The kids had me up at just after 5am on this lovely Saturday morning. And while they managed to get back to sleep, I could not. I decided to put the time to good use. Kelly (with the help of her dad, when he was here last week) really cleaned up our backyard area. They got rid of lots of weeds, cut back pushes and shrubs and trees, and cleaned it all up so that it looked good. We decided to add some mulch around the edges, so I was out the door at 6am to head over to our local Home Depot (which is just across the major intersection down the street from our house). I’m not a huge fan of going to Home Depot when it is crowded, but they open at 6am and while it was not as desolate as I imagined it to be, I was able to park up close and get in and out quickly, which is what I was aiming for.
I picked up 10 bags of mulch (2 cubic feet per bag) and loaded it in to the back of the car. I then came back home, brought the mulch into the backyard and proceeded to lay it down in the areas we’d designated. Here some before-and-after shots:
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When I finished, it was only 7am, so I figured, why stop here? Keep the momentum going! I laid the last bag of mulch I had in the front of the house. I think I need about 8 more bags to thicken up both the back and the front to the proper depth.
I then headed to the grocery store to pick up some fresh bagels (I’d worked up an appetite) and a donut for the Little Man. The kids ate and played for a while. They took a bath. When they finished I took the Little Man with me to Target to pick up a few things. Among the things we picked up were (a) windshield wipers for one of our cars; and (b) a storage unit for shoes in the main hallway. The Little Man and I then proceeded to put together the storage unit so that we had a nicer, and more convenient place to put all of our shoes (and guests shoes):
Once we’d build our little storage cubby, the Little Man went out to the car to replace the windshield wipers. That was quick and easy. To make it easier, I’d backed the car into its parking space. Once finished, I needed to turn the car around and the Little Man was growing grouchy and impatient. So I asked him if he wanted to help me move the car. Into the little car we went. The Little Man sat on my lap. I buckled us in, and then we proceeded to turn the car around in our driveway and pulled it head-first into the spot. The Little Man got to “drive” and he was very excited about that.
And since the Little Miss is now mobile, crawling all over the place, including down that long hallway in the above picture, I also picked up and installed some hooks around which we can wrap the cords to our blinds, safely out of her reach.
All of this I did before 10:30am. And meanwhile, in addition to bathing the kids, and doing laundry, Kelly also managed to make some cupcake.
And our day is far from over. We have a birthday party to attend at 3pm, and we have friends coming over at 5:30pm. And yet already I feel like I’ve done enough around the house to consider it a full day’s worth of work. I guess that’s what happens when your kids wake you up at 5:30am on a Saturday.
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