Mama's Little Loves

Miss Piper looking just as beautiful as ever...

Doesn't she look so content? Her expression reminds me of the cat who swallowed the bird. :)

All three looking so cute on a bench.The two girls looking at the butterflies. Check out those huge ones on the side. They were the biggest butterflies I have ever seen!

I will have more pics later. I need to try to rotate them and they're not cooperating right now :)

Labels: Ambry and Piper pics, The Gardens

Here is the current state of my backyard. When Caleb gets an idea in his head, there is no stopping him...as you can see. Basically, he is trying to grade it to be a more gradual slope rather than sloping every which way. In front of the shed, there used to be a big dip. I don't know if you can tell or not, but where Ambry's climbing thing is, that was how low the ground was. We are keeping the ground at that level because that is where her sandbox is going to be. It will be just about level with the ground. You can see the frame for it around the play thing.
Here is the back of the house...kind of. We tore out the wood edging that was rotting and replaced it with the free bricks that Caleb got from a job. I think it looks so much better! We are also raising up the ground along the side of the house. We will be putting a gate there and want it to be a little bit more level.
Here is the big pile of fill dirt that will be going also in the back yard to help to level it a little bit more. Also free! Thank you John G. for bringing that over! This is definitely one of those many times when I am so thankful for the job Caleb has. He was able to rip a bunch of the roots out of the ground from the tree that some buddies and him took down. Once the fill dirt is back there, basically all that will be left to do is put the fence in and to reseed. I hope it turns out as nice as we are hoping.

Labels: redo back yard, stuff

Where to begin...

I have been so bad about blogging! It has been forever! I don't even know where to begin. My only excuse is that is is GARAGE SALE SEASON!!! I am so bad. I can't pass up a garage sale sign for the fear of there being something soooo good there and I won't get it because I drove by. And what do I need that bad? Absolutely nothing. It is just some irrational fear that I have that it could the the very best, most awesome, hugest garage sale ever and I will have passed it right up all because I didn't feel like stopping. Crazy, or what?!?
This weekend has been so busy too. Caleb rented a hatcher for the yard--it is supposed to pull up the dead grass so that more new grass will have room to grow. He did that Friday night. Then Saturday he started building a sandbox for Ambry. He got the frame all screwed together and the ground leveled around it. Tonight he just has to staple some heavy duty plastic to the bottom of it and fill it with sand. Ambry is so excited! She was sitting in it yesterday and talking about how she is going to dig and dig and then dig some more. :)
He also got some bricks for me for free from some job he was at and we took out some of the wood that had rotted away and put the bricks in as edging. It looks ten times better. He's hoping that he can find some more and we can do the front too. I found some rocks for free that we are hoping to be able to pick up this week too. We are also going to fence in the backyard finally and Caleb is going to form up the walkway in the back and pour that with concrete. Talk about busy, busy. He also wants to do the front walkway and the two front squares in front of the garage. Why? Oh, no reason at all. They are just a little unlevel and being a concrete guy, that just won't do at all. I am trying to talk him out of doing the front walk way right now because there is no need for it, but when he gets an idea in his head there is no stopping him. He measured it all up yesterday. :)
I will try to get new pics up later...I haven't taken all that many lately. Actually none. I took some pictures of my bagels that I made with my new breadmaker, but who really wants to see some pics of some lopsided bagels? So I will have to try to take some pics of the girls and get some up tomorrow. Hopefully... Have a great Monday!

Labels: redo back yard, stuff

Flowers and Boats

I got to watch my two little sisters the other day and everyone wanted to do a craft. K wanted to make a boat and Ambry and R wanted to make flowers. So, for K I got out the containers that I saved from the Chinese place we get food from once in a while and what do you kow? It was shaped just like the bottom of a boat. A couple of pieces of cardboard later and she's got herself a boat. I forgot to take a picture of her boat when it was all done, but you can kind of get the idea here. She even put an "upper deck" (we made use of another container from the Chinese place that they use to put their sauce in) on her boat for the captain. :)


For the other two girls, I saw a craft in some magazine for flowers made out of toilet paper rolls. Basically you cut lines in almost to the middle and then do the same thing on the other side. Then fold the "petals" back. There should be about an inch or so left in the middle--don't cut all the way through. Then the girls got to color their flowers. Poke a pipe cleaner though the middle for a stem, stuff some scribbled on tissue paper in the middle for the center of the flower, and voila! All done. I love this picture. Look at their little faces...they are concentrating so hard!




And here are their flowers, all done! I don't know how much they really look like flowers, but they sure had fun making them and then playing with them. They proceeded to take them outside and "plant" them in Ambry's sand box. Too cute!
p.s. happy birthday to me! I turn 24 today. Soooo very old! :)

Labels: Ambry and Piper pics

It was another busy weekend. I did my garage sale for the last time for spring this weekend. Definitely makes things a little busier. And the house gets TRASHED! My mom came down and helped again on Friday. (THANKS mom!!!) Ambry loves it because she gets to see K and R and Nana (mom). So today is catchup day from the weekend. Try to get everything cleaned up and stacked back away. I made the trip over to Goodwill with well over the maximum donation of $500.00. I kept a couple of tubs of stuff that I will try to sell in the fall.

Ambry's bedset got picked up today. It was sad...I got it from mom who had used it for R and then passed it down to Ambry. I loved that bedroom set, but it was just too small for Ambry. It wasn't really something that she could grow with. So I am getting another one from mom. I can't wait! It is a twin bed again but it has a nightstand and a full dresser. It will be so nice. Even though there will be a full size dresser in there, I think it will look great! I can't wait to redecorate her room. I am keeping her paint color--I love the sunny yellow--and will be using a bedspread from mom. Can you see a pattern? My mom is soooo generous to us! I will put pics up once we pick up the new stuff from mom's house. Can't wait!!

Here are a couple pics from this past week. Guess who is hiding under the blankets? Don't know?


Surprise! Ambry and R got all "dressed up" as they called it in Ambry's pj's. You can't see what R is wearing but Ambry has the shirt to to R's pants and R has the shirt to Ambry's pants. Then they each put on slippers--I don't know what they were trying to do, but they were sharing really good, so it didn't really matter. :)

I love this picture of Piper and Aunt KK. I think it is so cute how they are both looking at each other. :)
That is about it from here. Not anything too exciting. Hopefully I can talk Ambry into sitting still for me to take some more pics of her. For my b-day, Caleb is going to go with the girls and I to get family pics done. Yeah! I love family pics. Not to mention I really want some nice ones of the Piper for her room. So I will hopefully have some nice pics to send out soon. :)

Labels: Ambry and Piper pics