Landscaping the yard

Matthew and I decided that when the last of the Frost hit, we would put landscaping all around the house. I thought landscaping our entire house would only take one full day. HA I was in for a shock. When Matt brought all these plants home, something told me it might take some time. Something else I didn’t consider was that my husband is OCD (Who am I kidding, he’s OCD on any project) when it comes to spacing out the plants from each other and a certain measurement off the house. It seemed like it took him 1 hour to plant 5 azalea bushes. The man had to measure EVERYTHING with his tape measure. 

Me and a few little helpers had to dig up the sod, wheel it over places in our yard that either didn’t have grass or fill in areas that had a dip. Talk about exhausting. After many days of doing this while watching the children, it was done. Matt decided after we dug all the grass up that he wanted to remove all the old mulch. Here I go again, working a few more days, watching children and removing all the old mulch. The ONLY thing I can say positive about this experience was that I got a little sun tan. Put me out there a few more days and I would have turned into a Mexican.

Next step was planting the plants followed by putting a irrigation system in. Matt didn’t want our family dog to get shot for digging in the planter so he re-wired our underground fence so that if Scooter takes one step into the bed, he’ll get shocked Ha Ha (can’t wait to see that happen). Two 16 foot trailers later of pine bark and we are finally done!!!

		Before Pictures VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

And here is how it came out. The grass at the back of the house has to grow back in. Once that happens, the yard will look a lot better.

		After Pictures VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This project has made me learn that I would NEVER go into landscaping as a profession. I’m thankful that I’m able to work indoors and play with the children.

~Grace

Visiting Big Nonna

 

Matt and I have been planning a trip down to Boynton Beach to see his Nonna/Big Nonna. Michael calls her Big Nonna since Matt’s mama is called Nonna. Matt’s Nonna is turning 85 this month and this was the best time for everyone to be able to get together to celebrate. I was dreading the drive down because Matt wanted to drive there and back the same day with the children. Um… 4.5 hrs. there and 4.5 hrs. back plus stops; no thanks. Not to mention we haven’t joined the cool club of having a DVD player in the car. I talked Matt into staying in Orlando if I could get a cheap hotel room. So the Thursday night before we were suppose to leave I went on Priceline and “named my price” I put in the general location we wanted to stay in and said I wanted a 4 star hotel for $55.00 Ya’ll I got it!!! When it said a hotel accepted it and it popped up as Shingle Creek (which I’ve never heard of) I started to get worried. Matt said “Great, what did you get us into.” When I looked up the hotel online I couldn’t believe how “Fancy” it was. ha Shingle Creek is a resort with a golf course.

 

Matt and I loaded up the children on a Friday afternoon and headed to Orlando. The resort was so nice and what I loved was that they had a zero grade pool. We made our mind up that we would get up early and eat breakfast, swim until the children were exhausted, check out and pray they would sleep all the way there. We did all that and it worked!!

 

The pool was heated and the sun was out for the most part so it was a perfect day to swim. Madelyn really enjoyed it and kept holding her breath and going under. Michael on the other hand just stayed in the shallow part of the water crawling around on his knees telling us he was swimming. I think my poor child needs swimming lessons. We keep telling him that Madelyn will be a pro before he will and it doesn’t seem to bother him.

    

 

My brother Luke who lives in Orlando was having to work Saturday so since it was near by he stopped by for a swim with the children and hung out for a little while. He carried Madelyn down to the car when we went to check out and by the time we got to the car she had fallen asleep in his arms.

Once we got on the road we headed down to Lake Worth where Matt’s Aunt lives. A few of us met up there and were able to hang out before we went to Nonna’s place to get her for dinner. A side note, when his Aunt says she is going to have a little bit of food at her house, it means we better come starving because she always has a ton of wonderful dishes!! After visiting for a while, we then headed down to Boynton Beach to pick Nonna up.

Though it wasn’t cold, we wrapped Madelyn up in the knitted blanket that Nonna made her. Madelyn didn’t mind because she is either holding a baby doll or a blanket every where she goes these days.

Matt’s brother Hoss came down with their Dad, but went with us to pick her up.

From the first time I met Nonna, I fell in love with her. She is the sweetest little Italian lady you’ll ever meet. And when she was able to move around and live on her own, she could cook the best home made sauce with meatballs. For that matter, anything she cooked, she cooked to perfection.

We had a wonderful dinner and it was fun to be with all the family from there. After dinner we headed back to Aunt Joann’s and bathed the children and put them in their jammies. That was another good idea because once we got on the road they fell right to sleep and slept all the way home.

Happy Friday!!

 

After seeing and hearing about Just Dance 2, we decided to buy it. Though we haven’t had any parties, it has become the hit in our house. Michael loves one song particularly that has an alien, but looks like a frog. He calls it “The Frog Song”.

Since it’s Friday, lets kick off the weekend with a song and dance….

 

Michael and Madelyn dancing