Does this dirt make my yard look bald?

Our backyard isn't in terrible shape, but there's only parts that have grass.  We still have a humongous spot full of rubber mulch and weird rubber curb thingies from where the previous owners had a play yard.  We can't get rid of it until fall since pretty much everyone we talk to tells us it will just be consumed with weeds if we take it out now.

We've debated what to do with the other side of the yard where it's just a big ole bald spot full of clay, weeks, and little oak trees attempting to bust out.  Something like this:

Bleh.

We still have a lot to do, but here's what Ryan's done so far (and a little help by me carrying those heavy stones 4 at a time from the driveway to the backyard not so productively):

I think Ryan did a good job!  I think eventually we'll try to cover the rest with some decorative stone or  some wood planks or something to make it even better.  I think a fire pit would a nice little addition.  

By the way, I haven't noticed one bird using our bird bath.  Guess they're too good for it.  Hmph.

On another note, here are some cute pics I've taken on my phone lately:

Booger loves her bones

The look we get every. morning.  So pathetic.

Pool day @ MAC with Nikki and the girls.  She's getting so big it freaks me out.

My chunkermunk being all chunky.

They wanted to watch a movie on the iPad so they covered themselves with a towel to see.

Babysitting and taking a walk to the playground.  So freaking adorable!

I got to see miss Norah Mae on my bday :)

This is all I've got for now.  We're leaving Friday morning for our girls weekend and I CAN'T WAIT! 

Mailbox Makeover

Ever since the iris' around our mailbox bloomed about a month ago, I was somewhat happy with how it looked.  The problem was, only a few bloomed out of the 203482038438 iris stems around the mailbox.  So, once the 5 blooms died (probably from lack of watering on my end) we have this awful display of a mailbox:

No numbers, dead flowers, stones all over the place. 

I couldn't stand it any longer, so although I have/had NO idea what I'm doing, I took a trip to Lowe's this morning to try to fix this.  I grabbed a few plants that said they needed little water and a lot of sun and went to town.  

There were a LOT of bugs living in this small space. I got kicked out of the area for about 30 minutes for a wren that wanted to go to town and have a Thanksgiving feast.  Since I don't think bugs are good to have around flowers, I let him (her?) go at it.  

This little mailbox took up 2 1/2 hours of my day!  There were SO MANY bulbs hidden in the soil and the stones were pretty settled.  Hello, workout. 

It was all worth it though, because here's how it's looking now:

I'm so happy with it!  Stones are aligned, flowers are sweet and simple, and you can actually see the numbers to our house if you're trying to find us.   Now I'm only hoping I can keep these suckers alive!