Spring Clean

It's been a looooong time since I've done consistent yard work. This spring I worked really hard for more than a week. It was awesome and I loved it. My kids are finally at an age where they can be trusted to play both indoors and outdoors, while I work. Plus my body is stronger and was able to endure days of work in a row without too much soreness!

Avery really enjoyed working too.

A whole new flower bed by the mailbox was a lot more work than I anticipated. Digging out grass and then making holes by a huge tree, is not easy or quick. But we love the results.

 Our garden was tended too. I am afraid not all the transplants were successful :( Time will tell.

We had several trees removed which mostly opened a huge can of worms as the underbrush is more visible now and needs some major attention. Good thing we are done inside the house (at least for awhile)!!

One important lesson learned, it require much less effort and time to trim and destroy, than to load and discard at the dump (with a loaner truck). At one point EJ might have joked I was the Tasmanian devil. 

The exterior of the house got power washed and it motivated me to clean windows. 

This girl, I love her, she helped with such joy.

My view from the kitchen, with dwindling mulch pile in background. 

Ryan loves bugs. Avery loves him. And I love spring (at least before the 2 weeks of rain).

We all FALL down

The older two did not have school today! We stayed home, but EJ joined us for lunch :) The kids were excited for leaf jumping so they were motivated to rake. Having older kids is awesome! Ryan and Avery had a hard time waiting until they said the pile was big enough.

 

 And look what Owen discovered. 

Fortunately, it's WAY up in the tree with no hornets flying around. UGH!

Squirrels Needed

If only I could cook with ALL these acorns. Sure would help the ever-growing grocery budget.

Our Workforce

There will be no shortage of yard crew in this household ;)

Ironically he is wearing the exact same shirt as Owen in my 2008 post. 

Have I really been blogging for 3 years? Crazy!

Mason was hard core. Owen was the same way when he was 4.

He helped...

 

but fiddled with his music A LOT.

 

Not much help, yet!

but so cute :)

Mo' Fun

A few weeks ago, my bro-in law, Alex asked if we'd like to share an aerator rental with them. We said sure, but we don't have a tractor. He volunteered to do it for us and throw down grass seed! Awesome, right?

Well, it gets better. Fast forward to this weekend. It's been raining a lot. EJ needed to mow first. We didn't know how he'd squeeze it in before Alex showed up. No problem, he offered to mow at the same time. EJ was thrilled and secretly hoping I'd see how much faster it was and agree to us buying a riding mower ;) It was SO much faster. Hmm...

The real blessing for ME was that we had more time as a family this weekend to have fun without having to worry about the fall lawn care routine. You see, EJ was gone almost ALL of last week. We ALL missed him. It would have been really tough gearing up for another day without him around. Ryan wouldn't even let him (happily) out of his sight. Thank you Alex and Lissa from the bottom of this mama's heart!

And of course, it must be noted, both boys had a blast riding around the yard. It's not every day a man in fatigues shows up on a mower :)