Rocks and bricks make good borders for garden beds. Map out a few and if you can reuse the rubble, you'll be killing two birds with one stone.

It's hard to tell where you enter the property, flanking the door with plants is always a good idea. As is a path.

The ddoor looks centered to me. That roof should shed snow well. What looks to me like the front door has a gable over it, so snow on you head should be diminished.

You are focusing on the right things.

First, make the property safe for your toddler and everybody. Close up crawlspaces, get rid of or lock up sharp anything, fill sinkholes, firmly secure anything that could fall over. (That DOOR LEANING AGAINST THE HOUSE IS A LETHAL HAZARD). It doesn’t have to look pretty. Everybody who visits you will be looking at the mountains anyway.

Second, clear a space where you and toddler and toddler friends can enjoy being outside for as much of the year as possible. Make it shady if you need to. Have a table and chairs for activities, like drawing up an overall plan for the future.

Is that dry creek bed going to stay dry? I’m worried you’ve created a pathway for water to rush right up against the foundation of your house.

IMO you start by removing all the rubble ans stuff you do not want. Then address the snow load control and gutters are they way to go for controlling where the water goes from melting snow to rain. You need snow guards on that roof to keep from avalanches . I would do a snow melter trim idea along the roof edge to keep ice dams from building up.

PS: Even if your dry creek stays dry it is a perfect habitat for mice and bugs (unpleasant ones) and snakes if you have them. Consider moving it far from the house itself and cover the ground with weed-suppressing black plastic and plenty of gravel. Rodents will avoid it and if snakes visit at least you’ll see them.

Please .... no black plastic. It’ll just get overgrown with weeds in no time.

Don’t do anything about the roof until you’ve lived there through a winter with substantial snow and can see if there is actually a problem.

Sorry black plastic won’t work where you are. Your local nursery or neighbors can tell you what you need to cover the ground and suppress weeds in areas you don’t want weeds. But don’t spray weed killer around a toddler (or anywhere!)

Start saving all the Cardboard from your deliveries and arrange for a local tree company to dump wood chips for free. Lay the cardboard on the areas where you want to kill the grass or weeds, wet it, and spread the chips thickly on top. Give it a year and then you can plant a groundcover right through it. I would not use stones to line planting beds. I don’t like the look and it will add hand trimming to your mowing job. Just find some place to pile them up until you have a use for them.

Hello Ital and all- thank you so much for your comments!

I spent a long day with 6 other people removing piles of rubble, smoothing the land, and preparing the ground to receive grass.

About the dry creek concerns: I did carefully grade the area against the house prior to installation- and the grading plus the dry creek seems to have solved the drainage problems the property had before. No snakes of concern here, so that'll be fine. I didn't think about rodents- do you think the dry creek (which is drain rock over landscape fabric, with some large stones for decorative accents) would be any more attractive to rodents than perennial plants, which was my other idea? I had thought the opposite... I guess I'll rethink if I start getting problems!