Phase One of Yard is COMPLETE!

Yeah for that! After a VERY long weekend, we finally finished our front yard on Monday night. Casey has recovered quickly, but I am still exhausted and it has taken me two full days to get caught back up on everything that got shoved aside. BUT, I am very excited to show you what we got done. Here's the juicy details of our "hard at work" weekend on the front yard:

F - Five helping people in our family. Yes, even the kids were helpful. Jake, especially, earned plenty of extra quarters this weekend. We used the work as entertainment for the kids, trying to have fun and work at the same time. Sometimes that was challenging and we weren't all having fun, but most of the time we were successful!

R - Really nice weather. We were pretty lucky to have decent weather. The only day that was questionable was Saturday (the day that we were out there all day long) We were dripping sweat this day...disgusting, but true!

O - Over the budget. I just couldn't help myself! :) Usually I'm so good (Casey would argue on this one and I would argue right back at him) but I will be the first one to admit that I wasn't so good this time. We had a ton of plants from the front yard to transplant somewhere, so we added them to the backyard. The thought of starting something in the backyard and not finishing it was driving me crazy, so I snuck out to run some errands and bought more for the backyard, just to finish the flower beds. He wasn't happy at first, but he got over that when he saw how nice it looked!

N - Neighbors wondering why in the world we didn't hire this out. Hmmmm....because I would rather spend money on plants and trees, than labor that we are completley capable of doing on our own. Everyone around here hires work out...yard, house cleaning, putting Christmas decorations up, whatever they need. I don't have anything wrong with doing that if it's that important for you to spend money on that way, but I think it's good to get your hands dirty doing your own work, especially for the kids to learn. I shouldn't even get started on this subject.

T - Thankful we are done and can enjoy it for awhile, until we start Phase Two!

Y - Young guy with a yard business, stopped by to talk to Casey (I'm sure looking for us to hire his crew). He ended up helping us load up all the grass Casey dug up and hauling it off for us (with a fee, of course) but, we were so grateful for that because we had no plan on what to do with all this grass, so he really helped us out and we were glad he stopped by.

A - Approximately 28 hours spent working in the yard last week.

R - Ridiculous amount of trips to the nursery and Home Depot. I can say now that I really can't stand Home Depot. I've never really loved that place, but now I really don't like it! I did find an awesome nursery that I love...yeah!

D - "Don't spray your brother with the hose again!!" Most of the time, this was part of the entertainment, but it got old when Drew would cry becuase he got wet again and Jake would be laughing his evil brother kind of laugh! Drew hates to be wet, so he was constantly running inside to change his clothes...my poor house and my laundry basket!!

Here's some pictures. Beware: There are a TON of pictures. You can just scroll through it really fast. I couldn't leave any of them out...too much hard work went in to all of it!

Details of the front yard:

I missed having our front porch and we had the furniture for it from our old house, so I got creative and made one up.

I love this new tree we planted and can't wait for it to grow and shade our house. Grow baby, grow...that's what I tell everything in our yard everytime I go out and give it some lovin!

We didn't plan on doing anything to the backyard, so it's a HUGE bonus, but we love it. We didn't have anything planted in the back at all, just grass. Here's what we did:

That's all! Now you know what we've been up to and why I haven't blogged for awhile. I'm dedicating this post to my husband, who's also our blogs biggest fan. He was waiting so patiently for me to post our pictures and see all of his hard work. He has asked me atleast twice every day since Monday night. So, here they are Casey and good job! Now I'm going to go wake him up so he can read it, since it's midnight and I'm just finishing. He'll love me! :)