the after shot

The teenagers and I got some more work done this afternoon, and I made sure to take the follow up shots this time! This is what yard around the house looks like now. There is still some work to do to finish completely clearing it out, but I am so much happier with how much cleaner it looks now! (and the good news is that I don't think I did anything illegal today!)


This was yesterday's "before" shot. In front of all those bushes (which ran along the length of the house as well) were four storage crates buried in the ground and filled with dirt that we dug out. I have no idea why anybody planted storage crates, but I am glad they are gone now!

Today's workout came courtesy of the decorative stones laying all over the property. We moved them to the front yard to border the edge of the yard itself, and then built a planter with most of the rest of them. I need to fill the planter with soil of some kind, and then I have to figure out what and how to plant pretty vegetation in it. I need to get some grass seed for the yard itself to fill in the spots. When we get a chance, I want to order a couple of tons of gravel to re-gravel the driveway and fill in the parking area we cleared yesterday.


Jessica really liked the photo I used on this layout, so she spent some time today taking pictures of me trying to get a similar shot. Now I have to teach her how to start touching up her photos in photoshop. She is picking up the photo stuff pretty fast!


After she took this one, she said "C'mon Mom, work it! Be the sexy mama you know you are!" That made me laugh... a lot... and she kept on taking pictures as I laughed and got...


this shot, which I actually really like! I don't think I have any others of me laughing!


Beth and I spent some time during the early evening on the porch just watching the horses across the street. (I LOVE to watch the colts jumping around!)It was a rare quiet afternoon. My friend Brook took Faith, Chet, Todd, and Kyle to their house to play with their kids, the teenagers were at Sonic picking up a soda, and I got to spend an hour with just Beth. I fiddled with some of the settings on my camera and took a bunch of her. I was playing with my f-stop on this one. I love the blurry background, and I can't wait to take more like this with a better background.


Just pretend she doesn't have gum in her mouth!


This was my favorite. She was playing with a ladybug she found crawling on the new planter.


The weather here is beautiful. I think I am going to spend most of the day outside tomorrow. Maybe I will get some of the color on the porch I primered last week! I am hoping to get some scrapping in this week too. We'll see what happens!

I almost forgot to add today's Todd story. Before he left he went up to Tony with a very serious Todd expression and said "Tony, I have to go to Elijah's house and play today. Can you stay here with my mom while I am gone?" Did my four year old just hire a teenager to babysit me while he was gone??? LOL