{Garden update and a tender mercy}

Yes, another garden post. Now that it's warm outside Evette and I spend nearly every waking hour outside. It's lovely and I just have to soak in all the beauty that's around me.

My lilies have thrived!

  One of the iris has a bud! I'm thrilled out of my mind. I can't wait to see what color it is! Pretty sure I will stop by this flower dozens a time a day to smell that heavenly scent once it blooms.

  zucchini plants have popped up!

 My lettuce is beautiful and delicious.

 love watching these guys poke their little heads out and spread their leaves 

This honeysuckle plant is my plant of hope. When we first moved to Dallas nearly a year ago [crazy!] I was having some panic attacks. We signed papers on our rental home without knowing exactly what we were getting into. Once we arrived I was devastated. The house was horribly dirty [like nearly vomiting while cleaning] and dank and the yard looked like the only attention it got was being mowed once a month - maybe. It was so overwhelming and I felt like we were just going to be miserable living in this place. On the first day as we were walking around outside checking the place out my heart was just sinking with each step, nearly to my toes. Once we rounded the corner of the house I got a whiff of something wonderful. It was this honey suckle vine. It was in full bloom growing all over some bushes and along the fence. It was gorgeous. This was a tender mercy from my loving Heavenly Father. It was a sign that we could make this place a nice, comfortable home, and that we would be happy here. 

And guess what - we are.

{The kindest person I know...}

Evette. 

Evette is the kindest person I know. She has the biggest heart in the world.

She cares about everybody all the time.

She frequently asks where Daddy is. When I tell her he's at work, she thinks about it and asks me if he's at the train by making her train noise. After I say that he is, she nods and is alright. [I think Evette thinks that Daddy works on the train. We pick up Sean from the DART [or train] on Fridays or whenever he works in Dallas office. So she says "Cheww cheww" for Daddy's work lol].

She must give equal kisses, snuggles, high fives, and knuckles to everyone. If she gives besos to dad, she must come find me to give me besos even if that means to run halfway across the house. If she gives one friend a hug, she must go hug all the other friends. If she gives someone knuckles [fist bump] then everyone else in sight must get a fist bump.

She shares her snacks with others. If I give her some goldfish, she always gives me a couple. The other day I was out working in the garden and Sean was getting her a yogurt covered pretzel - she knows those are my favorite so after making sure that Daddy got one she got one for me and ran around the house looking for me. Once they found me outside she came and gave me a pretzel, gave me a beso, gave Daddy a beso, and then went back inside to play. Adorable.

She has two books right now that make her cry. The first one is about jack'o'lanterns and one of the jack'o'lanterns has a sad face. She is very concerned about that pumpkin and it makes her cry if she looks at it too long. 

The second book is about the monkeys jumping on the bed. She feels so sad for those poor monkeys. She just holds her head and cries during that book. What a tender heart she has.

Today she was looking at the flowers with Daddy and noticed that one of the blossoms had died. She was very concerned and pretty sad about the situation. Daddy had to pluck it and throw it in the bushes so it wouldn't be dead anymore.

She also likes to take care of babies - real or play. She snuggles with her babies, gives them bathes, besos, tucks them into bed, feeds them, etc. For her little younger friends she likes to bring them books,  pat them on the head, give them hugs, etc. It's sweet.

She has the kindest, biggest heart in the world and I hope that she keeps that through her whole life. She teaches me so much. I feel like I'm a selfish person and she teaches me how to be better.

{Friday Five}

1. We got to visit this magical tree house this week! It was seriously magical! It was like all my childhood dreams coming true! Everything was miniature and adorable. We went with a bunch of other friends and It was a joyous morning :)

2. Our little sandbox that we put together this week. We had this old plastic shelving thing and it has turned into an awesome sand box. Evette can dump from one shelf to another, it keeps the rain and animals out, and doesn't take up too much  room. We're both in love with it.

3.  Tuesday night daddy surprised us and came home early! Evette and I were on our way home from Lowes after dinner and I saw a man sitting on my porch - turns out it was the husband!!! [we locked him out of the house.. :) ]. How cool is that!? They finished up their work earlier than expected so he jumped on a plane and came home! Such a fun surprise. We spent the evening playing with the hose outside.

4. My garden is thriving! My cucumbers, squash, and beans are growing beautifully :) 

5. The honeysuckle bush growing along our back fence is in bloom! And even better - it turns out that it has spread all through the top of the hedge bushes along the side of the house! Beautiful! Good thing I listened to my gut [my lazy self] and didn't get around to trimming these bushes yet - otherwise I would've killed these little guys! I love them - they smell delicious :)

{Weekend}

Just a couple pictures from our weekend.

It was warm enough that we put our swimsuits on and washed the car! It was awesome! Evette loved chasing us around with the hose. Her belly laughs were killing me - so adorable.

Evette using the large part of the laptop charger as a cell phone - hilarious. She would pick it up, talk to herself for a few minutes, run and do something else, and then come back to the phone. She loves talking on the phone - or anything that barely resembles a phone.

We went out to a Chinese buffet for lunch - not the best food, but it was alright.

Here are our fortunes - Sean, Heidi, Evette.

I was born in the year of the horse

and my two favorite people are both rabbits!

Then we stopped by petco to visit the animals [it's a frequent stop for Babbs and I]. Turns out they had dogs there today that were up for adoption! Now, those of you that know me know that I don't like dogs. Not that I just prefer cats, I just really don't like dogs at all.

I'm sorry if you didn't know this about me and now you're upset that I don't like your dog - I'm sorry. We can still be friends, I still like you, I just don't want your dog on my lap.

Anyways, I saw this dog and fell in love. Seriously the cutest, sweetest puppy ever. He was so sweet and happy but not obnoxiously jumping in your face. He didn't yip or bark or anything. Adorable. I wanted to take him home so so so bad. I'd let him sit on my lap.

Anyways - this had to be documented because I'm pretty sure it's a once in a lifetime occurrence. 

For my wonderful parents, on my mother’s birthday!

For my wonderful parents, on my mother’s birthday!

I wanted to share a thought with you two on this fine day about parenthood. It’s a short thought and one I cannot articulate to any satisfaction, but one that I’m sure you’ll be able to unravel and feel at least as strongly as I do.

That thought is this: I know now that you two love me to the point of heart-ache. You’ve told me so uncountable times in just as many ways, but I didn’t know how that felt until recently – until I recognized that the way I feel for Evette is certainly the way you feel for me.  

I’m learning more about this new feeling, this wonderful pain that is “parental-love-heartache.” I had no idea what debt of love I owed you – not debt of time, attention, education, protection, or material support (the normal things I might thank you for) – but the immense debt I owe simply for this welling feeling in your heart, for loving me as much as you do. And for as much as this feeling joyfully tears into my heart, I’m sure that I am only feeling a fraction of what your seasoned love must be.

I want to speak of repayment for that love but am at a loss. Evette repays my love with her sweetness, her cleverness, her earnest hugs, and her innocent kisses. I am sure there are things I do that bring such smiles to your face but am at a loss of how they might compensate for your love.

We all go on with our lives even though doing so makes such moments feel fleeting, half rejoicing in this feeling of love and half needing to proceed with life simply because it’s through life that these joys are felt. Thank you for striking the balance you have.

My heart thanks you. With love, your son forever,

Sean

{Flowerbed Tour}

When Rachel stayed with us a while ago I said "Let's go on a flowerbed tour!" and she said, "Wow...you've turned into mom."

It's true.

This is something that my Mom has always said. She has always had beautiful gardens, especially when we lived in Utah. We had colorful flowers for every season and it was lovely. We even had a veggie garden that we all had to work in. 

My mom got it from her parents who have the most beautiful garden ever. My grandpa has a killer vegetable garden and their flowerbed look like they could be in a fairy tale picture book. It always smells so lovely and is gorgeous. I love going on flowerbed tours with him.

Now that I'm a grown up [HA!] and we have our own place [sorta... renting] I am in the gardening mode hard core. 

When we moved in the yard/garden was a wreck, let's be honest. But, it just needed some love.

So, let me take you, dear reader, are a virtual flowerbed 

My hanging petunias

I planted a couple rose bushes to line our fence

And I've started a mini veggie garden! I found this great idea on pinterest to make a raised garden bed by just using bags of dirt. It is super low cost, and requires zero installation - obviously. It is not a beautiful as a raised garden bed, but it works for us right now! This way we can kind of test the waters so see what grows well without having to make the commitment to build one yet. After this year's harvest we'll be able to dump the bags, till up the ground [the bags have killed the grass underneath, so that's nice!], and add the compost that we've been working on, so that next year [if we're still here....] we can have a nice big garden to work with. I'm seriously in love with it. Don't mind the stakes in the ground - that's to keep out the pesky stray cat that kept digging up my plants - it has seemed to work pretty well!

We've got some mixed lettuce and spinach which have done beautiful and we've already used! [the gaps are are the cat destroyed the little sprouts... grr]

Peas and onions...

And some tomatoes.

I started all of these by seed except the tomatoes and they've all done quite well! I recently planted some beans, cucumbers, summer squash, and zucchini and am waiting for those to sprout up.

As I was giving our yard some TLC I tore out a bunch of [monstrous] dandelions which left not much grass in the back corner of our yard. I decided to take a gamble and plant some Texas wildflowers from seed. Here they are sprouting up! Can't wait for them to flower so it looks lovely and not just like a bunch of weeds - ha!

Here's the forsythia bush that I recently planted. I hope it does well - it's one of my favorite flowers - all those lovely bright yellow blossoms!

Ok I didn't plant these - but we have 3 massive pecan trees in our yard which is awesome. Here are their little sprouts!

honeysuckle buds :) This was here when we moved in and I love it!

Here's my little herb garden that I love! One of my favorite things.

Yum, basil!

Pretty lavender starting to come up

A few of my iris that I planted last fall! None of them bloomed this year, but I can't wait for them to next year. The smell reminds me of my grandpa :)

Recently planted some lilies - hopefully they'll do well and come back year after year

Little rose bush out front that we planted last year 

a flowering bush that we've planted out front by our tree after we tore out all the ugly ground cover.

Lemon tree sprouts!

Baby sprouts on my lime tree!

So Ta-da! There you have it.

We'll see how this all goes! 

I love working outside and getting dirt under my nails. 

I love the fresh warm soil and watching little leaves uncurl themselves toward the sun.