Work! Work! Work!

 This yard work project was one for the record books!  Randy saw the weekend forecast was scheduled for sunny skies and got a little overzealous in his planning.  Okay, a LOT overzealous!  He ordered a whole truckload of mulch to be delivered on Saturday morning, the morning before Easter and the big party that we had invited several families over for.  I had plans of spending all day Saturday in the kitchen, prepping the food and cleaning the house while the boys worked in the yard.  But then the mulch came and all plans were thrown out the window.  The pile was huge!  The driver asked us who was helping us spread the mulch and when we told him it was just us, he suggested we go to Home Depot and hire illegals to help us out. If only we had listened. . .

 The mulch didn't arrive until almost noon so we were already a few hours behind schedule.  With three wheelbarrows and lots of snow shovels, we attacked that giant mound with optimistic ferocity.  The sun was shining, music was playing, kids were working, and things were getting done.  After my 17th load of mulch I stopped counting.  I hadn't even made a dent in the pile while Randy was still cleaning out flower beds so I could dump the mulch.  {We still disagree as to whether or not the flower beds needed to be cleared since we were just dumping mulch over everything anyway, but Randy doesn't take shortcuts, unlike me, and so we worked.}

Marcus filled and dumped his wheelbarrow full of heavy mulch, Landon assisted, and Ethan spread the mulch.   I took a short lunch break to eat and start cooking the Easter ham, then it was back to work so Randy could take his lunch break.  Someone was always working at all times.  By this point the fun had worn off, morale was low, and blisters were starting to form.  And we weren't even halfway done!  It. Was. Bad.
The boys started dropping like flies, until Marcus was the only one left.  He laid on the grass while he waited for the next load to arrive so he could spread it and finally that was too much for him.  But Randy and I kept plugging away.  At 6:30pm the pile was almost gone but there were piles of mulch scattered throughout the yard, waiting to be spread.  I finally called it quits and fed the boys dinner and started cleaning the house and doing Easter prep late into the night.  Randy worked until 9pm when it was too dark to see, then spent a half hour cleaning up the yard and putting away tools.  He was filthy dirty, exhausted, sore, and blistered.  I would've been really upset about how this whole thing went down but Randy was so appreciative of my hard work and assured me he knew of no other woman who could've done what I did {with the exception of my sisters who learned how to do yard work from our overzealous father} that I had to forgive him.  Plus, it makes for a great story!

Parker likes to do everything with a helmet on

seven hours later