Out Back ...

What once was a big lot of lifeless dirt is now my paradise in the making. I know a backyard can not make a girl happy, but if you take a happy girl and give her a backyard she is bound to be an even happier girl! Our lives have been forever changed by:

• Eating all meals (breakfast lunch and dinner) outside!
• Eating homemade Popsicles once or maybe twice a day.
• Finally getting our needed vitamin D intake!
• Finally having to learn how to get grass stains out of little boy shorts.
• Letting friends and family come over and run amok without a care in the world.
• Actually playing sports with our son without fearing a vase will get broken!
• A MUCH happier little mutt named Bella.
• Admiring sidewalk art made with chalk.
• Talking with neighbors over big brick walls =)
• Oh and a vegetable garden in the making eeeeek, so much to tell you about!

I think I shall start with the vegetable garden! It was a dream of mine, and I just HAD to have a white picket fence around it =) I plan to go all out cheesy with this garden also, obnoxious stepping stones and flags that say GARDEN on them, and one of those plastic pink flamingos OK JUST KIDDING about the flamingo part. But I just cant wait to get my garden all set up. The fence still needs to be completed and secured, I need soil, seeds, and well everything! But this is a great place to start!

Oh the sports, every boy should be able to run with a ball and a friend in a yard full of grass ... really it is just American! And Peyton has not stopped running, kicking, and throwing footballs. His daddy is leaping with joy =)

The other little boy here is Calvin, Davie's little guy, Peyton LOVES him =)The tree, this is the next part I just MUST tell you about. How could a decision like a tree be so complicated? To answer that honestly it was because I was the one making the decision ... we were BOUND for complication. Without sharing the WHOLE debacle I will just say I chose this tree (Camphor Tree) because we already have one and I love it, it stays green all year long, it has a cute shape, and it does not drop things and make a mess! I put it in the center of the yard because I envision a classic looking round lace patterned bench wrapping around the base of the tree that I can sit on and enjoy the shade with an engaging book and enjoy the sounds of children at play. Pure bliss. Envisioning something out of The Secret Garden =) Grow my little tree grow!
I am soaking up the opportunities for whimsical pictures right out my back door. Even though the grass does not show in this picture, it would not have the same charm if they were standing in DIRT would it?! No the grass under their toes brings magic to the whole picture!

This picture captures the joy that has been filling my heart lately. Friends, family, children ... all outside playing. This makes my heart leap for joy!
The dirt ... yes there is still a LOT of dirt since we are creating out paradise in stages. Stage one was grass! But there are still MANY MANY more stages to come ... in time =) I will not bore you with the sketches, ideas, dreams, blue prints, or shrubbery contemplations. I will just assure you that the dirt is being enjoyed to the fullest while we still have it =)

The table, oh THE table. I worked for this table, I dreamed about this table, and I may have even cried over THIS table. But after the roller coaster ended I got this fabulous solid brown table that seats 8 children (just in case I choose to have 8 children) and has a place in the center for a shade umbrella! Oh Little Tike's brown table how I love thee, and Peyton loves you dearly as well! You will create many wonderful memories with us in the future my little table!
Like I said before a back yard can not make a girl happy, but enjoying all of this time with the ones I love can. Easter was a splendid way to break in the back yard, and I am excited for all of the run times we are yet have have. I will have to make a whole different post about all of my planting decisions, I must get some advise and share my obsession with Hydrangeas.