The Bates Family: 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: