Grass

Short little blurb on how excited we are that we see green in our front yard! We all go out every day and admire it...like a little pet. It's very fun. :)

Here's also a picture of the great find we had last week. Sam really wanted a comfy chair in his office for those long hours of reading or studying. And last week, a neighbor down the street was getting rid of his recliner for free. After my sister and her friend helped me carry it down the street, our elderly neighbor stopped my sis. He told her what a great chair it had been. How much he loved it. How he originally spent 1200 bucks on it (!!) and how he had taken a lot of naps in that thing over the years.
So here it is - the best deal on a chair I could find.

It even has a back massager!

Thirty is not the new Twenty...at least not to my back!

We broke our backs this weekend!
Over six hours of tearing up our front yard and then waking up to finish the last four square feet (that we just couldn't finish!), raking and leveling, and finishing up with planting seed.
It all started with a little broken sprinkler head...

Just getting started.

Our patchy grass with weeds

Helping Daddy with the first otter pops of the day

I might have started predicting "Only one more hour" right about now...I was so wrong.

Oh no! Did we just break the sprinkler pipes??

Luckily no...we just discovered an old set still in there.

Okay, I am so done right here. This is about five hours in...

Dirt inside my shoes, even.

My fingers hurt...But only one more hour, right?!

How Sam got through the last couple hours of work.

We gave up on this last rock hard section. Watered it and tackled it in the morning.

What we tore out of our yard.

After turning dirt and raking flat

Seeding...hope it grows!

Picture of the tree with all the rocks around it. We are debating taking some of the rocks in our backyard to fill this up some more.

...But I would like a wheel barrel first. This skateboard and bucket did not get the job done while trying to finish clearing the bricks from the front yard.

Another day...

 Sam scraped this fireplace some more on Saturday...will this ever be done?

I will take a picture when we get the first grass sprout!

Another Month ALREADY?

I cannot believe how fast time is flying by. Sam and I discussed today how we have been in our new house for a half a year and we still have so many unfinished projects. I don't think we are feeling upset about it, but just realizing that if we are not deliberate about getting these things done, that pretty soon we will have been in our home for years and still not have an upstairs shower.

Because my hands were giving me some trouble, I abandoned the scraping of the fireplace for a little while. I think I am finally up for it again. So I will have to tackle some more of that this weekend (along with taking the hot tub and deck and old closet doors etc to the dumps...yes, we still need to do that too).

I have to include the picture from our beach day. Besides doing all the house stuff and life, we have to fit in some fun family time too. So it's not all work and no play over here.

 And just because she is so cute, I have to put Rachel's morning potty picture up. Poor girl...but she is sooo cute!

Last week Sam bought a pressure washer and he and the boys spent last weekend fixing it. 

Sam took them to a neat hardware store. There was a lot of interesting things for the boys to see.

Rachel sat so sweetly in the stroller while I worked in the front yard.

I pulled all the weeds and scraped the moss off the bricks in the front. All the bricks will eventually come up and the sand under them will be scooped away...

Then we moved all the rocks from that side area and put them down by the tree by the street.  It looks much better...I forgot to take a picture of it completed.

Sam even mended the fence in the back. About five boards were falling down, to the dismay of our neighbor in back of us. And after having pleasantries with her, I was glad that Sam was able to amend the situation. 

And Rachel thought she needed to come help...

Anyway, this weekend Sam is going to pick up the bullnose tiles for the upstairs bathroom so we know what tiles to order and what board to put up. Then we will order the tiles and start on that project. 

Just moving things around

Did some rearranging yesterday...and cleaning.
But I just wanted to show off my new space in our bedroom. With Rachel in the boy's room now, I was able to set up my easel (Sam bought it for me YEARS ago) and I put one of the tables we were using in the dining area for my desk.  So excited to use it!

I also rearranged our mantle...got some pictures out...trying new things.:) And yes, Ezekiel is about to hit Stephen with that toy when I snapped this picture.

How to cut up your hot tub!

It is amazing what we have accomplished in the last two weeks. Keep in mind that I have three kids under foot when I am busy scraping and cleaning. Rule number one: Make sure you have enough energy to clean up when you are done! So that means that I have to do things in mini sessions. Scrape for two hours, then clean up for thirty minutes. Then scrape off more paint for an hour. Then spend another thirty minutes cleaning up...you get it.

So here is the fire place with all the paint scraping done!

I still need to take a wire brush and see how much more I can get to come off. 

And Sam decided today was the day to start taking out the hot tub.

Ezekiel ran in to get his work gloves (ie snow gloves) and Stephen put on his snowboarding helmet with lab goggles. Had to be ready to help daddy!

And the boys found a snail...the poor guy did not make it to see the end of the hot tub removal, I am sorry to announce.

After Sam took the saw to the hot tub, Ezekiel got to pound that sucker! I will translate what Stephen said after Ezekiel knocked the top off: "My big helmet so me can do that!"

More sawing!

Thanks to a new blade, the rest of the job was relatively easy.

Our backyard now. Coming along.

My hands hurt

So yesterday, I tested the brick I had applied the stripper to the night before and was excited by these results!

But only having applied the stripping agent to the whole fireplace that morning, this was the dismal result I was getting after two hours.

Later in the day I tried again...this took hours!

So I waited until this morning and Sam found me a better tool too!

Ahh! Yes, much better.

This looks like I am just scrapping it and it comes off in big sheets, but in actuality I am pressing with two hands and full body weight (jerking up and down, side to side) to get these results.  Oh my hands hurt.

But I think it will be a good start if I can finish this today.

So here is what I did accomplish yesterday. Finished sanding.

Used a roller this time. Not sure why I didn't try this before. Faster and no more streaks of paint!

Oh yea.

Then I turned and saw my sad front doors. So I had to sand those down and paint them!

Well, wish my wrists, knuckles, fingers, and knees luck today.