May I take your order....

Welcome to McDonalds...


It's a good thing she's not making real food or I'd weigh 300lbs!

The Summer Project

The summer project we tackled this year was relandscaping the front yard. I have been looking forward to this project for over a year so it was fun to see it become a reality! The problem was it just wasn't that simple of a task. The lady that lived here before had dumped these flaky little pieces called chocolate mulch on top of red rock on top of white rock. So we had a mess to dig out before we could start doing much of anything in the way of landscaping. But after about a million wheel barrel loads of rocks to the woods next to our house we had it all just about rock free. I would load the wheel barrel in the morning (with my two little helpers by my side) but it would be too heavy for us to get to the woods so Kreg would dump it at lunch. Then we'd load it again in the afternoon and Kreg would dump it again when he came home at the end of the day. This routine went on for what seemed like weeks.
Below is a BEFORE picture. Pretty much everything you see in this picture came out and got replaced. (Its not the greatest picture so its hard to tell how desperately we needed a "curb-appeal" makeover. So just go with me on it) Something you cannot see is what you use to be along the left side of the sidewalk. Earlier in the summer we gutted that area and put grass seed down. Prior to the grass it was a mess of rocks and weeds. You can still see the outline of where the old flowerbed use to be. Also notice on the left of the picture a big muddy spot that has our well cap in the middle of it. What in the world were we supposed to do with that area??? Kreg had the perfect idea...

Kreg's great big idea for the well cap was a great big rock to go in front of it!! Sweet! What a great idea! So Kreg took the backhoe from the farm and went and got a huge rock from one of the fields. He spotted it last year during harvest. When we went to get it, it was larger than we had remembered and waaaaay down in the ground. It was doubtful there for a while whether that rock was meant to be in our yard or not. I'm still not sure how we got that thing out but thanks to Kreg's dad showing up to help we got it home.
This is what sat in our front yard for a night: (Aiden is showing how big the rock is!)

And then somehow we miraculously got the rock in just the perfect spot. Kreg told me wherever that thing landed was where it was stayin....so I was prayin it landed where it needed to. And it did!!! (nice driving honey!) Below is the finished product (big rock and all...complete with 20 some new plants!)


I don't think the pics do our "curb appeal" makeover justice but I still thought I'd share because I love our new look. Next year is the backyard!! That too is going to be quite the project....it's a good thing Kreg gets a break for a few months before starting that one.

School Boy

I have gotten so far behind on this blog that I just feel overwhelmed everytime I look at it. So I keep neglecting it and hoping maybe the pictures will just post themselves and the cute witty captions will just magically appear. But alas day in and day out I open it to get to the other cute and witty blogs that are timely updated and everyday I see the same pictures of my kiddo's swimming. Where do I even start? I have pics of the kids riding their bikes, pics of our summer project (landscaping the front of our house), tons of pics from the week we spent in Disney World (yay!), pics of the kids playing McDonalds, and picks from a recent visit to my mom's house. Thus I just sit and think..."I should really blog something"....and then I don't do it.

So I'm going to take baby steps. We're going to start with Aiden's first day of Preschool which happened this week! He has been so excited to start school but when the day finally arrived the big guy changed his mind. He decided maybe school wasn't for him after all. I could tell while I was taking his picture on the front porch his mood was changing. He went from excited, to not so sure, to mad at me for taking pictures, to nope don't want to go to school mom I changed my mind. I felt bad for him. I too don't like new things when I don't know what to expect. His big tears almost made me cry. But he has a wonderful teacher that came outside and talked to each one of the kids before going in and she spent a little extra time with Aiden. And eventually she took his hand and walked him hand in hand inside the school. Away he went. And then I prayed...prayed he would truly enjoy his time at school....all while I truly enjoyed taking only 1 child for a jog in the stroller instead of two. It was much easier pushing only Makayla. So when the time came for me to pick Aiden back up I wasn't sure what to expect but out the door ran my very excited, grinning from ear to ear, big 4 1/2 year old! He loved it! (Hip hip hooray!) So when the 2nd day of preschool rolled around, instead of being the last one reluctanly going inside....he was the first one running inside! That was a nice feeling. He has since decided he is going to stay in preschool forever and is definitely not going to kindergarden next year! I'm just glad he's enjoying it that much.
So without further ado...I present to you....the school boy....