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...