Unfortunately, I don't have a before picture of my yard because my stupid computer won't let me get to my pictures before we installed Windows 7.....So that will come later. I will, however show you the pictures I have.
So, I've been trying to make my front yard look better than what it looks like now.

If you have ever been to my house you know that there was a HUGE dead pine tree in my front yard. It looked something like this...There were a lot more branches on it but I didn't take this til after we started taking it down.
I was very lucky to have friends that were really excited to get this ugly thing out of my yard. Or at least really excited to use the chainsaw. Vince had come over to help and at that time we only had a hand saw. It was a small saw but it was very useful.
I had called Mike to ask him to come help and to bring his bigger hand saw. Since we didn't have the chainsaw yet it was quite a project to get some of it down. But we at least got most of the little branches down. The funnest part of cutting down a tree is the cutting part. Not the cleaning up part. That wasn't so fun. =)
I think we did pretty good for now having a chainsaw. I know Vince and Mike won't read this but Thank you to both of you for helping me out with my huge ugly tree. I very much appreciate all your help.
This is just some of the mess that was on the ground after we cut some of the tree down. 
Almost done!

See even Matt helped! =)

The Root from that ugly tree.

Done filling in the hole from the tree.

The somewhat finished product.
I want to put more flowers like the ones around the smaller palm tree. I've got some flowers under the window too. There is a flower bed going up the walkway to the door but I haven't planned anything there yet. I did have something there but they didn't do so good. So, I'm starting over.