Backyard Toys!

Remember the nice backyard fire pit we had a few days ago? It was fun having fires for about a week, but now...

The stump is gone and the ground has been filled in! (Side note: You can see Owen and Jack playing with our neighbors grandson Benjamin in the background of this picture. Benjamin was so cute when they were done playing he insisted on hugging the boys)

Here's the area at the bottom of the stairs. The boys have deemed it their new digging spot since we don't have anymore dirt in the easement. They were spreading dirt everywhere and they even killed the grass in that corner so we headed to the store and got more stones so it was sectioned off. We'll see if we can get the grass to regrow!

Once the hole where the stump was, was filled in I asked Michael to bring down the backyard toys we have for the kids and put them in place. We still have to get the timbers to section this area off from the yard and we are going to buy some pea gravel as well. We've thought of other options, but those play tiles they use at parks are way to expensive and wood chips are a wonderful place for flees. Also the idea of the boys not being able to come out in their bare feet wasn't something I wanted to worry about...so pea gravel it is!


We've had all these outdoor toys for a while now. The best part is we didn't pay for any of them! Michael got the slide for free from a job he was working on. The guys youngest kid was about 14 years old so he didn't need it anymore and he offered it to Michael. The tugboat sandbox was at my Uncle's neighbors house. I asked my Uncle about it because I had seen it sitting there not being used every time we went to their house. I asked him to ask his neighbor about it. He did, but the neighbor wanted to keep it. A few months went by and my Uncle called me and said his neighbor wondered if we still wanted it. Ummm....yeah! As for the playhouse, Ga-Ga found that one at one of the Mill Creek Garage Sales. I think she got it for around $40....maybe less.

Last year I did pick up a free swing set off CL's. The people said everything was there except the hardware. I thought that's fine we can always buy nuts and bolts...no biggie. We'll I didn't think that people would be dishonest! Once we actually started laying it out to put it together there were quite a few critical pieces missing. Oh well...we don't really have room for a swing set, but now we have to take a "free" swing set to the dump. Nice!!! We are going to put a tire swing up by hanging it from our huge blue spruce. I'm really excited about that one!

Speaking of the dump...here's the first load ready to go in Papa Martin's truck. We will probably have one more load after this. I don't know about you, but I LOVE going to the dump. I'm actually jealous that Michael gets to go by himself. I have tons of fun memories of going to the dump with Michael or my friend Kim when we first moved into our house and were remodeling. It's just fun cleaning out junk and then throwing it off the truck. I don't know maybe I'm just a little odd! :)