Reclaiming my yard

I mowed the back yard and part of the front yard for the first time since last fall.  We've been having cycles of rain and sun so the grass was pretty tall.  However, I didn't rake the leaves last fall so the grass in the back is patchy at best.  At least it now looks like a poorly maintained yard rather than an abandoned one.

I'll get some grass seed and try to rescue the back yard so I can dribble a soccer ball or play croquet out there.  I would like to have no grass in the front yard, but I need to plant something to prevent the weeds from taking over.  I'm thinking maybe something like juniper or jasmine.  I think juniper is an evergreen so that would be nice to have during the winter.

A good fraction of my front yard is marshland and it hasn't been warm enough yet to shrink my mosquito pool. I did see a duck out there this morning which is cool.  He was swimming around and it looked like he was finding stuff to eat.  I doubt there are any fish in there, but maybe some tadpoles or frogs.

I also have plans to fill in more of my front yard to cut down on the road noise and to increase privacy.  The new townhouses down the road have doubled the traffic on my street.

To improve privacy in the backyard, I'll get or make some trellises and then plant climatis or something else to block the view of my neighbors' back yards.

It'll probably take a while for all this to happen, but I need to maintain some momentum because a bad yard will decrease my home's value.