Our Backyard!

Our backyard has been a work in progress since we bought the house. We have filled up many trashcans and sweated a lot. We will continue to work on it, but now we are starting to rebuild it instead of tearing it apart. We have enjoyed all the work and are looking forward to enjoying our backyard.

This is a reminded of what the yard looked like when we bought the house.

We have torn out many plants and trees. We have moved lots and lots of rocks. And Curtis has torn up and moved a million pounds of concrete. He has the slimmer waist and bigger muscles to prove it!

Curtis and I actually moved the piece of concrete below. It took us a couple hours but we got it where we needed it. Thank goodness for nap time!

Curtis rotatiled the whole backyard and tore up all the weeds. Then I raked all of the junk out of our dirt filled backyard.

Next Curtis played mule and pulled a handmade plow with giant pieces of concrete on it all around the yard. Our backyard had many different heights, but not after Curtis was done with it. Brayden helped, as he did with most of the yard work. We have a great video of Curtis pulling Brayden around the yard on the plow.

Fun Break!

Curtis put in the sprinkle system and it works great. He dug all the trenches by hand and put a lot of hard work into them.

We got a new tree for our yard. It is my favorite tree, a Chinese pistache. Brayden named it Bob. I got the pleasure of planting it. It was fun to go outside and get a little muddy.

These are some of the beautiful leaves that fell off of it while we were planting it. It will look beautiful next fall and give us lots of shade in summers to come.


Finally, the sod arrives. We were all very excited!

Curtis and two of his friends, Charlie and Albert, laid all of the sod. It took them a whole morning. They did an awesome job!



We had 2 pieces left. Since we can't walk on the lawn until after Thanksgiving we put one of the extra pieces on the patio and enjoyed it.

Below is a picture of what our yard looks like now. We still have a lot planned, but it is now at a point where we can go out and begin to enjoy it. I am so excited to watch the boys run around and play. Thanks Curtis for all of your hard work! We love you!

Brayden's 3rd Birthday!

I can't believe my baby turned 3 in September. He is getting so big and changing so much every day. He is now 40 lbs and 40 inches. He is very smart and very silly. He always wants to be the big boy and do big boy things. He is an awesome big brother. He helps with Colby and loves to make his baby brother smile. Which he is great at doing. He is very cautious, but get him on wheels and he loses all his fears. He loves to learn letters, math, and the united states. He loves Mickey Mouse, playing in the dirt, animals, fuzzy things, and his cousins. He copys a lot of things we say, which sound funny coming out of a 3 year old's mouth. He is a fun and very loving little boy and we thank God every day that he blessed us with Brayden.

We had a little family celebration on his real birthday. We had pancakes, strawberries, and whipped cream for dinner. For dessert he choose MnM cookies and neapolitan ice cream.

It was so hot outside bu we couldn't get him to take off his new fuzzy wuzzy moose jammies.

Brayden choose to have a dirt party. It was a great party. We ate, played games, and the kids played in the dirt. I was very impressed with the sign Curtis made him and very proud of the cake I made him.

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween. Curtis' parents came and brought us a special Halloween treat, Smith's cookies. Yummy! For those of you from Bakersfield you know what I am talking about. At night we went to our church. We had the cutest pumpkins there!

Carving pumpkins. Brayden still doesn't like the inside of the pumpkin. Colby loved it. We had to take it away from him. He apparently liked the taste because he kept sucking his thumb while he was playing.

After lunch one of our neighbors brought the boys some candy. Brayden did a good job sharing. I'm assuming things will be different next year when Colby can eat it.

My Cute Pumpkins!

I totally love this picture!

I asked Brayden what we should type on this post. He told me to type, "I love Uncle Brad!" When I asked him why he said "because Uncle Brad loves us." So here's a shout out to Uncle Brad.