Joy

When my husband and I bought our current house we thought more about having enough room inside for a family than we did about having enough room outside. As a result we have a 4 bedroom, 2100 square foot home with a 600 square foot backyard. It's small. This never bothered us when we were childless, but since having kids it annoys us to death.

Pre-kids my husband built a fire pit with three concrete benches. We'd have friends over, sit around the fire, and chat. It was nice. Then life happened, we got busy, and we never had a fire anymore. Literally, half of our backyard was filled with the fire pit and its surrounding area.

A few months ago, I finally convinced my husband to tear down his labor of love. It was painful for him. He loved the fire pit, even though he rarely used it. I convinced him that our kids needed more space. After quite a bit of work involving the destruction and removal of debris we had an empty portion of yard that we decided to fill with grass.

The past two days, the kids and I have spent hours outside, just playing, laying, laughing, running in the grass. The kids have so much more room, they love being outside and honestly it is a nice change in our routine. All the work was totally worth it. Until we are able to move to a house with a bigger yard, this will have to do and right now, I'm okay with it.