Backyard Renovation

It has taken us four years to do it, but we finally had all of the overgrown debris and mess cleared out of our backyard. Half of our backyard was unusable because there were huge old tree stumps, briars, copious amounts of ivy, bamboo, and random overgrown bushes and trees filling the space. It took a crew of 5 men two days and 5 dump truck loads to clear everything out, cut down a few trees, and get us as close as they can to being able to plant grass and spread mulch. They did let me know that they found two pretty dangerous areas that they were able to fix- one was a collapsed downspout drain that left a sizable hole that Taylor or Baxter could have fallen into. Another really scary risk was an old metal barrel that was buried in the ground filled 3 feet with water. The top was half way off. It gives me chills to think what would have happened if Taylor or Baxter would have accidentally fallen in. No worries now though. Everything was fixed and filled in!! My hat is off to Monte Gant's tree service!! We are very excited that we now have a safe place for Baxter and Taylor to play!! Now we just have to find out how green our thumbs are. We have never started grass or a vegetable garden from "scratch" before.

Before:



ahhhhh....After:

Gatti Town

Taylor had his first Gatti Town experience on Saturday night. We ventured over to Gatti Town to meet up with Sarah, her mom, her aunt, and the incredibly adorable Emily. We were there for two hours and Taylor had the time of his life! He actually cried when we had to leave. Of course he cried- we rode the carousel, the monster truck, the trolley, the dragon, and ate pizza (while watching a movie). What little boy would not be upset leaving all of that? I took the camera with me, but Murphy's law kicked in and both sets of batteries were dead. I managed to squeeze just enough juice out of one set to capture three or four pictures- nothing spectacular, but enough to capture the moment. Needless to say, Taylor slept until 8:00 the next morning! Thanks for a great evening, girls!

A few fun pictures

Here are a few fun pictures from yesterday's adventures outside. I wish the weather would always be this perfect on weekends!

Tooties, peas

In case you didn't understand the title, "Tooties, peas" I can translate for you. This is Taylor talk for "cookies please." Tonight at dinner, we told Taylor that he could have two cookies if he ate two more bites of his banana and most of his dinner. Well, surprisingly enough, he pulled through and did it! I just had to take a video of him asking for two cookies. So cute. I am also including a few "construction" pictures from this afternoon. Taylor has this fascination with hats these days. He will occassionally wear his safari or army hat, but most of the time he prefers his construction hat. Too cute!

Snow!

After seeing buds on trees and daffodils popping up everywhere, I truly did not think that we were going to see snow this winter. Therefore, I was in complete awe when I saw those beautiful giant drops of snow falling on Sunday evening. We immediately bundled up Taylor and Baxter and headed outside. We all were in love with the snow immediately! We were not, however, in love with the fact that our power went out at about 8:30 that evening. We made the best of it though and it actually turned out to be quite fun! We made fires, cooked pancakes on the grill (which were actually fabulous!), and played a lot in the snow. At around lunch time, we realized that 51 degrees INSIDE is just not liveable. So, we headed over to my parents toasty house. We are so fortunate that they live close by! By the time our power was restored and we were back home, Taylor was completely wiped out. It had been a jam packed day for him! Take a look at the photos below. Dave and Taylor were so cute together. I can tell that we have a future snow boarder on our hands. He was fearless as Dave took him down the slight incline in our backyard. I think that we may need to plan a ski trip for next year. Dave needs a ski buddy anyway. I am not too fun to be with since he spends his entire time helping me up and looking for my lost ski poles and missing ski!