, so we chose to get three green and one blue. You know, land and water. :)
NOTE: The building plates are $4.99/each pretty much everywhere, so, if you don't have a Lego store near you, you can still order them online. (I love Amazon for all things shopping online.)

(affiliate links)

Then came the long journey home. I may have been a bit on the tired side for that leg of the trip, and things can get kind of weird when I'm tired... at least right before I crash. I guess I'm kind of like a toddler in that sense. Hmm. Maybe that should disturb me. I think it disturbs my husband... but I digress. After a brazen show of car dancing, karaoke, voracious junk-food snacking to refuel, and crash power nap, we were home! Then came my second favorite part: assembly.

Now, I'm not going to lie and say that I got everything put together straight away. I mean, it was late by the time we finally reached our humble abode and there were three children to consider. So the project may or may not have lain like this in our office-in-progress for a few days...

However, as I have previously shared, I eventually get up the gumption to start and/or finish something, and so, naturally, I began by assembling the table.

Then I whipped out my handy-dandy glue gun & simply hot-glued the four baseplates on like so:

And voila! A completely finished DIY Lego Table all in about one hour, and it only cost about $30.

The kids have LOVED it! It currently resides in my son's room and all three children use it almost every day. 

**In full disclosure, I should mention that the hot glue did not hold up more than a month. I'm not sure if the glue was just not hot enough to make a good bond, if it was the surfaces being adhered, or what, but with so much regular use the building plates came off the table top. Thankfully, there is no damage to the table or the baseplates, so I think it can be easily remedied. Maybe I'll try craft spray adhesive (definitely more messy & permanent) or just use 3M mounting putty (less work and temporary/movable). In the meantime, my kids aren't complaining. They just keep building as if nothing is wrong!**

We keep the Legos in one of the larger plastic storage tubs (Brick Box) that we bought the girls' for Christmas. I have all the kit manuals in the smaller Brick Box we got for our son. Both boxes tuck neatly under the table with plenty of room to spare.

I hope you get to try out something similar for your household's Lego play and storage! Let me know what you come up with... there are TONS of great ideas online! Just Google "Lego table" and be amazed at the plethora of DIY options that come up.

Happy building!