DIY Fire Pit and square foot gardening!

We've been pretty busy doing outside stuff lately, even though we've only had a handful of non-raining days to do anything. But I really want to start getting our yard in nicer shape, but the budget doesn't always allow for that, so it's one thing at a time.

For Christmas Jackson had gotten this book about square foot gardening from Matt's parents. He likes to go out to the garden with Grandpa when they spend time there in the summer so they thought we could do one in town. A couple of weekends ago Grandma and Grandpa came and Jackson got to help install it.

All fun and games until we told Jackson what manure actually was and that ended his direct involvement.

Penelope didn't have the same objections to manure and she wanted to help out.

I honestly don't know if she ate any because I wasn't always paying attention. But she's still alive so she's totally fine.

In the evening Matt started painting Penelope's toddler bed, which is already in her room. It was a good thing we took advantage of the cooler evening because the next evening it was raining and cold.

Fast forward to Memorial Day and we decided to start the fire pit when Matt returned something to Home Depot and saw that bricks were on super sale. We were worried this was going to be a several hundred dollar project, but we did it for about $70. We kind of guess on the number of blocks to purchase and it turned out we only bought five more than we actually used, so that was nice. Also, the hole for the pit was already in our yard courtesy of the kids digging it for no reason a few years ago.

Meanwhile, the kids decided to have a squirt gun fight.

While wearing their clothes and goggles.

It was pretty hilarious to watch because the water from the hose is COLD.

They eventually wised up and put on different clothes but still. Little turkeys.

Anyways. Our finished fire pit project looks like this:

Sadly, we've only had one fire since finishing it since it's either been raining, far too windy, or we haven't been home. But I ate enough smores during that first fire to make up for it so there's that. We have SO many projects we want to get done in this yard but I'll be honest, this is not where our skills are and getting started feels kind of overwhelming. But eventually.