backyard day 2: monday

at the end of the day, david said he wanted to quit UPS and start a hardscaping business.  ummmmm....??  he was really interested in the fact we were charged 30k and the materials we'd purchased up to that point were about 3500.  i told him i wouldn't be joining that endeavor as his assistant; this one is enough for me.  oh, it's hard.  

david spent day 2 erecting the wall and building a "grand, sweeping staircase."  this included lifting block after block after block and placing them carefully in the wall, and placing and pounding more gravel for each stair.  my job was prepping the patio area for the flagstone; loading and pushing wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of paver base all over the patio area, then renting a plate compactor and pounding the base, then doing it all over again.  david said i had to beat the beast by placing at least one flagstone at the end of the day.  so i did three.

we had some windy weather blowing in a cold front; pace had fun turning the plastic wrap from the pallets of blocks in to a kite.

backyard day 1: saturday

just some before pictures, to remind everyone what we started from.  and the piles and piles and piles and pallets, pallets, and pallets of materials we had waiting for us to work with...

we started out with a rough idea, as any project:  we knew we wanted stairs, tired retaining walls for garden beds, and a walkway.  the cheapest estimate we'd received was a whopping $30,000, so this was something we knew we had to take on ourselves.  david took one week off work, and we pretty much hit it as hard as we could all day long every day that whole week.  

day 1: saturday, halloween:  i ran 10 miles that morning (training for a half), and then came home and wheelbarrowed and pounded gravel along the trench david had dug for the wall.  david then laid the base for the first retaining wall.  

pace running laps in the trench.  what?  yeah, that kid doesn't stop.  prep work is a killer, but then the wall goes up pretty quick.

halloween

finally halloween...the boys have been wearing their costumes every day for so long...to start things off, we went to the library for a halloween party the saturday before halloween.  they had cute kid games and treats.

the next week, the kids were invited to wear their costumes to reading time.  they played a couple games in addition to reading.    

we started working on the backyard on halloween day, so we were pretty beat by the time 5pm rolled around...we went to the mill down the road from us and participated in the trunk-or-treat.  the boys got their fill of candy, and then wanted to help pass out candy to other kids.  

project and building days

i'm excited we're getting to the point where i can just tape paper on the table, pour some paints, and the boys use their imagination to just paint something.  sometimes on project days i give them a direction, but i really love that we're getting to where they want to take their own directions.  i think pace said he was painting an orange going down a river.  probably to some sort of sorting factory or crusher.  that boy and his industrial-mindedness!  then max caught on and painted an orange going down a "bayer belt" (conveyer belt).

pace built a magnet truck with hydraulics.  this is literally what this newly-turned 5 year-old said to me, "mom, you want to see my truck with hydraulics?"  he constantly amazes me!  another experiment we did (that i did not get photos of) was learning about air and air bubbles.  we read a great book from the library called Air is All Around You.  it's a really great young child level book about air, and it even included some experiments you can do.  (i've since learned there are a ton of books similar to this one--you know what the boys are getting in their stockings!)  the experiment we did was learning how air and water occupy space.  during bath time that night we stuck tissues in a cup and put it straight down in the water.  because of the air bubble, the tissues stayed dry!  when you tilt the cup a little, air bubbles come out, making room for water to go in, resulting in wet tissues.  the boys loved it.

basement/backyard project

 we have started the basement/backyard project.  the HVAC guy has been here all week starting that portion in the basement, and the contractor will start next week.  

we also need to get the backyard hardscaping portion in the backyard finished so renters have an entrance.  we had a few people come out and give us estimates, and after the lowest one came in at $30,500, we decided this was a project we needed to tackle ourselves.  we're putting in a patio, tiered retaining wall that will double as garden beds, and a walkway.  we went to a few places to find the most cost-effective material that we liked.  the boys and i spent at least 2 hours at this rock place on monday.  we ended up not going with their product, but the boys sure loved making rock slides on the displays.

after a long day out and about, we stopped at the duck park.  it was still warm enough that the entire duck family and aunts, uncles, and cousins were still there.  

a cold snap moved in yesterday.  all our materials were dropped off from a couple different places yesterday and the day before.  even though it was windy and drizzly, the boys were outside climbing all over the gravel and dirt for a couple hours (the unstable flagstones and pallets of retaining wall blocks were off limits).  david is taking all next week off, so we're planning on cranking out this project!

happy birthday pace!

pace had a great birthday this year!  i can't believe he is 5 already.  he's doing a great job reading and writing, exploring his whole world, being a great big brother, and friend to all our new neighbors.  he never ceases to surprise me with his vocabulary, smarts, and things he says!

his birthday was on a wednesday, library day (i love that he colored multicultural friends).  he loves running circles around me, collecting leaves, and his new favorite stuffed animal, penguin.  david took the boys to the aquarium when i was away with heather, and pace picked out a penguin stuffed animal and max picked out a sparkly pink seahorse.  penguin has not left pace's side since the aquarium.  as a side note, i love that pace is a very literal child.  his stuffed animals don't have names; their names are what they are..."penguin", "giraffe", "whaley", etc.  it's so funny when people ask him what his animal's name is, and he'll give them a look and say (with a "duh" tone of voice), "penguin." although, he did tell me later his penguin's full name is "penguin adorable coombs".

pace loves helping me in the kitchen.  he helped put sprinkles on his birthday cake.  later that night we celebrated by inviting our new neighbors over for cupcake decorating and birthday popper throwing in the cul-de-sac.  lucy brought over some glow-in-the-dark glasses for pace.  pace had his 5 year check the next week, and got 3 shots in preparation for kindergarten next year.  pace still needs to know how things work from start to finish to feel comfortable with it, so we talked a while about shots, what they do in the body, what it would feel like, and the best way to help it not hurt (squeeze your hands together and don't let go).  pace didn't cry one bit for his shots!  his leg that got the tetanus shot was a little tender later, but he did so, so great for his check up!