Front yard facelift

Although I have never had a face-lift (at least not yet{wink,wink}), I imagine a face-lift to be a painful process. The face-lift that our front yard has recently gone through has been very painful. Over the past three years, one of our beautiful maple trees in front of our home has been dying a slow and tragic death. When we first noticed that our tree was having problems, we called the county extension agent and had him come and take a look at it. The prognosis was not good. The root system was damaged and we would eventually lose the tree. We have watched as each year more and more branches have died. Finally, we were forced to make the tough decision to have the tree removed, forever changing the look of our front yard.
Here we are almost exactly 7 years ago, when we moved into our house. Notice the huge lush looking maple tree on the left? Oh, yes, the tiny people on the porch represent us back in the day and yes, Kippy is just wearing a diaper, I have no real explanation for that.
Within a month or so of moving, we were amazed when our maple tree turned a brilliant shade of orange. It has been the backdrop of many pictures over the past 7 years.
Um. Yeah. I don't have a really good explanation for this picture. But for some reason, I thought this tree was so wonderful, I stuck my poor 5 year old and 2 year old baby in it for a picture shortly after we moved. I would like to think that there was some soft cushioning to protect them if they fell, but of course, I can't be bothered to think of safety and left them dangling there while I fumbled with my camera. Please don't judge.
Look they are safely back on the ground again! And oh so cute and tiny hugging the big tree.
Fast forward 7 years and although our maple grew in diameter and height, it has been reduced to a skeleton with very few living branches. Pardon me while I mourn not only the loss of our tree, but the loss of my children's babyhood {sniff, sob}.
So, what am I to do? How can I immortalize this once magnificent tree the night before it is chopped down? I encouraged my children to climb up into the tree one last time for a final picture. ("Encouraged" is another word for hoisted-them-up-into-the-tree, right?)
Kippy still marches to her own drum and would only swing like a monkey for me.

And then our beautiful tree was no more.

Its once lush branches were reduced to mulch within minutes.

All that remains is a dark spot in the lawn where a majestic, 18-year-old maple once stood and selflessly offered its shade and beautiful orange leaves to us.
Queue the music "Seasons in the Sun", while I sob.