May 9 = Yard Work Day

Oh my goodness!  For the first time in a long time, I am writing a blog post about the day that is actually occurring.  This morning I woke up at 7 which is early for me and Zachary was playing a game on his phone.  For some reason, every April, this boy starts not being able to sleep.  So I got up and came downstairs and while I was messing on the computer he prepared this for me:
 

And then we slowly got the kids dressed and ready and fed and we headed to Home Depot.  The back yard that we inherited was bad.  Really bad.  We're not trying to have the best backyard in the world but we would like to be able to have the kids play outside every once in a while so in order to do that, we've got to get to work.  Liam was really excited about the trip:

Good thing the backseats of our minivan fold down:

This is the starting picture of our backyard.  Now this is after we put hours into cleaning it up.  I wish I had a picture of what it looked like before we got to it- when we moved in.  You'd be impressed with this picture.

While Zachary worked on his project- making a new patio- I got Liam's sandbox that Grammy & Gramps sent to us all ready for him.

 He was a little unsure at first:

 But he warmed up pretty quickly.

While we were lounging in the sandbox, Daddy was hard at work.  Also, Malia was taking a nap- didn't want you to think we forgot about her.

But in addition to today being yard work day, it was also one of my favorite days ever.  I went to get Liam and some toys for the sandbox and I let him go down the stairs by himself- he's quite good at it.  Side note: He's started saying "good job" and recognizing himself- it's the cutest.  I was putting the toys in the box and he was continuing his way down the stairs and Zachary asked him if he was gonna play in the sandbox with mama.  And he said it. "Mama,"  "Mama," "Maaaaaaaama" and tears instantly filled my eyes.  I've been waiting over two years to hear that sound.  I thought soon after he
 said "dada," "mama" would follow but it didn't.  In his yearly photo books I do, I write a message at the end.  When I wrote the note in the back of his book celebrating his first birthday I wrote that I was looking forward to hearing him say "mama."  In the book celebrating his second birthday I reiterated my excitement and now that day has come.  It may sound silly to get so excited but there's just something about hearing him call my name that melts my heart.  A couple hours later he saw a magnet on the refrigerator- it's a picture of the three of us- Malia wasn't around yet- and he pointed to me in the picture and said "mama," proving it wasn't a fluke.  

Well Zachary left while I was blogging- took both kids- and got something else for me- I don't know what it is yet but he's cooking dinner now and I have a feeling it has something to do with our new and improved backyard... we shall see!