Glorious Days

I love Spring!  Even with the pollen and allergies making me sneeze, my eyes water and my head-stuff up, I love it.  I love the kids being able to play outside all day, I love opening the house windows, I love having picnic lunches and dinners out back, I love NO mosquitos yet...  And this year I am loving all of our new neighbors running and screaming together!  I'm loving that since our remodel the kids can run in and out the back door without any help and that I can answer the question "Can I play in the backyard?" with a YES almost every time. 

A few weeks ago we finished the planting in the front yard.  Before we did anything it looked like this:

We had to take the tree closest to the house down a few years ago because it was dying. 

Easter weekend we took out all the bushes as many were dead and the rest were just not looking healthy any more so we had this:

A blank canvas...  I think the house looks smaller without any landscaping.  We got some great advice from a friend of The Hubby's whose family own several plant nurseries.  We ended up with boxwood in front of the porch (which makes me feel very colonial), Indian Hawthorn under Duchess's window on the right, pitsporum (sp?) under the dining room window on the left and privets on the edges to frame it all in and offer some height. 

After several days of work...

Now we have this!

Beautiful!  I have actually planted some flowers as well to add some more color.  The only thing left is to add a path from the porch steps to the driveway.  The Hubby is still deciding what exactly he wants that to look like.  I think I want to paint the rocking chairs a fun color, like turquoise maybe.

We also did some cleaning up in the backyard.  I scrubbed all the patio furniture down and in the process turned the backyard into boy heaven!

 

 

 

They had a blast playing in the mud.  Then we released some ladybugs we got at the plant nursery.  Huck wanted to hold one but got a little freaked out when they crawled and tickled. 

 

The next weekend we had one of my friends and her 7 year-old niece over to play all afternoon.  The grown-ups sat on the porch drinking ice tea and the kids ran around outside and played and played and played.  The neighborhood joined in and it was one happy group.  And I was loving every minute!  We also got to play at the playground up at the school.

 

This weekend The Hubby and Bubba are going camping with the Cub Scouts in Mineral Wells.  They are rock climbing!  Hopefully it will be warmed than the last campout...

Easter in Pictures

 If Blogger will cooperate, I'll let the pictures do the talking. 


If

School lunch on Thursday, all the food was packed in an egg!

tissue paper craft we did on Good Friday

 

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Magic show

 

Our neighbors

The softest bunt ever, a velveteen rabbit 

 

 

 

Easter Sunday

Duch's rock at our church, it says I love God

ready for Church!

Easter Breakfast, homemade honey-wheat cinnamon rolls!

Egg Hunt!

An EMPTY egg???

 

 

Spring Break Part II

For the second part of Spring Break we went to Austin.  We stayed with my good friend, Julie.  Her hubby was out of town but we had tons of fun with Julie and Annie.  I LOVE Austin.  Maybe it is because I only ever am there on vacation, but I just love the feel of it.  It always seems like a much more family focused town than Dallas.  So many more restaurants have playgrounds, lots of outdoor activities, so much more laid back... 



Anyway, the kids were thrilled to arrive at Miss Julie's because they have a great backyard.  They were restored by free play outside- playing with the dog, in the rock box, helping with the garden.  The first morning we met our friend, Jenn, and her daughters for breakfast tacos at Taco Deli. We ate outside and then decided to hike the greenbelt across the street, well, as much as you can call it hiking with 4 big kids and two toddlers. Duch fell and got a bloody lip that swelled up pretty big and knocked a tooth loose. She soldiered on to play with the kids.  The big kids explored all over and we moms got to sit out in the sunshine and chat (and panic every once in awhile when a toddler got close to the edge of a rock!)

Later that afternoon we went to the park and had a great time.

That night Julie went to teach an infant massage class and I watched all the kiddos.  We did baths and played with play doh.  I bathed the little kids first but should have had PJs ready before we got in the tub.  Both kiddos were wrapped in their towels and I hear Huck peeing on the floor- I threw his towel under him to catch it and I heard Annie say "pee pee."   I replied, "yes, he is going pee pee."  Then she replied "Annie pee pee" and sure enough Annie was going pee pee too!  I just laughed and hurried up with the diapers. 

The next morning (Huck's birthday) we went to an environmental center.  It was super cool- they had a little classroom type set up where you can touch and explore all kinds of "found" things in nature- rocks, bones, animal skins, shells, etc.  They had a sign saying "Please DO touch"  and Bubba said "that is pretty much the opposite of everywhere else!"  Then we went outside to dig for "dinosaur bones."  and they also have local wildlife exhibits- raccoons, fox, opossum, snakes, fish, etc.  And so cool, we saw Aunt Sara and the cousins there, too! 

We left and had lunch at a fun restaurant that had a playground.

 

Then we headed home.  We stopped just out side of Waco for some ice cream for the birthday boy!  He has on a birthday shirt that says Birthdays Rock and has a rocket on it.  He refused to have his sweatshirt zipped up all day because it would cover up the rocket!