The FINISHED backyard!!!!!!

We officially have a FINISHED backyard. Having a 1/3 acre has been a challenge to get landscaped due to the size and cost. We've almost been in the house 3 years and have finally been able to get the backyard done. YEAH!!! We used a landscaping company do do most of the work. Aaron, his sister, & myself put together the playground. Aaron & our home teacher put the sand in the sandbox. And then Aaron and about 12 people from our neighborhood installed the sod in about 80 minutes on Saturday morning. It was such a huge blessing to have so much help. The kids have been in heaven since yesterday. I literally had to drag Logan in kicking and screaming last night when it was time to eat dinner and get ready for bed. After church this morning and naps after lunch - the kids went right out back to play. We have had pleasant temps and it has been nice to open up the windows, turn the TV off, and play outside to our hearts content. As an added bonus, Aaron & I got the garage cleaned out yesterday. I invested in some inexpensive shelves and utitlity hooks to get things more organized. It looks fabulous!!

Kaya was right.....

I had another ultrasound today and the doctor declared that we would be adding another girl to our family! The baby has turned head down (yeah!!) and everything looks healthy and well. I got a nice DVD with the recorded ultrasound, but only got 1 printed picture that isn't even too clear. I will be 25 weeks tomorrow and my due date will be August 7th. Kaya has been SO adamant since day 1 that she would be getting a baby sister that I am especially happy for her. She tells everyone that "Mommy's going to have my baby sister so that I can get bunk beds!" Silly girl!! We're just happy to know that everything is healthy and progressing at it should be.

What you can kind of see is that the baby is facing to the left. You can see a little bit of the head, the arm extended out and the baby's knee is bent like she's squatting. On the regular part of the ultrasound, I could see her nose really well. It looks just like Kaya's & Logan's!! So much fun!!

Her Mother's Daughter

I was asked to make an arrangment today for work for a special delivery this afternoon. Due to the timing, I needed to make it at home. While Logan napped, I got to work with the flowers in the kitchen. Kaya loves flowers just as much as I do and wanted to watch. Kaya kept asking if she could have some flowers for herself. Since these are for work, I was only able to give her some of the scraps. I did think to give her an extra piece of oasis foam so that Kaya could make her own arrangement. This is what Kaya came up with:

Not too bad for an almost 4 year old. Maybe this new style will catch on! She kept asking if I thought her arrangment was beautiful. Then she asked if Daddy would think it was gorgeous. She is quite proud of the arrangment she made. Here's a picture of what I did:

Quick Update

Heather & the kids just got back from a trip to California to visit all the grandparents. The digital camera got left at home so we'll have to bum some pictures off our family for the blog. We had a good time visiting family and going to the beach. They had records temps in the 90's while we were there! It was awesome! Our yard is about 90% done. It just needs sand in the sandbox and grass. I won't bore you with more pictures though. We'll just put some up of the finished product. Before flying out to CA, Heather had to do corsages & boutonnieres for the local High School Jr. Prom for work. She ended up doing close to 40 corsages and 40 boutonnieres - ALL BY HERSELF. For those who know, that really is a lot of work. This is the 3rd formal dance she's done since working at the grocery store and each dance, the orders have about doubled. Word is getting out! She's going to have to get help for the next dance. The kids are doing well and are getting excited for warmer weather. It snowed again last night. Ugh. We definitely need the moisture but we are so ready for warmer weather. Heather goes back to the doctor for another ultrasound on Tuesday. Hopefully we'll have some fun pictures to post of the new baby for next week! Anyhow - that's it from this end. Hope all is well with your families!!

Trees Trees Wonderful Trees!!

It's still not much to look at yet and pictures are kind of hard to see, but our backyard now has trees & shrubs. The playground also has the bark for the kids to play safely. The grow boxes are done and just need to have the rest of flagstone placed around the perimeter. We're supposed to get rain/snow starting this afternoon through tomorrow and we will start drying out on Friday. The first of next week, they'll add the concrete curbing, mulch, finish the sprinklers, and then hopefully by the end of the week, we'll be able to install our sod. Woo Hoo!! It's coming along. We are all so excited!!!

You're kidding.....Right?????

So this is what we woke up to this morning. SNOW!!!! We weren't totally shocked since we watched the weather last night, however, it was still a suprise to see that it really did snow and we WON'T be playing outside today. We're supposed to get a break tomorrow and then get a bigger storm in on Wed/Thurs. Then....according to the weather folks, we should be moving into more Spring-like weather. Can you believe it? The weather here in Utah is CRAZY!!!

Priceless

Build it yourself playground set - $1500
27 total man hours to build @ 10$/hr - $270
Crummy lunch for 2 at the new "Dooner's" restraunt - $15
Having Kaya say "Thanks for building the best playground ever!"

*****Priceless*****

Aaron, Heather, & Aaron's sister Wendy teamed up on Saturday to put together the playground we purchased for the backyard. The sales people told us it should take 2 people about 2 hours to build. The guy who delivered the set said that would probably take us about 4 hours. Um...yeah. It only took 3 of us approximately 9 hours to put the blasted thing up. The directions were about as clear as mud and we braved some cold and windy weather to get it done on our alotted day before the landscapers come back to work on the yard. The kids were absolutely thrilled with the end result and after all the cuss words and everything was said and done, we had the self satisfaction of doing it ourselves.

Here are some pictures:

We have PROGRESS!!!

We are finally getting our backyard landscaped!! It'll be 3 years in July since we moved in. We've had a long winter with lots of snow here in Utah and the kids are ANXIOUS to get outside and play. The front yard just doesn't offer enough safety and protection from the street and Logan likes to just "take off". He LOVES being outside as much as Kaya does and getting our backyard finished this year was a must. The sprinkler pipes are layed and they built the playground area yesterday. Our swingset gets delivered tomorrow and we'll work on putting that together this weekend. Today they are building our vegetable garden boxes and spreading top soil. We are going to build a sandbox for the kids on the side of the house. By the end of next week we should have trees, bushes, sod, concrete curbing, and a finished backyard. Woo Hoo!!!

Close-Up of the play ground area for the swing set. It will be filled in with weed barrier fabric and soft fall play bark.

View of the backyard looking East.

Kaya sitting in the tractor.

Logan in the tractor.