Our House: Before and After

This weekend was all about cleaning up our yard. Since no one had lived in the house for so long (and no one had ever owned the home--only rented), the yard was a DISASTER! The rose bushes had taken over everything, and there was layers and layers of leaves in the flower beds.

Of course, Allen wanted to jump right to the power tools. And, yes, I know this is incredibly unsafe. Trust me, I voiced my opinion many times. He wasn't listening.


To give you an idea, here is a before picture of the front, left side of the house:

And, here is an after picture:

Let me just say, I have no idea why whoever built this house decided to put in the prickliest plants ever! My arms are covered in rose bush scratches and holly tree (they are too big to be bushes) pricks! We probably bagged at least 7 huge lawn bags just from that one flower bed.

Then, it was break-time. I brought out popsicles and everyone took a load off to recuperate!

N0 rest for the weary though! We had to work on the left entry-driveway flowerbed next. Here is a before picture of it:

And, here is an after picture. We bagged about 10 huge lawn bags full of leaves, dead plants, and trimmings from this bed. And, yes, I know the driveway needs to be blown off, but we have no gas for the blower yet.


This morning we got up at 6:15 (thanks to our human alarm clocks) and headed outside to work on the last bed in front of the garage. I don't have before and after pictures of it because I was too groggy from going to bed really late and waking up way to early. But, I had to get a shot of the kids, who I bribed with the sprinkler and huge candy canes. Can't you tell they are working hard?

Here is a shot of Braedyn. He insisted he needed goggles for the sprinkler (yes those are tool goggles, but he was happy) and a floaty (no clue why he needed that)!

So here are the "official" before and after shots. Although, I have to say looking at them I am not as impressed as I am in person. Just trust me, we have over 20 huge garbage bags full of stuff in our garage. It is a huge difference!

Before:

After:

Next weekend we have to tackle the weed infested, horrid looking lawn. Wish us luck!

Life in Arkansas

Well, we are still digging out of boxes, but the kids can only take so much. So, today we headed outside for a little bike riding on the driveway. They had a blast!

Here is B-Man on his new bike:

And, my fearless princess was taking hairpin turns around my car on two wheels:

While the kids were riding around we had some visitors. They came waddle-running toward us from the pond across the street. Obviously, they are not scared of the kids. They were right next to us, so close in fact a couple of times Braedyn screamed and grabbed my legs. Check out the video:

Happy Birthday Braedyn!

Our little man is TWO! It is so hard to believe, but Braedyn is no longer a baby--he is a big boy! Here he is right before he blew out his candles. He loved is razorback cake!



Here is a short video of us all singing to him:



Can you tell he loved eating it? I thought he would dig right in with his hands, but he didn't want to get his hands dirty. So, he just leaned in with his face!


Here is a video of him in action:

After the party we gave him his big boy bike. He did just great pushing it along!

Then, the whole gang hit the street for a little whiffle ball!

It was such a great day! Special thanks to Grandma and Grampa for all the help with the party. We have been so swamped with moving that it was great to have you both get everything set for his important day!