Washing your kids in the front yard

I think that's the strategy I should just go with now.  After all, I now have a handy dandy ginormous kid wash taking up half my garage that I can pull out to soak, sponge, rinse and buff them with!

I owe a great deal of my craftiness as a mom to Family Fun magazine.  I've subscribed for years and I always look forward to the fun and creative suggestions they have for crafts and family projects.  I keep a binder of all the articles that catch my eye, and the kid wash has been sitting in my binder for several years now.

Every summer I look at the instructions and envision the trip to the hardware store for all the pvc pipes and fittings required, and I quickly move on to the next project.  Not this year.

This year my kids are starting year-round school, so their summer break is quite abbreviated.  With the addition of a family trip thrown into our short break, I knew I only had one good solid week to just play with and enjoy m kids, who just refuse to stay small!  So I'm looking through my binder and there's the kid wash.  Staring at me. Daring me.

"Come on, Mom.  You can do it!  Build me!  Raise the bar and have no regrets." (because my goal is to eventually do everything in that binder...).

So off to the hardware store we went, instructions in hand.  We bought 80 feet of pvc pipe.

We bought twenty-six assorted pvc joints, caps and adaptors.

We bought three giant sponges.

I came home and cut pipes with a hacksaw on a makeshift sawhorse that involved a ping-pong table, a dumpster and a plastic storage crate.

I drilled holes in pipes and fit pieces together one by one.

By one, by one.

And by early evening our kid wash was done.  But it was also storming.  So our test run would have to wait 'til morning.

So we got up early, dragged the contraption from the garage to the lawn and got the hose.  And the hose did not fit the adaptor.  We'd had a setback.  And it was 1000-degrees outside and the kids were crying bcause the hose wouldn't connect and I was not looking forward to dragging everyone back to the hardware store.  Because it would add the expense of a new hose.  But I packed up the kids and I even remembered to pack the little hose adaptor piece to test out with new hoses.

If you can't tell from the pictures, we got the water running.  I found a hose adaptor that would make our own hose work, and I felt very clever and handy!

We had other small setbacks, with pipes coming apart from joints and me losing my cool about it (becuase it was NOT cool outside and I wasn't getting wet because I had the big camera out there). Several times the whole thing collapsed on it's side, but we solved the problem by keeping a rubber mallot on hand for quick repairs.  Becuase kids will be kids, and they just can't help but put their hands all over kid wash!

It was a drinking fountain,

a dog track,

a wagon wash,

and a shower. And it was a small way to show just how much I love these kids.

So bring it on, Family Fun magazine!  I will fear nothing in your pages now.  If I can tackle pvc pipes with a hacksaw and find success, there are no July 4 crafts, back-to-school projects or Labor Day acvitities I can't handle! I'll be eagerly awaiting the next issue, because my binder needs some new material. :)