So where have we been all summer?

Well, these pictures should tell it all (there's a lot of them). Our yard has consumed us this summer. We've spent hours upon hours out there (and even more for Rob) getting it to look a lot less like dirt and weeds and a lot more like a nice yard with grass, trees, sprinklers, rocks, flower beds and a fence. It really did feel like the yard that would never end... and I guess in actuality it won't, but at least we won't have to do all the hard work of putting it in again. Now we just get to maintain.
It took us awhile to start working on our yard because we didn't have a sidewalk around our house or even a curb and gutter on one side, and we had to wait for that to be put in by the developer. It was such a great day when it did. Who knew a sidewalk could make me so happy? As much as I didn't want to start the hard work of the yard, I was excited to get going on that ugly dirt and weeds and make something of it.

The girls found ways to play in the dirt, but that usually resulted in really dirty girls ;)

One of the first things we got back in June were our big rocks. My dad brought them in his big truck and I thought it was an earthquake or something when he dropped them..it was so loud. Luckily Rob was able to get the skidsteer from work and was able to move around and place the rocks where he wanted them in our yard.
Anisten loved riding with daddy in the "tractor"

They're (Ani and the tractor) are waving to us

Aivree didn't like it so much...it was too loud for her
Once Rob got the rocks and dirt for the flower beds where he wanted them, he put the edging in and the landscape fabric down. The girls thought that was fun. This is where our future fire pit would go. I just thought it was so cute one morning when they decided to go sit on it and play.
Next my dad brought us some pea gravel for their play area and the fire pit area. The girls loved playing in that too.

With Rob being in the Young Mens we were very fortunate to be the recipients of a service project one night. They came and helped us move all the pea gravel to the various places it needed to go in our yard. It was sooo helpful! I was seriously so grateful that we had all those hands helping out. It would've taken us forever to do on our own.

The girls of course loved riding around on the four wheeler (it was used to drag around a big rake thing to rake up our yard)

They wouldn't give the poor guys a break! :)

After they helped out in our yard they had a dinner of bratwursts and chocolate chip cookies. Some of them sitting around our new fire pit! We have already used it several times, making hobo dinners and hot dogs. Such a fun thing to have in our yard.

Next came a week or two of Rob working with the sprinklers. We had the pipes pulled and then there was a lot of digging and connecting and (swearing - haha) mixed with a whole lot of sweat and hard work. I tried to help where I could, mostly with the digging because that was all I knew how to do, but Rob seriously spent every minute he had out there on those sprinklers. We were so glad when they were finally finished.

On one of the last days that Rob was working on the sprinklers my parents came and helped us out. I had started raking and hauling some of the rocks and chunks out of the dirt and they helped me with that. My dad also hauled a big load of mulch for us in his big truck. We were excited to put it in our flower beds and see what a difference it made.

Here's my mom raking some of it into our flowers beds

Here's Aivree raking too. She looks like she's working hard huh? It was pretty hot and I swear the girls lived off Otter Pops this summer while we were working in the yard.

Here's Rob shoveling some of the mulch...you can see my dad's truck in the back. I'm mad I never got him in a picture. My parents seriously helped out so much.

We were able to get a few plants/trees in our yard and they came gradually and at different times. I actually bought a couple rose bushes and a peach tree about a month and a half before we could plant them. I had a gift certificate that was expiring and instead of buying something we could use right then, I bought those. Rob wasn't too happy about it, but it all worked out okay because they survived living in buckets for awhile and are now thriving in our yard.

Here's a picture of some of the beautiful roses on my very first rose bushes! I love them :)

Here they are in their new home..thriving. I love to look out in our yard and see those little splashes of color

and here is our peach tree..

And here we are planting our cherry tree. For family night one night we went and picked out a cherry tree and then planted it together.

Ani loves helping in the yard

And Aivree loves getting dirty :)

Such a crazy girl

The Cherry tree. So excited to have some fruit on these trees someday

Not long after that, my Dad heard about some free sod we could get. The only problem was that we had to get it ourselves. Rob was able to load it onto a trailer pretty good, but getting it off the trailer was really hard. Once again our ward helped us out. One of our neighbors had a big tractor and he was able to lift the pallets off the best he could. We were so thankful because there was no way we could have done it without him.

So the next morning my mom and Rob's dad and some of the neighbor boys came over and helped us lay some sod. It's not the prettiest grass (yet) but it was FREE!

So nice to have some grass in our yard that we can actually enjoy this year Next came our fence! It cost us an arm and a leg, but living next to a somewhat busy road I felt it a necessity with my little ones. Now I don't stress so much when they go outside
These pictures are just after they put the posts in. They came back a week later and finished putting the rest of it in (you'll see it in other pictures).

We wanted to plant at least a few trees right before we planted the seed so they could get a head start growing in our yard, so Rob went and got these and put them in our island in the front. The tall one in the back had beautiful autumn red/orange leaves on it but they fell off after about a week. After those were in we planted the seed!! What a great day to know that most of our work was finally done.

After about a week we started seeing little green grass popping up

After week one

After week four..its coming in nicely! Next year it will hopefully continue to fill in

We're beginning to have a green yard instead of brown! Yay!

And then...last but not least, we got a swingset for the girls :)

The love it. They were so excited to play on the "Tater Totter" (not sure why they call it that, but it's cute)

Here's a view of the swingset and the fire pit. The sod has greened up a lot too!

Although it was incredibly hard work putting our yard in and took us what felt like forever, it feels so good to have it done and it's something we can look at and feel proud of. I'm so excited to enjoy it :)