Free time?

Since school started I frequently get asked the infamous question, "What are you going to do with so much free time?" So far the answer as been this:

 Our Yard!!!  Our yard is good size for this area, but its always been fairly unusable, particularly to our kids.  Lots of it was rock, the grass slopped, there were thorny rose bushes near a garden area that had no irrigation.  We have always dreamed of redoing our yard, but were on the 5 year plan.  This year, we moved our side fence forward.  Done for the year - or not.  Our neighbor is a landscaper and a really nice guy.  He mentioned that it wouldn't be really hard to scrape our yard clean with a tractor and get a dump truck to haul it away.  We took him up on it, since that is what I most dreaded.

 And since we had the tractor, we might as well level the yard - makes sense.  And we should run the irrigation system before we pour concrete.  Your seeing where this is going, right? 

This is the view from our front porch. Our front walk was having problems, so they took that out too.  We wanted to extend our back porch and add in a sidewalk and needed a new front walkway, so concrete was next.

 So we now have a sidewalk that goes around our grass (or what will be our grass) and around our whole house.  I have been to Home Depot and like stores more times that I have lost count and now personally know many of the workers.  This weekend Brad built a retaining wall in the front and planted a tree.  We have several more trees and bushes that need to be planted, 2 more walls that need to be built, and rock that needs to get laid down.  Atleast the grass and veggie garden can wait til spring.  Maybe sometime in January I will finally get that break during school everyone's been talking about.  It doesn't look like much yet, but we already love it and I'm hoping the finished product is as good as I'm envisioning. 

I also recently celebrated my birthday.  The Young Women came over and heart attacked my garage.  Aren't they cute.  My Visiting Teacher also brought over a cake.  I think this is the most I've celebrated a birthday in a long time.  It was fun.

 This week Dayton had a massive seizure.  Angelman kids are prone to seizure's, but since he'd only had minor ones, we were hoping that would be it.  It lasted over an hour by the time the emergency meds kicked it.  That's a little unsettling for a neurologist, so they kept him overnight for observations.  All the tests came back good, so they just increased his current seizure meds and sent us home.  He had a few rough days, but is back to his super smiley self.  We are grateful for the thoughts and prays from everyone and feel blessed to have such a great support system.  I thought about taking a picture in the hospital, but I really have no desire to remember him like that.  Here's the picture I would rather remember:

Hope that brightens your day.