Field Day 2014

Bailey and Jesse both had field day a few weeks ago. This is not the field day I use to have as a kid. We would do 100yd dash, tug of war, sack race and stuff like that. At our school it is totally different. There was a sack race but that was the only "normal" one. I guess there is always change! :)

Mexico

Billy and I had the chance to go to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico over Mother's Day weekend and it was wonderful! I think it was one of the most relaxing vacations we have ever been on. The only thing we did was sleep (I mean sleep a lot!), lay by the pool, eat, take a nap, lay by the pool some more and of course eat! It was so nice. Puerto Vallarta is on the Pacific so that was new for us to be in the Pacific instead of the Atlantic or Gulf. I am so thankful we get to go on these little trips just the two of us!

A New Look

For a few years now I have wanted to do some landscaping - major landscaping. Our house was one of the last ones built and it seems they had leftover shrubs and they just threw them all in our yard! Our house was green (which we chose) but then we had gobs of neon green shrubs! I hated them. So last week we decided to do some major work in our yard. My wonderful husband pulled out 14 shrubs! 14! He was just a wee bit tired after that. After ripping them out I planted a small annual garden and then planted some rose bushes, 2 gardenias, an azalea bush and then several other perennials. I think we planted around 60 plants give or take. But we love it! Taking out those bushes opened up the front of our house and added so much color!  Hopefully everything will take off and then next year we will tackle the back yard! :)

see all the green and then the two bushes right in front of the columns hiding our front porch?!

see the ugly neon bushes?!

Look at all those bushes!

Ripping them out! He loves me! 

After…my little annual bed. I don't know much about gardening but hopefully I picked things that are hardy!

Look you can see our porch! And my planters that you could never see before! To the left will be the rose garden and to the right are the gardenias and azaleas. 

Finished! We love how open our house feels now. 

Our cute little "helper" - he stayed outside with us almost the whole day. He is so cute! 

Blogging again!

After a long break, I am going to try and start blogging again on the happenings in our life. I mostly want to do this for the kids so they can look back and see what we did and how they've grown. And even show their kids one day. So here we go! This picture was taken back in the fall. Aren't they cute?!

Summer

It has been a long time since I posted. So I am going to catch up on our summer. We had a wild, crazy, fun, fast summer! It was fun but went too fast!

Gardening

 A couple of weeks ago we decided to buy some more flowers and plant them in our yard to add more a little more color. It didn't seem like we bought that much but we planted 41 plants! Billy dug the holes while Bailey and I put in the plants. And the boys just played. I love our yard now. My biggest challenge will be to keep in watered until it takes root and can go on it's own but so far so good! We planted some more lantana, ice plant, vinca and a few other things.

This was the lantana I planted about a month ago...

This is the same lantana today...blooms everywhere!

Added a few vincas in the mix

This ice plant only had half the blooms in the beginning of May! We planted six of these on our retaining wall ini the back yard. Really hoping they do this well so that one day our back wall will be covered in purple flowers!

I love this plant. 

Here's the back yard...love our solar lanterns!

Then here is our new back porch. We spend ALOT of time here these days! We have supper here almost every night and I have breakfast and coffee here every morning. So blessed to have this porch! 

Ok well this is what we have been up to the last month yard work and being lazy on the back porch!

May Flowers

We have lived in our house for almost three years and have changed very little of the landscaping outside. We have ALOT of green shrubs more than I really want but they came with the house so until I can pay someone to dig them up they will stay. I added some flowers a couple of years ago around the mailbox and they haven really taken off. So this year I was tired of just green and decided to head to the nursery today and buy some more flowers! Now, I am not a gardner and I have no idea what I am doing. I tried to look for things that said "full sun" and didn't need much watering or attention. Oh and I looked for the word perennial! So I got a few lantana cause I think they grow pretty well and some other things that I can't remember but I just thought they were pretty. So here is to hopefully a colorful yard! Fingers crossed! Wish me luck!

Here are the mailbox flowers. The really big green ground cover with purple flowers and the white flowers are what I planted two Mays ago. I planted them just before Mother's Day. The little purple flower close to the street is what I planted today. My neighbor has some at her mailbox and they are doing great so I copy catted her. 

These are some Iris's that I transplanted from a neighbor's yard down the street. I didn't think they would come back but they are still living after two years and they are mulitplying! They are almost ready to bloom.

More lantana

These are some flowers that I got right before Easter and they are still living! I have a hard time keeping potted plants alive outside but they are doing pretty well I would say. I have two of these planters on my front porch. 

After I finish the front yard I am going to try and tackle the back yard. It needs a lot of help!