Biting

Aydin says, "Mom, my back hurts. I think Rykin bited my back while I was sleeping last night. Babies bite everything! Like food, and balls, and people. They don't know that humans don't like to be bited."

Our New Backyard!!!

This has been so much work, but so worth the effort.  We started this project mid March when the company that we hired came to grade the yard, remove the weeds that had taken over, install sprinklers, and enlarge our patio.  Jesse and I came up with the design and did the rest of the work on our own.  All I have left to do is plant the Rose of Sharon that I have been waiting for, and start my garden.  I am so happy with how this turned out.  It will definitely be a place filled with good memories in the following years.

This is how it looked when we moved in 1 year ago.  It was full of weeds, rocks, sand, pallets, and eight full "containers" of that crumbled red brick that the previous owner stole from the old grain mill in Windsor after the tornado destroyed it :

This is after the company that we hired brought in 22 tons of dirt and did the grading:

We had our patio enlarged:

Added trees and edging:

Jesse and Aydin built planter boxes for my garden:

And then we added rock and mulch to the border, and raked for hours to get rid of about ten tons of rock, dirt, and clay chunks to get ready for the sod:

And the grass came:

We're going to put a flagstone path from the door to the grass.

I can't wait to see it in bloom next spring!!  I have a white flowering lilac, red feisty roses, an ornamental pear tree, a snow flower whipping cherry tree, peonies, and I will have a rose of sharon soon.  Aydin requested cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and carrots in her garden.  I plan to plant cilantro, basil, rosemary, and thyme in the planter next to the red chair.  It is going to be so beautiful!

*pecial

Aydin does not often say her s's at the beginning of many words. It is very endearing and I don't necessarily want to see it go. She says thinks like, "oooh that's a *cary *pider", and can I please have a *poon." And we have trouble with the -ed endings as well. For example, "that really *parkleded(sparkled)." Jesse mentioned yesterday that maybe we should start trying to correct her pronunciation. I had her saying all of her s words correctly and mentioned that while it was really cute when she said them the wrong way, she sounded very smart when she said them the right way. I left the room for a bit while she practiced saying her s words to Rykin and popped back in to hear her say, "Ssspecial! It is so cute when I say it the wrong way."