New shed - Part 2

 Here's the new shed!  In a box... "Let's do this!" as Graham would say:

It's a good thing we had enough space to lay this all out:

Here's the real test - to see if the base of the shed actually fit in the area that I have leveled out:

Yes! Happy Mommy!!!  It's a perfect fit.  Did I ever doubt it??! :-D

Next, we have to put the sides of the shed together.  Graham is charging up this project.  He loves this stuff!  And I love how he's not caring about wearing my pink flip flops :-)

So far so good!  Men, men, men, men... as the boys would sing:

Now we have to assemble a few things on the inside of the roof before putting that on:

Ta da!!! 

 I'm glad I didn't have to cut off the lemon tree branch. In a way, it's actually holding the shed down/from being blown away!

Looking good so far...

The hinges for the doors were a bit tricky but we did it!  Ya, I ended up taking over somehow from Bobby.  How did that happen??!

So here's the one main reason why we needed a shed - for our big mower.  Look at how much more space we have to spare.  I'm glad I got a bigger shed:

Graham's hiding in this huge box.  Can you see him??? Ha ha!

I'm also glad I was able to tuck this shed on the side of the yard.  I hope the figs from the fig tree doesn't stain the shed.  I may have to trim a few more branches from the fig, when that time comes that is:

Now, it's time to clear up all this stuff!  Yikes, so messy!!!

Ahh... so much better! 

I moved all the firewood closer to the fire pit way back on the top/garden patio and managed to stack a couple shelves in the shed for all the soils, pesticides, etc.  Love it!

I still need to get some floating shelves that are specific to the shed but have not been able to find them easily online.  Very strange as you can find almost anything these days on the internet!

Anyway,  I was trying to figure out how to tier this one little are between the She-shed and the new shed.  I found all these empty planters.  Wow, I've bought a lot of plants!

So here's the general idea so far... to tier them so the dirt doesn't get washed down.  This idea is definitely cheaper than buying those heavy pavers but I'm not sure if I like the way it looks.  I probably could have spray painted all the planters to a more cheerful and uniform color.  Too late now!

Maybe some plants might help??? We'll see how it all turns out in a few more weeks/months! Only thing is there is no irrigation over here, although probably not too difficult to connect a few sprinkler heads from an existing line.

By the way, the big grey paver is my big step to get up onto the roof.  The boys are constantly throwing things up there!

Okay, new shed is done.  Yay!!!  It didn't take as long as I thought it would, so I guess that's a good thing.  I still have an on-going project that I need to get back to which entails fixing with concrete  - so tedious!  I may do some other things first before getting back to that one :-)

Graham's knee (Feb 9)

A couple of weeks ago while I was busy working in the yard, the boys were busy running around the backyard... as usual. Except this time Graham fell while Charlie was chasing him.  And of course Graham's knee had to hit right on the edge of a paver!  It really makes me rethink my selection of hardscape around the yard.  Sheesh!

The wound looks like lips!  I had applied some antibacterial ointment and slapped a bandaid on it.  In the meantime, I also had to ask Bobby to replenish our first aid kit.  And this is what he brought back from the store!

I guess Graham is really in not too much pain when he tells me to record him doing a flip on the trampoline the next day:

2 days later and the wound is already looking better.  It's amazing how he heals so quickly! There was sort of a "flap" where the wound was and I wasn't sure if I needed to trim it off.  I'm glad I didn't and just let the body take care of it:

Unlike my thumb which I had slammed onto the minivan door at the end of November.  That's almost 3 months now!

I have a nice "bump" where the new nail is forming.  Ha ha!

Anyway, 2 weeks later and wound has completely scabbed over and just an afterthought now.  Boys I tell you!  

Hopefully there won't be too many more injuries in the backyard.  I really don't want to go to the ER during this pandemic!

New shed - Part 1

Now that we are going to be staying in LA for longer (Bobby got another new job!), my request to get a new shed was finally approved :-)  But first, I have to figure out where to put it.  And of course, I didn't want to go with a small dinky one.  It needed to at least fit the mower as well as most of the garden stuff.  So, the one I found was 6 ft long x 4 ft wide and 6.5 ft high.  Woohoo...!!

And looks like this is the only potential spot for it.  But that means having to get tier/wall pavers and those things are so heavy. Urgh... well, i have to start somewhere I guess. So this is the spot!

It will be in between the fig tree (left) and lemon tree (right):

This is going to be such a chore to level out this area especially when the soil rises up towards the back:

I've barely started and the shed is here!  It's a good thing we had it delivered.  This would have never fit in (or ON!) the minivan.  LOL!!!

The delivery guy could not come up our driveway to help us push this huge box (all 160lbs of it) through the gate.  And of course, Bobby was coincidentally out.  Somehow, we did manage though :-)

I'm looking at the packaging and it says "Easy Assembly".  I hope this is true!

Time to get the boys to help out in between classes.  Although 2 minutes after taking this photo, both boys disappeared!

I'm only laying these square pavers towards the front of the shed as the soil is pretty hard/compact beyond it.  Hopefully this decision won't come back and bite me later on:

Progress is sloooow....:

Finally, the next day I am able to start layering the heavy wall pavers.  Thank goodness it rained a week or so ago.  The soil was already getting firm after getting about a foot down into it:

We dumped all that soil that was dug up into this huge pile to the left.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all this soil yet!

Now we're getting somewhere :-)

I never figured out why these cacti are back here.  This one looked pretty sad.  I was going to save it but decided to just save one of the leaves and throw away the rest as it had some weird white spots on it.  I had to dig through some of the roots too:

After Day 2... about 3/4 way done.  Woohoo..!!!

The boys are insisting on having a fire tonight.  Here's Charlie manning the fire with his stick :-P

I wrapped some solar lights on the 2 trees.  I think it looks ok.  It just seems a bit unbalanced with no lights in this part of the yard.  I'm thinking I might want to add more fairy trinkets under the lemon tree.  We'll see.  Obviously don't want to get carried away, which is an easy thing to do with garden decor.  Ha ha!

I'm finding other pavers that have been buried into the dirt as the soil is washed upon them during the rain:

Day 3.... Ta da!!!

I think it looks level..??! Or level enough. He he...

I did find this grass with an interesting looking flower behind the fig tree.  So cool!

Okay, stay tuned for Part 2 on putting up the new shed!

Happy Valentine's Day

For this Valentine's, I decided to get Bobby a new scooter!  I ordered it online so I had to make sure Bobby didn't sneak around looking at the order history.  The boys were obviously super excited when the big box showed up early!

Looks like it's kid approved!

I decided to get some cheapy jewelry online.  It's a smokey Topaz and I obviously didn't get the correct size.  The ring is a bit big and so is the stone.  Ha ha!  But I still like it :-)

As usual, we have pancakes during one day of the weekend.  Graham and Charlie love Daddy's chocolate chip pancakes.  No wonder my "muffin top" is getting bigger!

Later that afternoon, we venture out to The Hangar, a collection of restaurants under a literal old airplane hangar!  I remembered to wear my bright red/pink Valentine's leggings that was a gift from a school mom 3 years ago. I'm glad they still fit as I only wear them once a year.  Ha ha!

The real reason we come to The Hangar is for ice pops.  Graham and Charlie LOVE this place!

YUM!!!!

It's definitely a special day when we let the boys drink fizzy drinks too:

Later the next day, we make rice krispie treats for the neighbors.  The recipe called for a big dish, but when I squeezed everything together, there was only half a pan of rice krispie treats??! So strange! Maybe it's not suppose to be that thick?

Hmmm... but it seems to look like the correct thickness.  My fingers ended up hurting a bit though trying to make these heart shapes with a cookie cutter:

Glad I had some muffin baking cups.  They work perfectly for packaging these treats:

I almost forgot that we had bought these new pillow cases too.  So cute!

The pillow cases are double sided.  This one seemed very appropriate for Daddy as we have it on the couch.  Ha ha!

As per usual, Charlie is still a fan of Captain America:

I'm not sure why I took this photo now... but I think it's to show how mismatched my orange socks are to my red/pink leggings.  Ha!  Compared to Bobby's regular black and grey tones :-P

Graham and Charlie weren't short on any Valentine's candy this year despite doing Distance Learning at home.  Graham decorated a bag the week before and we picked it up during the week of Valentine's and it was packed with candies and goodies! Graham also had a Valentine's art project.  Too cute!

Hope everyone else had a fun Valentine's Day!!!