Good For Something

 I know, I still need to do a post on the wedding.  Someday I'll get to it.

This post is about my backyard.  After a freeze last winter and a ton of rain this year; it's a bit of a mess.  We still have dead branches that need to be trimmed, the weeds are becoming ground cover, and we pretty much abandoned the garden after rabbits ate everything but the zucchini.

But...this ragged backyard is still good for something...mommy projects!

For the first day of fall, the girls and I made this little thankful tree.  It's a twist on that tree that has been going around Pinterest.  The girls' hand prints are supposed to be "fall" leaves and each leaf has something the girls' are thankful for written on it.  

When I decided to do it, I needed some dead branches and I wasn't about to trek 20 miles to the craft store for them.  Instead, I just went out to my backyard and trimmed some of those dead branches from last winter off of our orange bell plants.  When Hubby saw the pile on the counter he was quite bewildered.  He was even more bewildered as to why I didn't follow his advice and take all of the dead leaves off outside.  Instead they just dropped all over the kitchen floor...oops.

But I think it turned out pretty cute, and in case you are wondering...yes, the photo is strategically taken so that you cannot see the mess in my kitchen.  Pots, pan and other things that don't fit in a normal dishwasher run are my nemesis.

We also had some more homeschool fun in our backyard today.  Part of our reading today was a twist on the age old story of the princess and the frog.  In this story an evil stepmother sent her step-daughter off to fetch water from the well with a colander {which, of course, won't hold water}. 

After a nice rainstorm, we went outside with colanders to see it we could get them to hold water.

First Attempt

Decided to try adding rocks.

And then giant zucchini leaves from the overgrown garden. 

Success!  {not sure it would have been so easy without those GIANT leaves}.

After the experiment the girls commenced splashing in puddles.  I came inside for a minute and heard crazy giggling, the kind of giggling that makes you not want to turn around because you are afraid of what you might see.  Yup, they were having a mud fight...so I went out and videotaped it.  Pumpkin only had bottoms on, so I'll refrain from posting it.

Now, I still have one more project planned for some of that overzealous growth in my yard.  But it's a Christmas project, so don't expect any posts about it very soon.