Happy Mother's Day

I had so many good moments today, mixed in with so many usual nasty ones...such is life as a mother! And let's face it, the fact that it is mother's day does not really mean much to a five year old. Liam is so tough these days, that it takes all I have not to lock him up in his room all day. As a dear friend said to me this week, you are building up your "mommy muscle" that you will need for the next stage of their lives, and if you don't get strong and listen to your "Trainer", you will struggle even harder through the next phase. Though the road is not an easy one, I'm trying to live and learn to be a better mom every day. I need to get a bit closer to the "Trainer" though.

The weather has turned nice, and the projects are in full swing around here. I have so many things that I need and want to do, but usually have neither the time, money or know- how to get it all done.
When we bought our house, it had a huge deck on the back and side of our house. It looked like a massive dance floor. It wasn't the safest space as there is this massive hole underneath it, and it has no railings. It was sadly starting to rot and there were gaping holes through the surface. We knew the thing would have to come down sooner or later, so we started this week. We didn't want to make too much of a mess by smashing boards, so we took out around 500 screws and worked our way around.
(Here is a before shot...taken last week.)


(And today.)


(The whole view from the back fence.)


We are eventually going to rip out all the joists, the beams etc. and then fill the hole with the help of a dump truck and top soil, and then plant grass. This will mean that we'll have to move the fence, rip out a row of shrubs, and rip out my hydrandea (and hopefully replant it).
Then we also need to rip out the existing deck and hope to extend it out a little farther towards the pond (so we have room to use a table up there) and I still need to paint that new siding that was replaced last spring!
Yup, lots of work, but it will add to our backyard play space immensely, and will be so much easier to maintain.
Hopefully I'll be able to show you the AFTER shots before the summer is over. I will be needing the wise wisdom and the skills and tools of my brother and dad to pull this one together again. Thankfully Greg and I aren't so bad a ripping things apart!
I don't have pictures of the front yard, but we pulled out a bunch of shrub things that were dusty and old and we need to put in a retaining wall (of wood?) and some new plants/woodchips or something. We also hope to build a little deck at our front entry, over top of the existing cement pad and stairs that turn at a wicked nasty angle, and build proper ones.

I also planted about 100 strawberries this week from my sister in law who has them taking over her yard. Mine were escapees from her garden and picked out of her gravel! I don't really have a dedicated garden spot, so they are sprinkled here and there all over the place. My pond has gone to muck as Shea has been throwing rocks in it left and right, and it's just turning green. I think I may just have to leave it until the projects are over, as it is SO hard to keep him out of there. The urge to throw rocks in water for a boy are just too strong. (Even putting the sprinklers on did not keep him out!) We went down to the lake this afternoon so he could throw rocks into the water. He was SO thrilled!

Anyway, it was a lovely weekend, most of it spent outdoors, with my boys. On Saturday there was 1949 pricing for movies, so Riley treated me to our 15cent movie and 5cent popcorn! We watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Greg and I were able to go out for lunch together on Friday to a Mexican place where we ate out on the sunny patio...so it was our little holiday after a busy week.



((Hugs)) to all you moms out there who read my blog!