More from around the house

It was another weekend of household projects. We started by tackling an ugly, dying/dead bush that was right in front of our house. The long term goal is to re-landscape the entire front yard, but for now we just wanted to get rid of the bush.

Susie pulled out the metal rods that were (barely) holding the sad thing together and then set out to dig it up.

Rach chipped in by sawing a couple of the more stubborn roots.

With surprisingly little time and effort we pulled it right out. It left a bit of a bare spot, but the bush next to it is so over grown you can't really notice, so we are going to leave it alone for now.

After the yard work was done, we were on to more a fun (and also more tedious) project. We have moved the hope chest that was in the office into the baby's room. It was originally painted black and white to match the office decor, so the first step was repainting the base colors blue and white to match the nursery. We had picked up some little stencils on our last trip to Buffalo, and Susie took them to work and blew them up on the copier to be various sizes. We used the big ones for the front and sides of the chest.

Susie them patiently traced and cut out a bunch of little ones so we could scatter them across the top.

We don't like to brag, but isn't the finished product just too cute?!

We rounded out the weekend with a lovely cookout at some friends' house where we got to kick back, relax, and even play with some kids. All in all, it was a good mix of being productive and getting to play.