The Yard Progress - south side yard

This is boring for most of you, but I'm so glad to have these pictures to see the progress we've made! I was feeling depressed about the yard progress and finding all these photos made me feel better. ☺

 Spring 2014

We removed this fence thingy that I had installed 10 years prior. ;)  It was looking rough.

One of my regrets is that I didn't put this arbor that my grandpa built in a "safe" spot, because I went to go find it recently to reuse it, and I think it got thrown away.  :( 

(Cary is rolling his eyes at me somewhere right now)

 Still in spring 2014 we took out all the hedge and some other bushes.

 Summer 2014 -I know most of you think I'm crazy that I didn't just stop here...but grass is BORING (and a pain to mow every week). ☺

November 2014 - The big Elm tree had to come out, and the yard got ripped up in the process, and  then John Hansen poured a new sidewalk next to our yard.

A big mess!

Spring 2015 - the rock wall had to be rebuilt and moved. The old rock wall was where the cement pad is. I like the look of the rock wall, but the maintenance is so annoying!  I don't want to fit doing something else in the budget at this point, so rock wall it is.

The rest of the yard looked like crap, but I had some pretty roses. 

 Summer 2015 - I had flags marking where rose bushes were in hopes that Cary wouldn't weed wack them. It didn't always work. ;) 

At some point during the summer, we (Cary) positioned some broken cement pads for my pathway, and then Kiah and Miguel were taking out all these bushes from my grandpa's old yard, so I took them and transplanted them here. 

 Fall 2015

The soil back here is depressing. It's pure clay, and so hard to deal with so I decided, bushes and trees, no flowers back here (for the time being) and weed barriers and mulch! So I've been transplanting all the roses and flowers away from this area over to the side area.

In this corner I transplanted a Forsythia, (also from grandpa's yard) and I transplanted a mock orange that was on the other side of the yard that was to close to the plum tree (and suffering majorly from chlorosis). In the bottom of the picture are some of my rose bushes.

The rose bushes were plagued with issues this summer because we didn't have a winter last year. The aphids and dust mites were really bad, but for some reason I insist on keeping them and buying more! ;) 

Spring 2016 - Obviously, everything is still dormant. I took these pictures after Cary and I transplanted the last two Mugo pines a few weeks ago. 

I've ended up with about 15 rose bushes out here, so we'll see if all of them survived the winter. I've slowly been working on getting everything mulched when the weather allows, but I had a minor operation last week and I'm supposed to be taking it easy so I'm bummed to not be out working!

I ordered a bunch (9?)of trees from Arbor Day Foundation and planted them in December, so we'll see what comes up. 

We transplanted grandpa's Peonies to my yard, and Peonies do not like to transplanted so I was pretty skeptical that they would make it, so I've been so excited to see this! I had also transplanted one that mom had in a different part of this yard, and it was buried too deep so it wasn't flowering and it's coming up too.

Miscellaneous March

This is a familiar sight, but this time Britton and Clara were showing Eligh how it's done. 

 Baker school has an international food day every year, and the kids are supposed to bring a dish that represents a country and this year they combined it with a surprise going away party for Leslie. Leslie has been the teachers aide at Baker for many years and her last day was was March 18. I took the younger kids over for that, we saw Ella there, and then her class went back to Garrison, and it was such a nice day that I ended up letting Britton and Clara play on the playground for a few hours, and then we headed to Janille's to see the animals for a minute before we had to head home since Ella was probably wondering where we were.  Cary was gone to Montana that week for work, so he wasn't home either. ☺

The dairy got a new trailer! Just in time for cow show season, Pretty spiffy, Just need the EskDale Dairy sign on there. We went and looked at it before it is christened with it's first cow pie. Ha. ;) 

The EHS performed the Cinderella play March 11 &12th, and we took all the kids to see it and Ella was/ is obsessed! She asked Sharon to make her a DVD of the play, so Sharon did, and we only watch it 2-5x's/day. No really, I think I have all the lines memorized. 

These are pictures of us on the way to Delta to get Britton and Clara updated on their shots, and they are watching Cinderella! (again)

Purim 2016

 Last week was Purim, and Sharon organized a little party where we ate hamentashen, colored and made groggers, and read/ acted out the story of Esther.

Some of the kids dressed up as a Bible character, Britton was David, Ella was Esther.

Getting a head start on the party.

Cary and I had a competition going on for the word search and I lost, but I don't know if you can see some small fingers in the picture above, but I had some help (distractions!) ☺

Change

If you know me very well, then you know I don't like change and most of the time don't deal with it very well. Even if I'm the one instigating it. ;) (The one exception being house remodel projects, I love that kind of change.)

I was forced into buying a new laptop and in the process of learning how to use it (I had my last laptop for 7 years) I found out that the main photo program I use for editing/organizing my photos is being dropped, so I've been thrown for a loop... and that's partly why I'm behind in blogging again. :) I haven't had time to figure everything all out yet, but it's cold today so I'm working on it...

Catching up.

 It seemed like our 12+" of snow melted in two days.

Clara taking a rare nap, another life change...all my babies are growing up and I get more time to do things and less time entertaining them. Bittersweet.

Our very redneck setup, but the kitties stayed warm and dry all winter long!

Ella likes to teach Britton things...lol.

Clara trying on her new Elsa dress, but she wasn't happy I was taking a picture.

We had dinner/ movie night with Donnie and Christina and family at Hidden Canyon Ranch, and then the next day we had Charlie all day. Thankfully the weather was warm and the kids were able to spend most of the time outdoors.

Shawn was out that weekend too.

The next weekend was the Winter Carnival (hosted by the PAT) and I was in charge of the cake walk. Cheri and Tabitha Phillips have started a business and Cheri volunteered to make my three desserts for me. (wahoo!) These are the three desserts she made. 

Everyone fell asleep on the way over...which was okay since it was going to be a late night.

Cary and Alyshia helped me with the cakewalk booth which was much appreciated!

I'm so busy with the cakewalk I don't even know what all the kids did, face painting, photo booth, etc...I just know we came home with a bunch of prizes. 

The next weekend (last weekend) was the EHS production of Cinderella. The kids (and everyone) did a great job and it was very entertaining. Clara fell asleep, but I know the rest of my kids loved it, and actually Ella asks every night since if we can watch it again. Josh, Kiera, and Jordynne came out to watch it as well, so we got hang out and visit with them.