Fun on the patio...

We are loving our new patio cover! (For a reminder of what our patio looked like a few years ago, click here). We've been spending lots of time out here lately. After church today, John worked on the laptop, I read, and Henry played in his playhouse. It was perfect.


This boy and his smoothie. He is obsessed! He walks around with his sippy cup hanging out of his mouth like this all the time. I'd say he drinks about 90% of his calories...



And when he isn't drinking his smoothie? He likes to drink water out of mama's cup...

The hole in our patio...

...Older homes have all sorts of quirks & oddities about them. I think that's why I love them so much. One such quirk our home had was a crawl space in the corner of our patio. Because we needed to have access to this crawl space, we left a hole approximately 31" square and about 24" deep when we had our patio poured. Because we only rarely need access to the crawl space, 99.9% of the time the hole was nothing more than a child-proofing nightmare. Well, I'm happy to report that we finally got around to covering it up. My dad used his welding prowess to build us a frame, and then John cut pieces of redwood to fill it in. We can now, finally, leave Henry on the patio without worry. Huge relief.

mid-construction...

me protecting Henry from the half-covered hole...

ALL DONE!...

Henry saw Grandpa Royce & daddy measuring the hole, so he thought he'd try his hand at it too. He's been pretty interested in the measuring tape lately.

He's the cutest handyman I've ever seen.

A patio cover...

It was time to address the backyard patio. It was completely unsafe & unusable for us. With Henry's curiosity & mobility, we had no time to lose. I quite like the look of it all. The gates in front of the steps will go up tomorrow, and then we will have a perfect little outdoor playpen for Henry. Hopefully this will satisfy his desire to go outside while satisfying mommy's desire to be able to watch him from the kitchen sink. We'll see how that goes.

WAY BEFORE (4/2008):

A few weeks ago:

Clean patio:

AFTER (gates not included yet):


I'll work on adding landscaping in the flowerbeds probably sometime this fall. I think that will add a lot to the aesthetic, but so far so good I think.

3 reasons why...

...I love this picture:
1. Henry is only wearing one shoe. Happens all the time.
2. He is eyeing my garden, or more accurately the dirt in my garden.
3. His pants are falling down.

Classic Henry. I don't want to forget it.

A garden...

...this year marks my first attempt at gardening. My dad has always had an excellent garden (although last year he outsourced his gardening efforts to Ben & Kelly :), so I know he will be able to guide me through my fledgling season. I'm still unsure about what I will plant. I'm thinking zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, berries, & herbs. My grandma tells me that everyone likes to plant berries, but after a few years of digging through the thorns for the berries, many people give up on them. I figure I'll put in my few years and see if I tire of them myself. Nothing ventured, nothing gained right? That's my motto, anyways. I hope to get everything in the ground by the end of March. We'll see how I do. My raised beds will finally be home to a garden. WooHoo!



And lest you think I know nothing about getting things to grow...check out this weed in our backyard (Don't worry, it's gone now):

The Shed: finished...

Thanks to dad and Ben's help, we now have a shed. Shelving & organization to come, hopefully next week. The shed is from here, but was purchased from a dealer in Fresno who had factory seconds to get rid of (basically this means that the shed kits came with a few missing pieces...and a MUCH cheaper price tag).

Isn't it cute?

Paver Progress...

...we (John) are nearing paver completion. This beautiful breezy weather has been a boon to his efforts.

New gate...

Before we complete our new garden shed we had to remove a stationary portion of our front fence and replace it with a gate. This would allow us to store things behind the shed as well as in the shed. Essential. So, last Saturday, John dismantled our fence added some new hinges & a latch, and presto...we had a gate. It was a bit more complicated than I make it sound (as most projects tend to be :) but John came through like a champ. I couldn't be more proud of him.

Looking from front yard to the back fence

The portion on the right is what was turned into our new gate

The best seat in the house...

...or outside of the house rather. Henry loves to be outside, and he loves to be rocked in the patio gliders. Thanks Mark & Susanne for the chairs...I don't know what we would do without them.

Lucky Break...

Many months ago my dad hooked us up with a garden shed kit for our yard (storage is always an issue for us). We knew building that shed would be on our summer "to-do" list and I couldn't have been more excited about it.

However, something even better happened. John received an email from the industrial arts teacher at the high school asking if anyone had a small storage shed that they would like built for them. He was looking for a project for his shop class to complete, but did not want to buy a shed himself for that purpose...he may have mentioned something about budgets cuts. John jumped on this opportunity right away, and he was able to secure the student labor for our shed! He delivered the shed kit to the school a few weeks ago, and now it is already done...they even painted it for us! I can't believe our good fortune. The students were able to work on a nice building project and now we have a completed storage shed! Lucky day, I say...

Here's the shed now:

The shop teacher helped the students cut about a foot off of the width so it would fit in our yard better, and he even made sure that it could be disassembled easily so that we would be able to bring it home without hassle! Such service. Right now it sits in our garage waiting for its final assembly. (And yes, our garage is in an absolute state of dissarray...organization is on the horizon)

Here's what the shed will look like once it is fully assembled:

Thanks dad for the kit, and thanks to our local high school shop class for the assembly!

Pending Projects...

House projects have come to a screeching halt since Henry's arrival, but things will be picking up soon, mostly thanks to John's efforts. Earlier this week he moved all of the pavers from the north side of the house to their new home. They aren't installed yet, but they are closer than they were a few weeks ago. And that's a good thing. Stay tuned for more updates.

Paver graveyard

The arch...

...is experiencing plant growth. I can't wait until it is covered!

Around the backyard...

We did a bit of work around the yard last weekend...

It's paver time...

...Remember those pavers we removed to pour the cement patio awhile back? Well, not ones to throw anything away, we stored them on the side of our house until we were ready to use them again. That day of use has finally come. Although this paver project isn't pressing, it must be done so that we can build a small storage shed on the side of our house. The storage shed is the key to our baby gear storage success. It will take us awhile to finish laying the pavers, but at least we've started...

This is John's "groundbreaking" pose

Laying & leveling the bricks (this is proving to be harder than it looks)