making it after all

The Baby Essentials I Didn't Know I Needed (0-6 months)

I used to be the girl who couldn't walk into a Babies 'R' Us  to pick up a baby shower gift without feeling like I was going to have a minor panic attack. All the choices! All the colors! All the noises! It was just too much.

As you can imagine, registering for stuff for my own baby was a little overwhelming to me. Most overwhelming was the thought of baby stuff taking over our 1,000 square foot house ... we just don't have the room for every contraption and gizmo under the sun, so I knew that anything we brought home had to be worth the space and serve more than one purpose if possible. For guidance, I solicited advice from my mama friends, asking them to answer the following:

---What is something you didn't register for but wish you had? 

---What is something you registered for and didn't use as much as you thought you would? 

---What was one thing you couldn't live without?

There are all sorts of baby registry lists out there to help you figure out the basics, but this was such a helpful and insightful exercise to learn about specific items and things I never would have thought of. It also was super helpful in deciding what to leave off the list.

In the end, I'm glad I spent so much time researching and I can't say there's really anything that hasn't been useful. But some of the most helpful things were those I added to the registry after talking to friends, gifts we received that I never would have found myself, or things I realized would be helpful and purchased later.  So instead of a comprehensive list, here are the baby essentials I didn't know I needed.

1. Video monitor. Flynn's room is just across the hall from ours, so I wasn't sure we would need any sort of monitor, but I've been so glad to have one since he transitioned out of the Rock 'n Play in our room and into his crib in his own room. This one came recommended by a couple friends because it works well and is pretty affordable compared to other models.

2. Nasal aspirator. You've probably heard of the Nose Frida--we have one of those too and like it. But we also received this hybrid model from my aunt, a former NICU nurse, and it's great too! It combines the functions of both a bulb syringe and an oral aspirator for a 1-2 snot-sucking punch, but it's still super easy to clean.

3. Play mat. We have hardwood floors and a jute rug in our living room, so I really liked having this soft play mat when Flynn was small. It's cushier than some of the play mats out there, so it seemed a little more comfortable when there's no carpet underneath. And, it's easily washable--my in-laws have a similar one that they lay out on the bed at their house for diaper changes. 

4. We use this wipes container daily, and it's just one of those things that make my life easier. You just press down on the lid to open it, and a weighted plate makes it easy to pull out only one wipe at a time. I buy wipes in bulk from Costco and keep them in here once I open them so they don't dry out. I also like that it's decent looking enough to leave on the dresser near the changing pad.

5. We have a couple Halo Sleep Sacks and like them a lot, but this thicker/heavier sleep sack was given to us by a friend and has been a godsend for the colder months.

6. My friend recommended these lightweight swaddle blankets for a summer baby because they are super soft, breathable, and large enough to be really versatile, and I reached for them time and time again when Flynn was small. I used them for swaddling but also for covering him up in his infant carrier in an air conditioned car. You'll be doing laundry so much anyway that a set of three is all you need!

7. We received the Wubbanub pacifier as a gift, and it was a lifesaver for road trips when Flynn was about 2-4 months old. Basically, it's a small stuffed animal attached to a Soothie brand pacifier. Flynn has the dino, but there are tons of cute critters to choose from. Even as a newborn, he could wrap his little hands around it and the extra weight helps keep it in place. Plus, it's much easier for us to keep track of! One time we lost it on a walk, and a neighbor brought it back to us. (Don't worry--it's washable!) He's not much of a paci guy anymore (and we never used it in the crib for safety purposes), but we won't go on a road trip without it.

8. This rattle was also a gift, and it's Flynn's favorite toy. I'm not sure if it's the bright colors, the rattle, the plush fabric, the soft plastic ring, or a combination of all those things, but it's another road trip essential. He loves chewing on this thing.

9. We use Dr. Brown's bottles, and if you're familiar with them you know how many parts they have. This dishwasher basket has worked really well for all those parts--the nipples go up top in the red section and everything else goes down below. Plus, it fits well in our top rack. 

10. Here's the deal...if a friend offers to lend you a swing, a bouncer, an activity gym, or an activity center, take them up on it. Those items are great to have, but the window for needing them is so short that it's great to be able to borrow. We were lucky to have friends/family offer up their gently used items for the short time we'd need them. So far, the one exception we've made to our borrow-instead-of-buy philosophy is this activity center. We bought this for Flynn for Christmas because it's just so dang versatile. The seat pops out and the foot rest pops in to that opening so the whole thing turns into a kids' table when your baby is too big for an activity center. Bonus: It's fairly neutral!

11. When I went back to work, I hauled my pump parts around in a Ziploc bag. After a few weeks, I invested in one of these wet-dry bags. In addition to sections for wet and dry items, this kind also has a staging mat, which comes in handy when you're pumping in a less-than-ideal place. I tuck my pump parts inside the wet section and stick it in the refrigerator so I don't have to wash the parts between every pumping session and only once at the end of the day. I wipe the inside of the bag and the mat clean every night and wash it in the washing machine about once a week. After the strap of my freebie cooler broke a couple months later, I bought this freezable lunch bag. It has freezer packs built in so you don't have to waste precious storage space.  

12. We have several burp cloths, but I reach for these again and again. They fit so well on my shoulder and I love the simplicity of basic white. They also have snaps so you can use them as bibs if you wish. 

Our baby has outgrown some of these things now that he's 8 months old, but I'll update this again in a couple months as we discover new faves. I hope it alleviates some of the baby store anxiety you may be feeling! 

I'm Back + Wild Geometry Nursery Plan

Hello? Does this thing still even work?

It's been a insanely long time since I updated this little old blog of mine and now, with two weeks left of maternity leave, I've decided it's high time I revisit this side project of mine. A lot has happened since the blogging hiatus, the most eventful being we had a baby! Flynn joined our wolf pack in July, and we're smitten with his chubby cheeks, head full of fuzz, and chill personality. While I don't plan to plaster his face and life milestones all over this space on the web (although, let's be real--that would be the best way to get my mom to read), I thought it was only fitting to mark my triumphant return to the blogosphere with a post about his nursery. 

Flynn's room is our old guest room, and we had to finish our basement before we could begin the makeover so we could move the spare bed downstairs into a new guest room. John worked his tail off from January to May to make that happen (stories on that to come in future posts). Since I couldn't really dig into Flynn's room until June, I channeled my nesting instincts into the planning process to make myself feel better. While the plan evolved a lot in these past few months, where I landed can best be described as Wild Geometry. Otherwise known as animals and shapes.   

1] Because the two bedrooms in our small home are relatively big, I knew I wanted Flynn's room to serve as more than just a place to sleep. It also needed to be a place where we could store and have room to play with his toys so the rest of our home wouldn't become overrun with stuff. Storage was a must. I toyed (pun intended) with the idea of building some sort of toy storage, but then I came to my senses and realized a couple of these bins from the Target Pillowfort collection would do the trick.  

2] More laundry was most definitely in our future. I loved this hamper from The Land of Nod, but I wasn't jazzed about the $89 price tag so I decided to hit up discount stores to find something similar. 

3] I inherited a blush pink rocker/swivel chair from my Grandma's 1990s living room. While I actually really liked the color for a girl's room, I decided a more neutral color would be better for the long haul so I made plans to have it reupholstered. 

4] There are two windows in the room. I opted for inexpensive white RITVA curtains from IKEA and cordless bamboo blinds. I'm still on the fence about embellishing the curtains with ribbon. 

5] The mobile was something I really wanted to make myself. The mobiles in this Etsy shop served as my inspiration. More info to come on my version.

6] The Babyletto Hudson crib and mattress were gifts from John's parents and were the very first things we got for the room. Even though they sat in their boxes for several weeks while John finished the basement, it brought me great comfort knowing we at least had these two items as my due date quickly approached.

7] I wanted an ottoman like this to go with my chair, but I didn't want to pay the West Elm price so I decided to make one. That's still a work in progres!

8] I found a midcentury-style side table similar to this one on clearance at Target.

9] While I wanted to keep most everything fairly neutral in the room, a rug seemed like a fun way to bring in some color and fun. While the thousands of choices on Rugs USA can be overwhelming, I finally settled on this colorful and quirky rug that I was able to get on sale. Actually, I think this was technically the first thing we got for the space. 

10] The room had super dark gray walls that I loved for awhile but had grown tired of so I went with the opposite--a creamy white (SW Alabaster)--to lighten the space up. 

11] I'd read that it's wise to have at least two crib sheets and mattress covers in case you have a middle-of-the-night blowout and need to change bedding. I waffled between neutral and colorful, but decided to do both in the end. The blue one hasn't made its way into my cart yet. We'll see if it's necessary once Flynn actually starts sleeping in his crib. 

12] I've long been a fan of the books-as-art idea in kids' rooms. I found some clear acrylic shelves to make a wall of book "art," and it's seriously one of my fave things. 

13] One of the perks of my magazine editor job is the product previews. York Wallcoverings came and gave us all coupons to purchase wallpaper at a steep discount. I fell so hard for the Congo Line animal paper that it inspired a subtle animal theme for the room. The textured walls meant wallpapering a whole wall impractical, but I decided a DIY panel project would be a way to get a little bit in without having to smooth the walls for wallpapering. More on this to come. 

14] My aunt graciously offered to make changing pad covers and Boppy covers and she let me choose the fabric. I picked out black-and-white geometric prints for the room. 

15] Instead of a traditional changing table, we decided a wide dresser with tons of storage space would be more practical for the room. I toyed with the idea of hacking an IKEA piece, but I eventually found a vintage midcentury dresser to use instead. 

The room is currently about 85 percent done. I'm still working on a couple projects to finish it up, and I better get cracking before maternity leave ends and all hell breaks lose--ha! I'll share final photos and more info about some of the projects in the coming weeks. My goal is to keep the content coming. After a two-year break, there's a lot to talk about! 
 

Walkway: Part 5 (Laying Pavers)

Planning, digging, more planning, spreading. Finally, paver time! 

We thought we were being smart by planning our pathway's width around the size of our pavers. Since our pavers were 4x8, we decided that 48-inch-wide path would give us the necessary width without unneccessary cuts (since it's a multiple of 4 and 8). Unfortunately, just because our pavers were marketed as 4x8 inches didn't mean they are actually 4x8 inches. Whoopsies. As we started to lay our pavers in our freshly laid sand, we realized that they actually each measured about 3.95x7.91, which meant that our walkway needed to be 47.5 inches wide instead of a full 48 inches. It wasn't a big deal to make the adjustment, but it's something that's worth thinking about in advance if you can.   

John (and the neighbors) were all pretty skeptical of the herringbone design I had been talking a big game about. I mean, really. More cuts! Geometry! Why would you do it, they wondered? To be honest, I was a little skeptical that we'd be able to pull it off without it looking like amateur hour. But, I really wanted to do something a little different with our cheap pavers (only 44 cents each on sale at Menard's) to make them seem a little more special, so I talked John into it against his better judgement.

The landing was a little tricky and ended up being a process of trial and error. If I had plotted things out on graph paper, that certainly would have helped. But alas, I didn't get the engineering gene that seems to run rampant in my family so I tend to avoid things like graph paper and tangent points and instead would rather visualize things in person.

I mentioned previously that we wanted the landing to be a little wider to stretch the width of the 5-foot-wide stairs and give us a little more room toward the street since we usually have to use our front door to move in big furniture. (See: Couch.) I also wanted a soldier row of pavers outlining the landing the path. That put us in the 5x5-foot range for the landing. If you look closely, you can tell from the photo below that we weren't off to the best start.

Our friends came over to have a picnic lunch with us when we got to this part. After the four of us put our brains together and chowed down on Chipotle, we finally realized things would be a heck of a lot easier to bring the wider landing width down to about 4 feet for the walkway portion if we used an even number of rows to create the landing. DUH! I had forgotten my own advice that multipes are easier! I was able to adjust the landing design from 15 rows x15 rows to 15 rows x 16 rows wide. This brought our landing to about 5x6 feet, so we could take it down by exactly one paver's width on each side to bring the walkway portion down to 47.5" wide.

If you're a visual person like I am, then this photo probably says a lot more than my rambling will. 

We placed the three additional pavers on each side because I wanted to cut them down at an angle to bring it down to walkway width, but we eventually nixed them and decided to just leave them as is after we encountered a bit of cutting drama. It just wasn't worth it to mess with them. Once the pattern was established, things started to move along pretty quickly. We decided to skip all our cuts for the half blocks and fill those in later to keep things moving.

After a day, we only had about a quarter of the walkway pavers laid. Since we wouldn't be able to touch it in a few days, we had to cover our progress with tarps so the pavers wouldn't shift if it rained.

When we got back to it several days later, things moved along fairly easily until we got to the first curve. Until this point, we had been installing the plastic edging (using 8 to 12-inch spikes) after we laid the pavers. When we reached the curve, we decided to install it first on both sides we would have a guideline to butt the soldier row pavers up against. This was super helpful.  

 

We knew we could leave small gaps between the solider row pavers as we fit them together around the curves, but in some cases we knew we'd have to trim them to get a tighter fit. 

 

My little prop sale wheelbarrow was the perfect size for hauling the pavers from our driveway (where they were delivered) to the walkway. 

To fill in the pavers between the soliders rows, we just continued the pattern, skipping places where we'd need to make cuts around the curve so the pavers would fit. 

At some point our pattern got a little slanted, and we had to remove a bunch of pavers and replace them. It's amazing how being off by just a little bit throws off your entire pattern b/c mistakes multiply the further along you get in the process. Once we course-corrected, we were back on track.

We bought a $10 brick set and used our hammer to cut the blocks directly in half. 

This worked great for the straight even cuts. John filled in the missing half blocks from the first half of the walkway in about 30 minutes after some time with a brick set. 

I was the designated paver layer, while John was the hauler of sand and bricks and the cutter. 

Things were moving right along and we were feeling great and working as a team until it was time for all those angled and curved cuts. We were so happy to reach the driveway...we even sent the below pic to our family and friends to brag about our progress. We should have kept our moths shut though, because it the cuts turned out to be super stressful. (You'll notice by the lack of photos of the cutting process that it was too tense for photos.) 

We don't have a tile saw, but we do have a circular saw, a Dremel mini circular saw, and a miter saw. It was clear the brick set wasn't going to be of help for the curves, but we hoped one of our saws (although none of them ideal for the job) would do the trick with the right blade. 

To make a long story short, the cheap masonry blades we bought for the circular saw could barely put a dent in the pavers (even when we borrowed our neighbor's more powerful circular saw). The Dremel mini circular saw wasn't deep enough to get through the pavers. The miter saw blades were expensive at about $75 and we weren't even sure it would actually work since a miter saw isn't really made for this kind of work, so we skipped that method.

Things were looking glum at this point, and we were starting to get really frustrated until we discovered the tool that would save the day. The masonry saw! 

It was at about 3:30 pm on Sunday that I called about the Home Depot tool center to ask if they had anything to rent that would cut pavers. It was music to my ears when I learned about the masonry saw they had. When they told me we could rent for 4 hours for $55 or 24 hours at $79, John couldn't get there fast enough. Since the tool center was about an hour from closing that day, we were able to rent it until 9am the next morning for the $55.

It was a race against the clock to get all the cuts made before a downpour that evening. I measured and marked the pavers, John cut them. We weren't able to get everything done before it stormed, so we had to wake up early the next morning (and probably annoy our neighbors) to finish cutting the last of the pavers before we had to stop to clean it out and bring it back to Home Depot. TOTALLY worth forking over the money to rent the right tool for the job.

With more rain in the forecast, we had to wait a couple days before we could complete the last step: filling in the joints with polymeric sand. This special sand hardens when you get it wet so it functions sort of like grout. It's supposed to better at keeping weeds at bay, and it won't wash away over time like normal sand will. It was pricier (about $25/bag and we needed about 5 bags), but several friends who had completed projects convinced us it was worth it. We chose a gray color that would blend a little more with our pavers.

This process was fairly simple and completed in just one evening. We just emptied the bags of sand onto the walkway and then swept it into the cracks with brooms. 

 

The push broom worked better in the middle sections, while the regular broom was better along the edges. (John had filled the dirt back in around the walkway before we filled in the sand so that it wouldn't squeeze out along the edges.) 

 

After we filled in all the cracks, John used a leaf blower on the lowest setting to blow off the sand from the pavers surface. The sand will stick to the pavers when it gets wet, so the pavers need to start out completely dry and clean before you bring water into the mix. 

 

We misted it with a hose several times and let the sand harden. Finally, we were done! And we rejoiced! Our neighbors came over and high-fived us. We were so proud.

 

We still need to work on the flower beds on either side of the house now that the walkway is in place, but we're loving the curb appeal it brings to our little house. We've already had visitors test it out...now we just need to get used to answering the front door. :) We're hoping to get a start on the rest of the landscaping in July so we can hopefully score some deals on plants. we also might seal the pavers so that they look wet/darker. Right now they appear a little chalky and blue-tinted when they're not wet, and I prefer them to be a little darker (like they are in the photo above) so they look more charcoal. This is one of our biggest projects to date, and we couldn't be prouder of the results!  

 

 

 

Walkway: Part 4 (Laying a Base)

We planned, we dug, we planned some more. Then we were ready to lay our base. In all our research, we learned a good base of crushed stone and sand is absolutely necessary to prevent your walkway from sinking over time so we tried to take this step pretty darn seriously. 

The string/yarn we had placed in the previous step was crucial for helping us figure out exactly how much stone to fill back into the trench. Starting at the landing, we stretched a straight board (or in some cases a string) across the trench and measured 3.5 inches down from the board (2.5 inches to account for the pavers and 1 inch for the sand). We placed the string/yarn connecting the stakes at this point on each stake so we would knew we had to fill in crushed stone all the way up to the string. 

This also helped ensure we were filling in enough stone to get us back to fairly level and that our finished walkway would be most level with the ground with no raised edge or low spots. Keep in mind you don’t want a walkway to be exactly level…it should ever so slightly slope away from the house for proper drainage. Luckily for us, our yard naturally sloped away from the house in both directions so didn’t have to worry about this too much.

We started at the landing because we wanted the walkway to be at the same level as the first step. (The re-grading that was done by a previous owner had made the last step settle to be almost level with ground level.) It was also important that the walkway was almost level to the driveway so we took special care at the end. 

The next important step was to place the landscape fabric and then finally lay a bed of crushed gravel and sand. John did all the research on the crushed stone (the technical term being 3/4” crushed roadstone with fines) and the sand (officially known as base sand). We bought both from a local landscape company. Turns out you buy these things by the yard, and one yard of crushed stone was just about all John’s truck could handle! We ended up needing about 3.5 yards (truckloads) of crushed stone to fill our trench. 

While we chose to have the pavers delivered, we decided to move the gravel and sand ourselves one truck load at a time. We figured unloading it truckload by truckload as we brought it home would probably be better than having a massive pile on our driveway for a week (some of us aren't the best at maneuvering around things with a car while backing up). We also weren’t sure exactly how much we’d need so we wanted to have some flexibility to start with a conservative amount and get more if we needed to. Remember, our trench got a lot wider and deeper in some portions because of the skid loader, so our initial estimate seemed like it may be off.

It should be noted that we filled the ENTIRE width of the trench with stone (and later sand)--not just where the future pathway would be--to prevent the base or surrounding dirt from shifting on us later on. 

After spreading the stone in the trench, we had to tamp it down with our two borrowed tampers. Since the stone was a little damp from all the rain we got that week, we didn’t need to mist it with water to get it to pack nicely but you may want to if it your gravel is really dry. In the portions where the skidloader went crazy and made our trench up to 10-12 inches deep, we added about 2 inches of stone, tamped it down, then added the remaining amount necessary and tamped it again to make sure we were packing it all down really well.

If the digging didn’t give us summer muscles, the tamping really did! If you're the type of person who finds it helpful to take out your aggressions and frustrations on inanimate objects, this job is for you! I think I scared John, his dad, and myself because I enjoyed tamping so much, and that also explains why there's no photographic evidence. (C-Bear didn't care, but he rarely ever cares about things unrelated to eating treats and napping.)

We were so grateful to have John’s dad there to help us the day we spread the stone. It's amazing how much more quickly things happen when you have an extra set of hands, an extra wheelbarrow, and an extra truck! With his help, we were able to get done in a day what we thought would take the whole weekend. Thank you, Mike! After filling the entire trench with stone, we checked it all for levelness and called it a day.

If you need to take a break from the project, this is a good place to step away. 

Unfortunately, the helicopters were flying off maple leaf branches at this time so we constantly had to remove them at each step either by hand or with the leaf blower when we could to prevent future volunteer trees from later growing in the cracks of our new walkway.

We learned the stone could be rained on without causing problems, but the sand needed to be done in sections because you shouldn’t spread more sand than you plan to cover with pavers in a day. I mean duh--sand washes away. But you really don't think about how this might affect your workload until it's Sunday morning and you're ready to continue on to the next step but there's rain in the forecast and you know it will take several days to get all the pavers down. Since we didn't want to waste a whole day just because we may not finish before the weekend was over, we decided to start laying the sand and pavers and cover them with tarps until we could continue.

To spread the sand in an even 1-inch layer, we used two 1-inch PVC pipes and a straight board. We laid the pipes in the trench, then spread the sand over the pipes.

Then we dragged the board over the pipes to spread the sand in that section. When you've reached the end of your pipes, you carefully remove them and fill small amounts of sand by hand into the holes left by the pipes, carefully smoothing them out.

You know what smooth sand means? Now we're ready for pavers! I can hardly keep my eyes open so I'll cover that process next time.   

Walkway: Part 3 (Plotting)

After making an initial plan and moving all that dirt, it was time to get serious about numbers.

In between storms, we measured and marked the exact path for the walkway with stakes and yarn. So why didn't we do this before? The trench had to be slightly wider than the finished path so we could later install the plastic edging that would hold the pavers in place. We decided to use the spray paint for the initial rough plan to guide our digging and stakes and string for the real deal. In retrospect, even if we had been a little more exact with our initial markings, our stakes probably would have been moved by the skid loader and would have needed to be re-done so it was worth it to do it this way.

We wanted a wider landing (about 5-foot-square) at the base of the steps, and then we thought the walkway could gradually taper down to about four feet wide. We also wanted the pathway to appear parallel to the house, so we used the house as our reference point, measuring equal distances from the house at various points along the path and placing stakes directly across from each other on either side of the path. I can thank my engineer dad for that tip, although I was a little nervous when he started talking about “finding the tangent point.” Oy!

John kept insisting we should eyeball it, and I as getting serious anxiety. I sent out an SOS on Facebook and was able to borrow a laser level from a coworker. Even John would later agree that it was awesome! While not totally necessary, it really helped to give we (OK, me) the peace of mind that our straightaways were actually straight when we didn't have the house as a reference point near the driveway.

The spacing of the curves--the part in between the two straightaways--was a little trickier to figure out. Basically, we placed stakes on one side of the pathway to make a gradual curved line. This part we did sort of eyeball until it looked right. We used a lot more stakes in this portion so that the curves would be very gradual and not angular. To determine the placement of the stakes on the opposite side of the walkway, we just measured across 48 inches from each stake. (We used the inside of our stakes as our reference points to be consistent.) Finally, we connected all the stakes on each side with yarn. Some sort of nylon string probably would have been more legit, but yarn is what we had on hand.

We were very tempting to skip this planning step because we were eager to lay a base and put your pavers in place, but it really was a valuable use of time. If anything, it helped us visualize our pathway and anticipate pitfalls.

Next time, I’ll talk about how we moved 3.5 tons of crushed stone and 2 tons of sand!

Walkway: Part 2 (Excavating)

Our walkway projects is done-zo! But rather than write one mammoth post, I decided to break it up into a few and provide all the dirty details. We learned a lot along the way, so hopefully the info will help out anyone else who may be planning a similar project. (Google was our lifesaver.) As predicted, the project took almost a month of weekends and weeknights to finish up, so tip 1: Clear your calendar in the spring or fall. Trust me, this isn't a project you want to tackle in the heat and humity of mid-summer, especially if you live in the Midwest and have a husband who really hates heat.

After plotting out our rough path, excavating was the next major step. Speaking of husbands, let's give credit where credit is due. John did a LOT of the digging for this project (with a little help throughout the day from our awesome neighbors) while I helped host another baby shower. By the way, the wrong response to a "This really sucks" text is, "But just think how big your muscles will be this summer!" The correct response is something along the lines of, "I'm sorry, and I'll be home soon." FYI. 

A tip about tools: We already had a round shovel in our arsenal, but we reluctantly decided to add a garden spade to cut through the sod and a square shovel to scoop out the dirt. We made these purchases as an afterthought when we bought our other supplies, but we're so glad we did...these tools proved to be indispensable to the project.

I think I got home from the shower around 4:30 or 5 that afternoon, and John had been working his buns off all day. He made some great progress, but he was only about 1/4 of the way done and was feeling a little discouraged about how slow things were going. After he dug, he'd also tamp the soil a bit to make sure everything was packed down really well and level. He was tired, and I couldn't blame him.

 

At that point, he decided to call in the big guns: our neighbor's skid loader. (Because what good neighborhood doesn't have a neighbor with a skid loader?)

In about 45 minutes, the skid loader was able to get us to the phone line (and had become entertainment for all the neighbors on a Saturday evening). Our spirits were up after the quick progress, but we had to stop before reaching the spot where the phone line was marked so we wouldn't accidentally cut it. (Step 1, of course, is to call 611 to have your utilities marked before you do any digging! Ours was already marked from the egress window estimates I got back in March.)

It was at that point that we called it a day. On Sunday, John carefully dug around the phone line area with a shovel, and we were glad to find out it was buried deeper than our 6 to 8-inch-deep trench so we wouldn't have to worry about it. While we didn't run into the phone line, we did discover an original limestone walkway buried under the dirt and had to contend with a bunch of rocks as a result. We always thought it was odd that there was no walkway of any sort from the front door to the driveway. Turns out, there was one there all along but it had been covered by a lot of dirt and new grass at some point. We think previous neighbors must have had the yard re-graded. Our neighbor--who has lived in the neighborhood his whole life--vaguely remembers a stone path that leads to the street as well.  

The limestones slowed the process quite a bit b/c the stones that stayed together were big and heavy to move and the ones that fell apart broke up into sharp little shards that had to be carefully separated from the dirt. After we were sure we had cleared the phone line without issue, the skid loader came over again to mostly finish the job on Sunday afternoon.

Our neighbor put all the dirt in a big pile in the yard, and then John and I moved it with shovels and wheelbarrows to different areas over the next couple days.

Oh, wait--another tip! Have a plan in place for the extra sod and dirt you'll end up with. We placed a lot of the sod under the willow tree to fill a bare spot and it has worked out really well so far. 

The excess dirt went to spots that needed it around the yard (under the willow, alongside the driveway, around some bushes), but we were so glad we decided to add two new raised garden beds this year.

John made them before he started digging, so he could just haul a lot of the dirt directly to the beds. We gave a little of the dirt to neighbors who wanted some and piled the rest behind the garage so that we can use it to fill in gaps around the finished walkway and in our expanded garden beds later.

The stones are in a separate pile behind the garage, and we're thinking about placing the larger ones around our new raised garden beds for a makeshift walkway. 

While most of the dirt was excavated in those first two days, we did have to spend a couple more evenings hand digging near the landing because the skid loader couldn't safely get too close. 

We also had to do a little grooming around the edges with the flat shovel since the skid loader wasn't the most accurate thing in the world. 

So, that turned out to be a lot of words about moving tons of dirt around. All in all, it was a big job that we were mostly glad to be done with. The good news was the digging was probably the worst part of the whole project. Things got slightly easier in the steps that followed.