Hummingbirds

We love to watch the hummingbirds. We have had a feeder at our house for 2 or 3 years now. This year I got a new feeder. One that you can see all the way around. It is so fun to see which ones sit and drink and which ones just flutter and drink. It's also fun to see them fight over the feeder. They are very territorial. I look forward to putting the hummingbird feeder out every year but sad to see them go. Right now I still have a few hanging around.

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! 

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!

Haunted House

You might think this picture is from some sort of decoration from a haunted house but actually this is a cobweb from my house! In my defense it is in a window above the door so I never really look out of it nor can I reach it. I guess I need to get out the ladder. I promise the rest of my house is not like this!



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just so you understand how high it is and why I don't really clean up there but I'm thinking it might be time.


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Organizing!

We have been in our house just a little over a year and there are several things that just needed more organization. One was the master closet. We had shelves but things were just stuck here and there or thrown up wherever and half of it was falling down. So one day I loaded up the kids and headed to The Container Store. I know a recipe for disaster taking three kids on a rainy day to any kind of store. But thankfully they were pretty well behaved and I was able to get what I needed. I love the way it turned out and don't get stressed out when I walk into my closet because of all the chaos. It is organized!  Another reason I wanted to reorganize was to have a place for my undies in the closet. I got tired of walking into the bed room and then walking back into the closet to finished getting dressed. I know sounds lazy but that's just how I am.  I also got an extra shoe rack so I didn't trip over my shoes every time I went in my closet.

I don't have a true before picture but this is an in between picture. It is sorta organized. Before I took this picture I threw away things and put them into totes but it was still not great. All that stuff in the totes was just laying of the shelves. Also all my purses/bags were just thrown up there but I decided to stick them all into one big bag. So it was better.



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But after thinking about it some more...here's what I did.


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and this...


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so until my next project!

A little DIY

A few weeks ago I decided to do some DIY work in the bathroom. I would normally ask Billy to do this but being the type of girl I am  - I didn't want to wait on someone else. I just did it myself. So this is what I did. In the kids bathroom they had two towel racks both of which were very high for kids. My kids could not reach them. And one we never even used. So I decided to take both of them down and put up a smaller one. Let me say I have never done anything like this before so I didn't tell Billy until I was already halfway through. :) I didn't think I was going to be able to get the screws out of the wall but after lots and lots pulling and googling how to do it, I finally got them out! Then I had to fill the holes, let them dry and then paint. My job is not perfect. I did learn a few things along the way incase I ever do something like this again. So the little imperfections are kind of like a battle scar. It's not all that pretty (but not that bad either) but I got the job done and I did it myself!

Before. There was a bar over the toilet just like this one but I didn't take a picture of it.


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it's gone!


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After


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After. I did need help with hanging the new towel holder. My sweet husband did it.


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My Calendar

Last fall I was having trouble remembering everything I needed to do. It seemed I was always forgetting something. I forgot to take Bailey to ballet a couple of times or forgetting to send in snack or tuition for preschool and one time I forgot that I had scheduled a babysitter until she showed up at my door! Soooo...I had to do something. I did not want to be the mom that did not have it all together. Ok still don't have it together but I don't forget the day to day stuff anymore! I bought a calendar, that hangs in my kitchen, and  I can change it out every month and put everything on it that our family is doing. It has been wonderful! Except for the time a kid came over and erased half my board! So now I try to put everything in my phone as well so that if it does get erased I have a back up. I don't know if my forgetfulness is due to old age or just the fact that I have 3 kids or my husband. Ok maybe all three!

out with August


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Hello September! and you will see above I have a board that I put pictures on and then notes or things I need to do in coming months


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Water Genie

For the past several months I have been getting some kind of pitcher and filling it up umpteenth number of times to water the plants of the front porch. Well first let me say that I would fill my pitcher up in the kitchen go to the front porch water the plants then repeat about 4-5 times. This got really old. Then I found the water spicket outside right next to the front porch! Why I had never looked before I don't know. So then my job got a little easier and at least I didn't have to make several trips to the kitchen. Anyway, I complanined told my husband I was getting tired of this so on one of his trips to The Home Depot he got me this Water Genie! Perfect! You just hook it up to the water spicket and voila! you have water! It has a 40ft hose on the inside and a button for continuous water flow or you can control the water flow yourself. And it is only $9.97! Not too bad. Anyway, just had to share about something I was so excited about and makes my life much much easier thanks to my wonderful husband!

the water genie with my not so great looking flowers. The flowers look fine but the stems are really yellow. Can anyone help me out?



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my very thristy Vinca's



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once again the wonderful water genie!



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