I don't know why but I love green grass.  Maybe it all started when I visited Ireland - when I looked out my plane window and got my first glimpse of the country I'd loved in books and movies since I was a child, I saw nothing but green - green in a multitude of shades, looking like a patchwork quilt of nothing but green grass.  I can remember visiting my parents at Easter about ten years ago and taking a blanket, a book, and my puppy and taking a nap in their beautiful green backyard.   I've lived in my house for more than fifteen years now and my backyard has never had grass.  It has always been nothing but sand.  Which, I guess, in a way, is kind of cool.  You can look out the window and imagine you're at the beach.  And if you ever want to play beach volleyball, you're all set.  In fact, when I moved in, the previous tenants actually had a volleyball net strung up between two wooden posts.  The net and posts are long gone, but the sand remained.  At least until last Friday.  Steve & I have been doing something major to the house each year for the last several years - whether this is by design or by accident, I can't tell you.  But I can tell you in the last five years, we have replaced the roof, the doors, the windows, the siding, the flooring in all the rooms except the bedrooms, the stove and the ceiling fans.  All that's really left in our Extreme Makeover, Little Bitty Home Edition is redoing the girls' bedroom which is on tap for later this summer, painting the inside (I know that seems like the first thing we would do, since comparatively speaking it's cheap and easy....but, we've waffled back and forth since we got married almost seven years ago about the color:  green?  white?  off-white?  red?  okay not really red, although I love red walls, our house is just not big enough to pull it off!), and doing something with the backyard.  Every year, I almost nonchalantly mention something about sodding the backyard and we always end up putting it off for another project.  This year I mentioned it again and we both agreed it would be a good thing to do.  The girls are both old enough now to really play outside and they spend many, many hours in the play area that Steve built for them.  But, they've been somewhat constrained to that one area, since the rest of the yard had brush and spurs mixed in with the sand.  So, we took our tax return and bit the bullet and sodded the entire backyard and a corner of the front yard that didn't already have grass.  I never in ten million years imagined the difference it would make......our backyard looks amazing!  As Gracie would say, I can't even believe it!  I'm not sure who loves it more:

Abigail, who in her desire to have everything match, ran in the house and changed into her green Tinkerbell costume (you can see here a little of what the yard looked like before - this picture was taken mid-way through the soddding - it took them two days)

(On a side note here:  Abigail loved the guys who were sodding and she told them repeatedly:  "Hey, guys!  I love you!  I love you so much!  Thank you for my yard!")

Gracie, who is able to channel her inner Hippie Chick and play acoustic guitar under a tree:


or Ella Bella who acts as if she's been transported to the home of her dreams:




Steve says it looks fantastic but I'm not too sure that he's happy we got the new grass, since for the last several days he's been getting up at 5:00 a.m. to water it.  I gotta tell you - I love that man!    I'm already planning all kinds of summer parties and playdates - just think of all the things we can do in our new, beautiful backyard!