{Front Yard} The Front

We finally got some work done on the front flower bed. These are the pots that are on our steps. The blue one is in the new bed. I added one of our gnomes... it's actually a shaded spot so I figured not much will grow back there behind all the pots.

A wider shot... you can see we added the dirt today (thanks Dad for the dirt!). We loaded Doug's truck up yesterday and brought it home after the auction we went to. It's nice to finally have it done because we got the big foundation stones a year ago! We've been kind of busy on other areas...


A view of the whole front... it's a work in progress! The middle plant (by the opening in the bricks) is my white bleeding heart. It's starting to lose the white flowers so I'm slightly worried. But I love them. Maybe it's getting too much sun?! The tag said it would be fine in the sun though... And the plant on the far left (with the big tag on it still) is a Dwarf Mugo Pine from my parents. The stump behind it needs pulled out and will be replaced with a white lilac (most likely). I'm thinking there needs to be another container on the far left between the pine and the stump because of how the rocks stop. But I'll wait for awhile...






The shot from the sidewalk. You can see how much we cleared out of our front side. The stump was a giant bush that was almost to the gutter. It's a pretty bush (well, the flowers are), but it's not what I want and it is starting to spread everywhere. I don't want it everywhere! I left the ivy in the corner by the downspout and will fill in the area with other plants in the future. It is definitely a work in progress!


There are a few touches we did that aren't as obvious right now... and I also don't have a before photo to show you what it looked like (maybe somewhere on this computer I can find one...). I moved all the irises to the side with the others, moved some of the ground cover around the front bed, and we planted hens and chicks in the spaces between the rocks. We hope they continue to trail down the dirt "roads" between the rocks. I may buy some sedum or groundcover to help fill in some areas. Some of the foundation stones have a lot of bumps and dips in them, making it possible to grow some sedums in the stones themselves. One of the stones has something stuck on it from when a planter sat there last year.


I'm honestly not sure what else I want in this bed. I want a lot of flowers, I just don't know what. One of my aunts has offered to give me some of her's, so I'll have to figure out what she has and what will work in this area. It faces East so it gets all the morning sun. There's no shade at all, until afternoon once the sun goes behind the trees in my neighbor's yard. Speaking of trees, we have figured out we want a pine/spruce tree (not sure what variety) to fill in the big hole we have from a tree that lived here previously and also some pink dogwoods to go between our sidewalk and the street. We need some plants to hide the view of our neighbors across the street.


But, it won't all happen now. We don't have the money... plus, it's kind of nice to do things over time to see how things grow and take shape. Sure, I'd do it all tomorrow if I could afford it, but we'll wait until things go on sale and we have the money and time to spend on the front yard. We still have to take a few things out - like the holly, the stump, and a few other bushes from the other side of the yard, plus two bushes from the back yard. And we'd love to have a new sidewalk poured (both the one to the house and what runs parallel to the road, and a new one from the front step to our driveway so you don't walk in the grass). That would be nice to have done tomorrow, but that will take some saving!

Easter (part 2)

The second set of pictures... from the Easter Egg Hunt! I think Lily is still a little young to really get the whole idea, but we did it anyway. I had put candy in some plastic eggs earlier (mainly for us adults, but we were all too full to eat any!), but we put those out for Lily. She went around, picked them up, and tried to open each one after picking it up. She would then take a piece of candy (jelly beans, chocolate, malted milk Robin eggs), and then we'd be able to get her to find another piece. She gave some of the eggs away to people watching her. She's really not a huge candy kid (we don't give her much, if any, at home), so she enjoyed the little bit that she got. I'm sure next year will be a completely different story so we may do real eggs or do something else inside the plastic eggs. We'll deal with that when next year arrives.

Here's Lily putting eggs in her basket.

On the hunt!


Eating some of the candy.



Checking out the eggs with Uncle Jesse. He crouched down, so she had to too.



Looking for eggs...


Can you say TIRED??!! This is the same look her momma, daddy, and uncle Jesse get...



A close up of the TIRED BABY!


Playing



I think this may be their other cat, Leia, but I'm not sure since they look so similar (and no, they aren't related).


Easter (part 1)

This year's Easter was a little different than previous years, but it was a lot of fun as well. Our family normally has someone who volunteers for the meal but with everything going on this year, it appears that everyone was busy doing their own thing and it just didn't happen. I was going to take on the challenge but then my brother's girlfriend mentioned going to an all you can eat buffet at one of the hotels. So we did that - all 12 of us (my parents, Doug, Lily and I, my brother and his girlfriend, his girlfriend's parents, her brother and his girlfriend, and my brother's girlfriend's fav student). It was a lot of fun. The food was delicious, no one had to worry about cooking and cleaning, and we enjoyed the time together. We did meet up at my brother's house and then went back there for awhile afterwards (and did an Easter egg hunt at their house for Lily). Here are some photos from after dinner (should have gotten one before, but oh well).

This one is just too cute. She did not want to take the family photo below (3 of the 4 family photos have her legs all in weird poses because she was dying to get down to play). So after we gave up, I let her go and my mom caught her in movement... It is definitely her normal behavior now that she is a month away from being 2.

She was not happy to take this photo, but we have one almost similar to this (same position of all of us) from last year, so it'll be fun to compare in years to come.



She found our basket to her... Elmo and Sesame Street everything! She has become obsessed with him lately (as do all 2 year olds) and so I decided to get her a stuffed toy and some figurines from Target's Easter/dollar section (gotta love the price!... except the stuffed toy, it's just a regular toy from Target). She really likes the Sesame Street spiral notepads and she already has two, so I bought her the other two versions for her basket. They are great to keep in my purse with a pen or crayons so she can color or scribble when we're out.




Here are the bunny ears that most of you saw on Facebook. She actually kept them on for a little while today, but then took them off for the rest of the day once she got tired. Luckily I got some pics of her (and her daddy!) in them.




And this is at the buffet, as she was leading us into the room. "Come on" is a favorite phrase of her's right now, so she'll say it a lot when she wants to go somewhere. And of course, having 11 people to look at her and do as she says, she was eating up the extra attention!




Lulu, my brother's dog... she couldn't decide to play with the soccer ball or chew on a stick, so she did both!




Lily and Mary





Uncle Jesse and Lily, playing soccer. Lily does a really good job of kicking the ball!





Lily and Mary playing with Lulu.





Walking with her eyes covered.






Bumping heads after Lily walked across the yard with her hands over her eyes.






Lily playing after walking with her hands over her eyes. "Tada!"





Lily checking out one of their cats, Vito. Isn't he beautiful?! Their other cat, Leia, is very similar in markings. They both have really pretty blue eyes too. :-)


Lulu... isn't she beautiful?



Random Lily

Playing around and dancing...







Shades 2 and dancing...


Beefy and her normal spot on top of pillows.


I love how Lily sleeps but until now, I didn't want to take a picture before. But I just had to in order to remember how cute and little she still looks. She sleeps like this almost every night, and no matter how many times I put the blanket back on her, she'll move it off of her throughout the night. And yep, that's a Pillow Pet (or another brand, but they're all the same - and she now has three, thanks to an Easter gift from my mom).

These photos are from when Doug and I were getting Lily ready for bed and she was such a giggle monster! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to snatch some adorable photos of our princess.


{Lily's Garden) Lilies

Two lilies I bought last year... I can't wait until they have flowers because I can't remember the colors! I was given these two from a friend of the family.

Three more I was given.

One of the lilies in the lily bed that has some nibbles on it but it's still growing well!

One I bought... I believe this is a deep red color, but time will tell!

The lily bed... the two biggest lilies are the first one we got when she was born from my parents (named Gordon Biggs) and the second from my parents for Lily's first birthday (I can't remember that name) and a few others that I was either given or bought.


A close up of one of my Asiatic lilies I bought last year.

This one is actually in the other bed but is another Asiatic lily.

This poor lily has been nibbled on more than any other! It hasn't even been given the chance to grow but it keeps on trying! If only I could figure out what's eating it and how to kill the bug.

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