Monday, August 29, 2011

Happy Birthday To Me...!!!


Well, it is not actually my birthday today, it was back in July.
But... my awesome husband promised me plants in our backyard. Which just made me so happy that I could of cried... then we went out of town, and there is a huge drought, and blah, blah, blah it was not happening. Then it just so happened that I planned my son's birthday party at our house :) Nothing like a little motivation...

So off we went digging, and digging and digging. Little did we know that literally our ground is ROCK hard. My husband worked so hard and sweat so much. It was a much bigger project then we thought to dig out all the beds.

Here are a bunch of before pictures of our backyard. Please excuse our horrible grass we are in the middle of a really bad drought :(


There was NOTHING in our backyard. No trees, no plants... NOTHING! It was really sad.


Last November we put in the stone patio and the covering. Which actually allowed us to go in the back because there was no shade and just tons of sun!


That is my husband digging and probably saying things in his head about me that are not very nice :) It is like 108 degrees here...


We will actually have a tree!

After recovering from all of the hard work it took to dig the beds, then it was the fun part of picking out the plants. But we soon realized, OH MY GOODNESS, now we have to dig again to plant all of these goodness forsaken things...

So, they sat in their pretty little planter boxes for about a week and a half, just waiting for us to muster up the courage to start digging again. We decided that we would attempt a bed a night... which turned into a bed every couple of nights.

However, my awesome husband, ( I can't thank him enough for all of the VERY HARD work that he did in this crazy heat and after a long day at work. THANK YOU!) did dig every hole and I put down all of the mulch. It was a great memory and now it makes out backyard so much more inviting and beautiful. It is really sad, but since we planted the plants we have had so much more animal life in our backyard, bees, lizards, spiders, worms...
there was just nothing for them before.

Here are the afters...

Eventually, that vine will grow up and cover that side of the house and up into the patio covering... which will look really great!

This is our fire pit area that just looks so much better now. This was my husbands idea to plant around it, I did not even think about it.

We added two oak trees to the back and hope to add 2 more to the other side in a little while.

This is the second oak tree. In the back bed there is a crepe myrtle tree and two Esperanza trees that will eventually add some great privacy to our back yard.




This is in the very far corner of the other side of the yard.




This is my favorite view of our yard. It looks so much more full and welcoming.
It was well worth all of the effort...now that it is DONE!

Monday, August 22, 2011

First day of School!



Despite my best efforts not to let my kids grow up, they went ahead and did it anyway!
Today was our first day at our homeschool co-op Enaact.
It was a great day and I can't believe it is already behind us :(














Sunday, August 21, 2011

CAlling All Superheros!!!



This past weekend we celebrated Fisher's 4th birthday!
We had a SUPER time and made lots of fun memories...





















I can't believe he is already 4! He is such a blessing to us and we love him so much!

I got the printables from HERE
and some of the ideas from HERE!
ENJOY!

Monday, August 15, 2011

A Few Changes!

So, lately I have just been in a design slump. Not really wanting to do much
around the house, but not really loving everything that was done.

I took some great advise about shopping the home and made a few very cheap changes.

First, this is what the stair wall looked like before:



I took every thing off and moved most of it into different rooms. It was just too cluttered for me and did not really give off the feeling that I was hoping for.
This is that wall now:



I love the simpleness of it and the calm feel it showcases now.
I recovered the lamp in new fabric, got rid of all the chaos going on on the wall and
added some flowers.

When you walk into our house there is a hallway that goes into the living room. It was a great place to add some drama, so I added some STRIPES! I really really love this, it took like 30 min and was totally free and makes such a huge difference.



This was our mantle as of fall, boring and a little impersonal.



This is our mantle now:





It is more funky and casual and goes well with the rest of the room.

There are a few more things that I am hoping to do soon:
1. I really want to get rid of our huge tv cabinet thing and get a long dresser to put the tv on.
2. I want to add a desk somewhere in the house for me to keep my computer and books and stuff on. Maybe in the master? Not sure yet...

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Our Summer

Well as you can see it has been quite a while since I last blogged.
Not that any excuse is a good one...
but this one will have to do...

WE ARE HAVING BABY NUMBER 4!!!!!!!!

I know absolutely crazy, but this Christmas a new bundle will be under the tree!

I have just been so tired and taking naps as much as I can.

So that's my story...

Here is what we have been up to:

We celebrated Grace's 5th B-day!





Preston and I got to take an amazing trip Chicago!





And we took a family trip to the beach!













Next up... Fisher is turning 4!!!
Get ready for a vintage superhero party soon...