Open House Link-up with 4 Moms: Yard and entryway

Ok, I was NOT ready for this.  If only I'd had a few days notice I could have made it look much better, but this is our reality- for today, anyway.  Hey, I'm pregnant, it's hot outside (this is Texas), and I spent the last two days cooking for our church supper and all morning making playdough with my kids.  So here goes... don't judge me too harshly :) .

We don't live like most of the 4 Moms on acreage in the beautiful countryside- much to my husband's chagrin.  We're crammed between two other houses in a neighborhood full of houses with itty bitty yards.  On the up-side, my parents, my husband's folks, and my Granny all live within .8 miles from us in the same neighborhood.  The kids love riding bikes and scooters back and forth.  You may not be able to see our front door in this picture.  It's hidden behind those two overgrown montrosities that are supposed to be bushes.

Believe it or not, this is actually empty compared to what our front porch normally looks like.  I'm always apologizing to friends about the obstacle course to our front door.  We had company for lunch after church on Sunday and I had the kids totally clear off the porch, but alas, it's Thursday and things have begun accumulating again.  The stroller is my fault.  Notice the dead flowers in the flower pot there.  I usually have beautiful flowers on my front porch.  I don't know what happened this year.  Blogging maybe?  Or perhaps my Spring was clouded by morning sickness.  That sounds about right.

This is what you see as you step through our front door.  Strange, I know.  Hey, we didn't build the house, we just live here.  Let me turn a little to give you a better view. (Big D did redo all the floors, though including the tile in the entryway which he laid out in this nifty pattern.)

Here's our slightly off-set entry.

To the right of our entry is the formal dining room.  Notice anything different from the last time I showed you pictures of our dining room?  I'll give you a hint.  Something is missing.  Something big is missing.  Remember my Christmas mistake, the dollhouse?  Yes, my dining room has served as a little elve's workshop for the last 6 months.  It's so nice to be able to see the table again!  I wish I could tell you it's because the dollhouse is finished, but I can't.  When I realized Sunday morning that we needed to be able to seat 17 people for lunch I moved it, pregnant and all.  You'll see in the next picture that I didn't get very far with it.

This is the room we call affectionately "Daddy's special room".  This is really a bit of a misnomer since it's become blogging central for me :).  It does have Big D's stereo including his turntable and his vinyl record collection.  These bookcases hold our coffee table-size books, photo albums, the Franklin mint 100 Greatest Books, our Bible collection (I use the term collection loosely), books on art and music including museum shop books, dictionaries, gardening, landscaping, and carpentry books, and books on molecular cloning (mine) and raising livestock and farming (Big D's).  Now prepare yourself to see our messy back porch.

This is it as it really is, a BIG MESS!  Our living room that we use for read-aloud and family worship, Bible study, and just about everything else we do is just on the other side of this door.  We actually do clean off our porch now and then, it's just more then than now.

In case you weren't totally shocked and appalled, I'll give you a close-up of the slip-n-slide.  Looks like someone decided it was a good place to store side-walk chalk.

The yard is very cluttered with play equipment.  There's a story behind that.

This is Big D's fabulous garden.  We've been eating lots of zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers and beets.  We're just starting to get bell peppers, red cabbage, and tomatoes.  I love the garden.  I think it's great.  It just happens to be in the spot we had decided to put a rectangular trampoline.  So...

Since the side yard was taken, Big D told me to just buy a round one at Walmart for the backyard.  And I didn't realize it would take up quite this much space.  Anyone want a trampoline?  Or a Jack Russell terrier for that matter. (He has the courtyard and you don't even want to see that.  Believe me.)

It may be a crowded, itty bitty backyard, but the kids really do have a lot of fun back here.  And I really am grateful for Big D's garden!  Each week after the kid's Bible study I bring refreshments out back and the kids play until their parents come.  So, believe it or not a dozen kids can play happily back here.

Now go and check out the beautiful environs of the 4 Mom's habitats:

Kimberly at Raising Olives

Kim at In a Shoe

Connie at Smockity Frocks

Headmistress at The Common Room