This is how the yard looked when we first saw our Cedar house. Do you see how the front yard is fenced off from the rest of the yard? Ya. We tore that fence down to open everything up. There were a few other fence moves to make the yard one giant cage for the children to roam.

This is what the rest of the 1/2 acre looked when we saw it for the first time. They just had the one small patch of grass in the front and one in the back. We wanted grass over the entire lot. We also wanted a HUGE garden. So our first summer in the house we set everything up to be on a sprinkler system. Jon spent a long time digging up the front yard to put a valve box in so we didn’t have to hand water.

We had BIG plans. Then I got pregnant with Kaylee and then with Regan, and was useless for almost 2 years of yard work. In that time Jon started his company and was WAY too busy to do much more that mow the bit of grass we had. We did however plant gardens.

And since I was busy being on bed rest, nursing, chasing a toddler, then more bed rest/nursing….. Well I didn’t have time/energy to weed our HUGE garden. Jon was JUST as busy with a new company/new babies. SOooo my awesome Dad and brother would come up and attempt to find veggies in the forest of weeds. They spent HOURS weeding and harvesting for us.

And so this is how our yard looked for a few years. NOT pretty, but we did get TONS of veggies canned/frozen/in our bellies.

Our Dad’s came up and helped us TONS this last summer. They both helped get our garden in, dug trench for sprinkler, and move fences. We did SO much in the yard this summer. The entire house is wrapped in grass on an auto timer sprinkler system. The garden is 1/2 grow boxes 1/2 rows and looked SO pretty all summer. AND was weeded at least once a week to keep it nice.

Plus our Mom’s came up to watch the children so that I could be out working with the boys. It’s amazing what I can get done when I’m not worried about being a Mama.

This was the LAST fence we needed to move. Dad came up solo and he and Jon just knocked it out! They were WAY faster than I thought they would be.

The children did “help” when Grandma/Yaiyai/Babushka weren’t around.

Found my neighbor boy’s salamander hanging out in our garden while we were weeding it on Saturday afternoon. He was happy to have it back. His Mama not so much. 🙂

The children spent a lot of time running around in the hose sprinklers this summer.

Some of the new grass.

The patio cement is oddly shaped and we had planned an addition for the house so we laid out our old carpet and planned on covering it with wood chips for a easy non permanent fix. Carpet works SO much better as a weed barrier than the paper stuff you buy. Plus ours was FREE, and it provides extra cushion for when children fall.

The new grass goes almost all the way to the back fence. It’s still a bit patchy as we did it from seed, but it’s SO nice not to have weeds.

We had to take our shutters down as they were rotting and falling off. We bought wood and paint to make new ones, then started the whole new job thing instead.

Where the grass ends on the far right of this picture is where the garden starts.

We built 8 large grow boxes just because we had wood laying around our yard from when we bought the house and thought that grow boxes would look nice. And I finally planted herbs in pots. Been wanting to do that for a LONG time. Some herbs did MUCH better than other.

Regan thought the freshly planted boxes were for him to eat.

And Kaylee was caught red handed picking my flower bed flowers. She insisted that she needed to pick them for me. Hmmmmmmm.

Just a few shots of the prettiest garden we’ve ever done and some of the veggies we got out of it this year.

Sad we are leaving it when it’s just stating to take shape. Hope the new owners like the changes we made.