The Great Yard Project of 2014: Part I

The proof is everywhere that spring is here:

And with it comes the inevitable.

Yard work.

And this year we quite a list to tackle, about 3/4 of which is thanks to our three year battle with groundhogs. Not to be forgotten, the chipmunks decided to join in the party last summer so in addition to groundhog burrows we also are dealing with an extensive chipmunk tunneling system.

So far this season we have not seen any groundhogs anywhere (or chipmunks, for that matter, though I suspect they're hiding in there and just better at not getting caught). Maybe word got out that I'm the crazy groundhog catcher lady since I captured so many of them last year and kindly relocated them to  other wooded areas miles away in different cities.

This year is the year of tunnel destruction and garden bed reconstruction. It is not a fun job, and since we have signs of tunnels around most of the perimeter of our house as well in our back garden bed it was time to get serious about fixing this problem.

Groundhog holes everywhere!

It's not a fun job, and after spending the past few months setting more deterrents (we've exhausted just about everything on the market: pellets, moth balls, ground stakes that make noise, ammonia soaked rags, traps, and chewing gum. None of these worked very well.) we finally resorted to using a rather gross method that we heard was successful at driving them away. It's gross. Just trust me. It's coyote pee. See? I told you it was gross. And yes, it was by far the weirdest thing we've ever purchased.

Yard store worker: "Can I help you find anything?"
Us: "Uh, yeah. Could you direct me to your coyote urine section?"
Worker: quietly backs away.

At least, that's how it felt. But we used it, and it did work. But I've bought all the coyote pee I plan to buy in my lifetime and the time has come to destroy these habitats once and for all. We borrowed a rototiller and chopped up all the dirt around the house and collapsed the tunnels, then we're going to fill them up. We've got a truckload of dirt coming in about a week and then another truckload of mulch to put over that. Whew.

On top of that little project we also had The Case of the Garbage Swingset Tower to tackle. About two years ago a guy down the street moved and decided it would be nice to give us his daughter's old swing set. This thing had seen better days since it had been given to him used, followed by 9 years of use by his daughter. It was pretty rickety but we took it and salvaged what we could and left the rest behind the garage--which means that a huge swing set tower, slide, and random pieces of wood have been sitting back there waiting to be demolished this whole time.

Until today. I wish I would've taken a better before picture so you could have seen all the stuff back there, but just believe me when I say it was a lot. Chad pulled off the slide and managed to rebuild the staircase and move it over by Charlotte's swing set. Thanks to the true magic that is Magic Erasers the slide cleaned up great and looks like new.

Towards the end of demolition...

Cleaning up brush...

...mostly clean, now just needs some finishing touches!

We accomplished a lot today, thanks to our friend Mike's help and our neighbor's generosity in lending us their rototiller. And mostly, thanks to my dad for taking care of this all day:

She was washing bugs off his truck and decided to give her tricycle a nice scrubbing, too.

And she and Izzy picked all the "flowers" (dandelions) out of their backyard:

Tonight, we are sore. We are also out of yard bags. Turns out I should have bought another dozen, since that's about what we went through today.

Until next week...Landscaping Part II. Stay tuned.

~Stacy

Scrumptious Quilt

I started this quilt over two months ago and finally finished it last night. It took forever, mainly because I kept putting off actually quilting it since I knew it would be a pain due to the large size of the quilt and the small size of my sewing machine.

It's big, about 68"X77" and is for Charlotte's bed. She has a quilt on her bed that I made her from a similar looking fabric line (this one is Scrumptious and the other is Marmalade, both by Bonnie & Camille). The one on her bed now is all flannel and very warm--great for cold months but I wanted something not quite as heavy for the warmer months. 

It takes stamina to quilt a big quilt like this on a regular sewing machine!

I love this fabric and happy with how this quilt came out. Now I can cross this project off my list and move onto something else!

Happy Sewing.

~Stacy

About Time

Yesterday was the first trip to the beach in months and months. The first of many, many more. The season has begun... :)

 

~Stacy

Easter Prep

It was finally warm enough to put Charlotte's Easter dress on her and take some pictures outside. I could have picked a day where she wasn't super crabby after a too short nap, but I wanted to get them done before Easter is over. Nothing a few M&Ms couldn't handle...

This is the dress I made last month (see the original post here). It's still up in the air which dress she'll wear on Easter, since she has another one my mom made her that is Easter-y. Maybe I'll just let her pick.

What are your Easter plans? We're hosting it this year--a small group, seven of us in all so no one will be relegated to a card table. Charlotte asks every day if the Easter bunny is coming that night, and is more than prepared to hide her basket. I told her that we can just set her basket on the front porch for him, since she seemed a little concerned about the whole "giant bunny entering my home in the middle of the night" situation. Can't say I blame her. I've always been mystified by the Easter bunny and find the whole idea of him strange...huge bunny, travels around, leaves eggs, lots of pastels and jelly beans involved. It's a head scratcher. But it's fun play the role of weird bunny for a very excited little girl  :)

Happy Easter!

~Stacy

The Way It Should Be

I made a bold move: I put the snow shovels away. Up until this weekend they've been propped up against the side of the garage. We didn't even bother putting taking them any farther away from the driveway since we knew another snowstorm would hit right away.

But no more, I say. Even if it snows again in the next couple weeks we are done shoveling. I simply refuse to shovel snow past March.

Thankfully there were no possibilities of snowflakes this weekend. We've had the windows open all day and we've been outside for the majority of these past two days and it has been wonderful. All this fresh air in the house has made it smell so good (which begs the question, did it smell bad during the winter...? Hopefully not; there's just something about fresh, clean spring air that makes everything smell so great). I forgot how nice it is to sleep with the window cracked open all night, listening to the wind and the birds instead of the furnace and heater. Spring is the best medicine.

Charlotte can finally reach to pedal her tricycle by herself and she is loving it. She wants to ride it all the time and every time she does it she exclaims "Look! I'm riding my bike!"

She also discovered that the little compartment in the back of her bike makes a great place to store her afternoon snack.

She's come inside at the end of each day with a sweaty head, pink cheeks, dirty pants and hands covered in sidewalk chalk. Just the way it should be :)

Happy Spring.

~Stacy

He Did It

Something monumental happened this weekend: Chad finished his MBA. It still hasn't sunk in for us, and it probably won't until sometime in the coming weeks or months when we're hanging out one evening or weekend and realize that he's not working on schoolwork. That his time is his time again.

For the first time in 4 1/2 years there won't be any papers to write, discussions to post, team meetings to schedule and run, professors to check in with or textbooks to read. He won't have to add an extra full-time job of school on top of his already more than full time real job.

But aside from the obvious greatness of getting his free time back, there is the even greater benefit of having done it. There were several times over the course of the program where quitting seemed not only like a preferable option but sometimes like a necessary one. It was demanding, to the point of being all consuming at times, but he did it. He stuck with it and earned his MBA (with honors, by the way. He would never brag about that, but I totally can). His hard work paid off, and he finished, all the while working his normal job and being a daddy. I know for certain I would not have been able to juggle all that, at least not without excessive complaining and moodiness.

We're pumped about going through our first full summer in almost half a decade where our weekends won't need to be scheduled around schoolwork and due dates. For the first time in four years we can celebrate our anniversary in June without him having to plan weeks in advance to find ways to complete some assignments early to set aside enough time for dinner and a movie. Crazy! That's gift enough, I'd say.

We went out last night for a mini-celebration--to Barocco Grill in Lakewood (Latin street food, delicious) and for a walk around Lakewood Park in the sunshine. It was the perfect ending to the chapter of life that was Grad School.

~Stacy

Pedal Cars on a Sunny Day

This is a post where I really wish I had "before" pictures so you could appreciate how amazing the "after" ones are. But even without seeing the old, rusty and rickety shots of these vintage pedal cars you can still see how cool they are after having been completely restored.

My dad can (and does) restore just about everything (old pop machines, gas pumps, signs, cars, to name a few) and these are his most recent accomplishment.

I was terrified that Charlotte would accidentally scratch one of them while we were taking these photos, but thankfully all was well.

Their dog, Izzy, looked on with minimal interest. She was more interested in soaking up the sun on top of the picnic table and enjoying her nap in the warm weather.

And licking Oreo cookie crumbs off Charlotte's hands. That was worth getting up for.

Happy Spring.

~Stacy