boring house stuff

not boring to me, but there are no cute pics of kids. this morning i enlisted the muscles of my dad and the babysitting skills of my mom. i borrowed my cousin's truck...though i'm not sure my aunt and uncle would technically call it 'his'...well, i got it and filled it with dirt. and then we proceeded to fill the hole in our backyard. last year, we decided to rip out a hunk of cement in the back driveway b/c it was horribly uneven and we knew no child would be able to play back there. nathan worked like a dog and got the cement out...by hand...but we had waited too long to get dirt and plant the grass so we just had to wait until spring. well, now's the time. it's been raining off and on all morning. it would pour, sprinkle, nothing. pour, sprinkle, nothing. we decided to go ahead with the job and just pray for an open window of dry skies. we finished literally just before a pour session. it was perfect. my dad was shoveling the dirt and i was spreading it and of course he told me i didn't have to and i should take it easy.....which made me want to show him just how much i could do. how could he think i couldn't shovel dirt? am i a weakling? no! i come from hearty stock!! i can do ANYTHING! so i proved him wrong....until i felt a sharp twinge in my side. woops. ok, i'm an idiot. i think i pulled a muscle, but it seems fine now....which is of course, the ONLY reason i'm telling this story. i told my mom about it and she laughed at me...then i told her DO NOT tell dad! haha! what a dork i am!

so i took a pic of the backyard, but i don't have any really good before pics. the yard was full of big evergreen bushes....yuck! and the fenceline was full of tall picker bushes. it's slowly becoming my own cute place. i do have an original shot of the front...in which you can see the hideous evergreen bushes. i've never liked them as yard decor.

our house before we bought it...we got this pic from the realtor.

we've done a lot since we moved in....but there's always something. :) remember that game in highlights magazine? how many differences can you spot?

a close up of my left side flowers. i got the idea for the planter "fountain" from my mom...she's a flower genius. i planted verigated periwinkle in the planter and dahlias in the ground.

i love my little flower bed...nathan put in all those bricks and our new mailbox last year.

ok, i said no kid pics but i found this old one from early spring with a pic of the backyard hole. the grassline was previously full of evergreen bushes lining the way to the garage. there was only a small opening to walk through to the grass. i couldn't believe how many stinkin' bushes were in this yard. and apparently there was once a tree next to the garage! these yards are tiny enough as it is people...give your kids some space to run!

hey, can you guys give me some grass here? i can't play soccer in a hole!

you got it, buddy!

i'm still tearing out flowers from the previous owner. i saved these b/c i wanted to transplant them. i think i'll put them where the dahlias are in the fall. they are tiger lilies and they are a beautiful orange. since they are low maintenance....i'm all about them! seriously though, the whole backyard was full of beautiful flowers. i just didn't know how to take care of any of them and it was obvious that they hadn't been tended to in a while. bottom line: there were WAY too many for my liking.

this whole fenceline was full of picker bushes and peonies and a sickly hosta. i love the symetry of hostas. you can sort of see the back privacy bushes that i trimmed last weekend. that was a beastly job. or as my parents would say...hellacious. right, nic? oh, yeah, and that's the FREE slide connor got. he loves it. putting that beast together was another hellacious experience...i've told that story though.