Before and After!! a little insight at what we've been up to this spring....

As you can see, the bushes in front of our house were taking over! Clint and I both wanted to remove them as soon as the weather permitted. Also there was a huge pine tree right in front of the front door, I wish I had gotten a picture of it before we cut it down... We've definitely had our hands full this year taking over the new yard. When Clint's grandpa was able, this was the best looking yard in the area! No joke, it was fantastic~ of course you don't realize what all goes into the upkeep of it all until you take over... our main goal this year is just to minimize our workload for the years to come. We have 10 full grown cottonwoods that are dead and need to come down, after having some professionals come and give their bids ($3,100 just to lay them down!) we've started tackling the job ourselves. 2 down, 8 more to go!

Clint and his dad, talking about what jobs to do first. Sprinklers needed a major overhaul, unfortunately we have had holes all over during this phase....


A few hundred dollars later, and I'll just say this~ I'm glad it's been a long wet spring! There's been no need to turn on the sprinklers and we're thanking our lucky stars for that.

More before pictures, we counted 19 stumps after they were all cut down! It took about a month for this all to happen, what with all the rain in between and the fact that Clint had to dig out ALL of the stumps.... with some help from his nephew, Brady~ thanks bud!

The boys have been so great helping out! Every week we have some kind of project going on, and they've been loving it... at least that's the way I like to look at it~ :) Here's A.J helping dig out stumps.
Notice our new mailbox and new area it's in? Hunter and Brady did that all by themselves, so proud....
After many many many trips back and forth we hauled all the bushes and tree branches into the backyard to burn. We've had a lot of serious burn days around here! The boys all take their turns with the four wheelers, even A.J is learning how to drive. I just re-fuel when needed~

Our burn permit ends at the end of May so we decided to tackle a few trees this last weekend. Lord help me if I ever have to pick up another stick! My body has never ached so badly before in my life!!! Being pregnant was a walk in the park compared to this....

Thankfully there were no injuries, and we successfully got this big tree in the middle of the back yard down. Our neighbor came to help, and even called a friend of his to come over and help man a chainsaw to cut up the big limbs into smaller logs for us. It was a LOOOONNNNG day! Oh and thanks Amanda for having pity on me, coming to help pick up sticks :)

We're left with this giant piece of 'yard art' that the kids are loving. Hunter has already built a ladder up it's side with 2x4's all the way to the top. Our neighbor asked if they're building a tree house, I said "No, they're just climbing up to the top to their deaths..." Clint said yesterday that he thinks it's too high and making him nervous.... that's not a good sign because he never gets nervous about those things. Should I be worried?