Step-by-Step Guide to Landscaping with Small Children

This tutorial will give you a step-by-step outline for how to complete a landscaping project while managing small children. These tried and true methods are certain to help any parent complete a simple project in just a few hours (or days). 

1. Put together your plans for the project. You will need to complete this task between the hours of 10pm-1am because this is the only quiet time in your house. Order all necessary plants online because 1) there is no way you could successfully bring your children to a nursery and actually make a knowledgeable purchase while simultaneously screaming at them to stop running out into traffic and 2) they are much less expensive online and your credit card is still licking its wounds after registering four kids for Summer camps. Don't be alarmed when your "tree" arrives looking more like a stick. You get what you pay for, after all!

2. Set your kids up in front of the tv, feed dog and put her in her cage. Pull out all necessary tools. This includes a shovel, rake and gardening gloves. Donn your gardening attire and get started!

3. Dig two shovelfuls worth of dirt up. The kids have now discovered that you are outside and want to "help," so drop everything and help them put on jackets, shoes, gardening gloves (painstakingly sticking each finger into each finger hole), hat and sunglasses. Pull out shovels and rakes for the kids and get started!

4. Dig two shovelfuls worth of dirt up while one child tries to simultaneously dig the same pile of dirt and yells at you for taking it from him and the other child throws your previously dug dirt and rocks back into the hole. Repeat this task for approximately 5-15 minutes depending on the moods of the children, making sure to stop every 1-2 minutes to assist children in putting gardening gloves, hats, sunglasses and shoes back on because they decided that they wanted to take them off but now want them back on.

5. Kid #1 needs to pee, so race into the house, tracking mud across the kitchen in order to avoid an accident.

6. Resume digging. The kids have now decided that they are done "helping," and will now begin dragging every toy they own out of the garage so that you can put it away later.

7. In approximately 20 minutes, drop everything again because Kid #2 needs to poop. Rush into the house again, dragging more mud across the kitchen. False alarm. Return to digging.

8. 10 minutes later, Kid #2 comes walking outside with no clothes on and muttering something about meatballs. Drop everything and head inside to clean up his poop and put on all new clothes, now tracking mud upstairs. Realize that the kids have let the dog out of the cage and she has now dug a hole in your carpet and pooped on the floor. Clean up poop, put dog back in cage and head back outside.

9. Resume digging. At this point the kids are now screaming for food because, apparently, you have not fed them in at least two weeks. Dish out snacks, then head back out to resume digging. After about 20 minutes, drop everything and give into your horrible Mom-guilt and the pleas for a trip to the playground. The big kids arrive home from school and are eating a snack so, of course, the little ones are starving again so you will need to dish out more snacks.

10. At this point you will continue with your project for about 1 hour, with regular interruptions to resolve fighting between the unsupervised children in the house. Ignore all noises and keep working so you can finish this project before the screaming for dinner begins! It is very likely that the kids will be coming out on regular intervals to talk to you and/or play outside. Every time this happens, you will need to drop everything to assist the 2 year-old with putting his shoes, jacket and gardening gloves back on - which will all be taken off within 5 minutes.

11. Step back and admire your work. Immediately enter the amount of time you were gardening into your fitness app so that you can calculate how many extra wine calories your earned for tonight (hey, everything counts, right??). No time to rest just yet though. Time to clean-up the 8 million toys that are scattered in the yard and street, then clean-up the mud tracked through the house, take the dog for a walk, help with homework, cook dinner and drive kids to evening activities.

Once the kids are in bed it is finally time to kick your feet up and enjoy that extra big glass of wine! That Charlie Brown Christmas Tree is going to look pretty damn fantastic in about 10 years:)

Find Your Inspiration

It is Snow Day #89, I think. So I am doing what every responsible, excellent Mother would be doing - hiding in my study and quietly busying myself with unnecessary tasks while hoping that the kids don't find me. Hey, don't judge. At least I'm downstairs and not hiding in a closet like I was doing the other day:)

Today let's talk a little more about finding your inspiration. I've mentioned this idea in previous posts and want to reiterate it again. Although you may be anxious to get started with decorating a space, don't begin the project until you have found your inspiration. Once you find that inspiration, build around it.

When looking for a new house, one of my "must haves" was a mudroom. With four boys, this is an absolute necessity for my sanity. I wasn't sure what route I wanted to go with this mudroom. It felt very dark and cave-like, so originally I was thinking that I wanted to do something to brighten it up, but just couldn't come up with the right colors.

My mudroom inspiration:

One of the boys decided to decorate my wall. Notentirely sure he thought the idea completely through when he later tried to deny that it was his work;)

But, this did offer me the inspiration that I needed to begin the project. Although I had originally planned to brighten this space, a chalkboard wall just seemed to be what I was looking for. I've always wanted to put one in somewhere, but it didn't quite work in my other spaces. Because this area is essentially separate from the main living areas, I felt like I could treat it a bit differently and give it more of an individual personality. One of my big pet peeves with a chalkboard wall is the chalk dust collecting on the ground and baseboards. We tried to assist a bit with this issue by putting a small piece of trim along the bottom to catch the dust.

I'm kind of obsessed with organization and all things Pottery Barn, so I had to make my calendar a big part of this decor. It is strategically located as you exit the house so that my husband knows what we are up to that day since he never really pays attention when I tell him;)

I think one of the more important items to have in a mudroom is a table to place keys, mail and other items as you are walking in the door. I found a small table on Amazon for relatively inexpensive that works well because it is not very deep, therefore not getting in the way too much as you are walking in.

This space is quite narrow, so I wanted to add visual space to it by emphasizing the high ceilings. I purchased inexpensive wood frames from Michaels, painted them in a variety of colors, and hung them nice and high to draw the eyes upward.

In this mudroom we were lucky enough to have a little alcove already built into it. In the model home and many others, people have had Pottery Barn inspired built-in lockers created in this space. I love the look of these and they are absolutely gorgeous, but not quite in my price range right now. Instead I decided to re-use the cubbies that we had built years ago for use in our old garage because we didn't have a mudroom. My husband built these for me with my design created from the preschool cubbies at my children's school. They have turned out to be quite functional although as the kids get bigger, I'm finding that we are going to be running out of space in them pretty soon.

I couldn't handle the super boring, builder-grade white flushmount that came with the house, so a fun upgrade from Lowes was a necessity to complete the look.

 I stumbled across this large letter "L" at Michaels and decided that I just had to have it for the house. With a bright red for a pop of color, it worked perfectly in this space!

And there you have it - a completed mudroom! With the fun pops of color, the darkness of this room doesn't bother me too much. And it offers me a place to leave necessary messages for my more forgetful child as he is getting ready for school:)