Ah, the smell of grilled chicken at nap time...

So here I sit.  On our newly expanded patio.  Grilling some chicken while the littles get some rest.  

Thought this was as good a time as any to post the pictures of said patio expansion.

Last summer, Chris decided to actually use our massive flower beds in the backyard and attempt to grow our own food.  It wasn't a total bust.  We got some HUGE cucumbers out of the deal and a couple of carrots.  The tomatoes never bloomed at all though.  But really, by the end of the summer, the cucumber to work load ratio was all whack.

Yes, whack.

Personally, I would never have attempted such a task.  Because I kill living things.  Not so much a green thumb as a BLACK WIDOW THUMB.  

Truly, it's amazing the children are surviving.

Chris, though, is super handy and bless his heart, he thought he could help my grocery budget by growing something.  

It was an experiment.  And it failed.  Not miserably but enough to let it be a one and done sort of a thing.

THIS year, Chris decided to reduce the size of our massive backyard flower beds and increase the size of the patio instead.  We have the smallest yard in suburbia America.  Because property taxes here are the real deal.  

(SIDE NOTE:  Several years ago, there was a house for sale on my parent's route to church.  An older house on a huge lot.  Gigantic, mature trees.  The whole Birmingham picturesque nine yards.  The for sale sign read "TEXAS SIZED LOT!"  And my mother would laugh out loud every time she drove by.  Because only millionaires can afford the property taxes on that size yard in these parts.)

During the warm months, we spend a pretty good amount of time back here.  The kids have no idea how small it is.  To them, it's BIG.  Because everything to them is big.  Their blow-up baby pool is BIG.  The water sprinkling on them from the lion on the blow-up baby pool is BIG.  The amount of water in the pool is BIG.

You get the picture.

Unfortunately, the patio was barely big enough for our bistro table, two chairs and the grill.  Leaving very little space for the kids to do chalk drawings.  

I was starting to feel a little closed in.  

With some of our tax return money and a whole lot of physical labor, Chris and our handy friend, Fireman Rob, expanded the patio in about a day and a half.  

Not bad.

Here's what the flower bed looked like after he removed the paving stones and started digging the hole:

Rhys, the Supervisor

Look.  A big pile of dirt.

AK, wearing the traditional attire for digging in the dirt.

Once the hole was dug, the guys did a whole bunch of other stuff I didn't take pictures of and couldn't tell you about even if I had.  Because, I was not in charge.  I try to limit the information taking up space in my brain to things I actually need to remember.  How to Build a Patio:  Not one of those things.  

Children putting their handprints into the wet cement?  That's worth remembering.  

Rhys wasn't so sure about the whole wet cement thing.

And AK couldn't hold still long enough.

Miracle!

And here's the finished product!  We've been out here pretty much every day since then.  Rhys loves...LOVES...being outside.  "Outside" is one of the few words he knows and says.  (He knows lots of words but doesn't say them.  At least not when asked.  He doesn't like performing his tricks on cue.)  He literally asks to go outside from the moment he wakes up in the morning.  

Clearly, the umbrella is doing us no good at whatever time of day I took this. 

I feel like there's a joke in here somewhere about a lone lawnmower on a patio by I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

This is now my view from my chair.  I can actually see them running back and forth down the alley to the rock bed by the fence door.  Love!

I wasn't kidding about the space between the houses around here.  

And there you have it!  Should you need us anytime from now until October, we will likely be out here.  Once the weather warms up a little more, we'll be out here and wet.  For now though, we're just here.  And here is good.

Thanks, babe, for building this for us!