Garbage Truck Races - 2013

It is time once again for the annual Garbage Truck races! I have two little boys who like to do nothing better than watch garbage trucks drive around. Especially if they are watching garbage trucks while also eating donuts.

Henry checks out the business end of a garbage truck.

It's like going to a parade!

Matt hard at work judging the garbage truck races. If you have to work on a Saturday, this is the way to do it.

Here comes the garbage truck!

Howie's New Friend

Howie loves plants. We took him to a cactus show at the botanical gardens. He loved it! He spent a lot of time looking around at all the varieties of cacti and succulents. Then he picked out this little orange moon cactus to bring home. He loved it so much he wanted to sleep with it that night. Since his new friend is covered in prickles, we convinced him to leave it downstairs for the night. I love my little boy who love plants.

The New Homeowners

Matt and I made great strides in the world of homeownership the past two months. We did the annual maintenance on our AC (by which I mean, we hired someone to do it for us). We fixed the toilet in the master bath so the chain doesn't catch (the lid was on wrong). We figured out how to restore power to the outlets in the bathroom when the breaker trips (this took three days and multiple google searches). We learned how to answer the much asked question "Do you have bermuda grass or St. Agustine?" (the answer being a little bit of both with a good mix of weeds).

Having tackled the basics of homeownership, we decided we were ready to tackle a bigger project: Re-landscaping the front yard. Why? Because we can.

Here is a before picture of the front yard:

There was nothing particularly wrong with the front yard, but we had an itch to do something different. Mostly, we wanted to have more flower beds so we had less grass to take care of. We also wanted more native plants that don't need much water. In short, we wanted to do a lot of work right now so we can do less work later.

We have spent a lot of time planning and drawing pictures of what we wanted to do in the front yard, but we weren't too sure what we wanted to do. Then one Saturday we were inside staring out at the front yard. We decided just to go crazy and do something right then. (This/ is how we end up doing most things.) So Matt grabbed a shovel and started digging up grass. I took the boys to Home Depot and bought supplies. I came back home and grabbed a shovel and dug up some grass. Matt went to Home Depot for more supplies. Howie looked for rolly polly bugs, and Henry played with sticks. Matt came back and installed metal edging. I started digging up plants. Matt went to Home Depot for more supplies. We both dug up plants and bushes and put them in plastic bags. Howie got bored of playing outside and went inside to watch TV. Henry fell asleep. I raked up our new flower bed. Matt went to Home Depot for more supplies. By 2:00 in the afternoon, the new flower bed was ready for plants and we were exhausted. We took the boys out to lunch and planned to call it a day.

But being crazy and re-energized by our tasty sandwiches and large quantities of Dr. Pepper, we decided not to call it a day after all. We drove to the nursery to pick out plants for our new flower bed. We kept the existing Mountain Laural (a beautiful tree that gets purple flowers that smell like lilacs) and bought another small one. We also got an agave, a red yucca, Mexican feather grass, and some little succulents of some kind.

Back at home we finished up our project. We planted everything and put down soaker hose and mulch. It was a long day and a lot of work, but the end result is beautiful. We are quite pleased with how it turned out. Here are some photos of the end result:

I don't think we are completely done with the front yard, but this was a good start. Later we want to do something with the island, and we are trying to replant the grass in the front yard to improve our grass to weed ratio. But for now we are feeling like proud homeowners.

A Dance Spectacular!

Here is a video of Howie dancing for your viewing pleasure. Watch out, ladies. This boy has some moves!

I love when he turns around and wiggles his bum! This boy cracks me up!

Nerf Wars

What do we love lately? Nerf Wars! This is so much fun! Matt brought home two Nerf guns from his work Christmas gift exchange. We had fun with them over Christmas break, but very quickly most of the darts were lost or destroyed. The Nerf guns sat quietly in the bottom of the toy chest for several months. Then I bought a 36 pack of darts. Now every night the whole house explodes with Nerf warfare. It has been so much fun that we decided to buy two more Nerf guns so Howie and Henry could play too. Howie stockpiles all the ammo and runs around the house screaming without ever shooting a dart. Henry, not even a year and a half old, knows how to load his gun and pull the trigger. Sometimes he has even been known to hit something. When the battle is over, the house is covered in little orange darts.  The next day I find them behind the blinds, inside light fixtures, under the couch, and in Howie's pockets. I slowly collect them and make a pile on the kitchen counter. Later someone will grab a handful and the battle will begin again.

Happy Easter!

Easter wasn't so long ago, right? At least not so long ago that it would be silly to be showing pictures from Easter? And regardless of how long ago it was, I know that you would like to do nothing better right now than look at pictures of my adorable kids holding colored eggs. They are even more adorable when they are holding colored eggs. So here it is--my belated accounting of Easter.

The first of our Easter festivities was our ward Easter party, which we very much enjoyed. There was good food, an egg hunt, and kite flying.

As promised, a photo of my adorable Henry looking even more adorable with his colored Easter eggs. What a cutie pie!

Whoa! There's candy in this egg!

When flying a kite, Henry finds it much easier to fly just the tail of the kite. He had the right idea. He had the most successful kite flying of the whole family.

Flying kites in an open field at a ward Easter party--totally an awesome idea! (By the way, our kite is not pictured here. We were not so successful in the kite flying department.)

Our kite spent most of the time here.

Well, we sure tried hard anyway.

We also enjoyed our first Easter at our new house. The boys had lots of fun hunting for eggs in the backyard. Each boy had his own style this year. Howie ran around the yard like a crazy head from egg to egg. He was so excited and running so fast I couldn't even get him to slow down for a good photo. That is why I have all of these blurry shots of Howie and his bucket.

Henry picked up one egg. Then he discovered there was chocolate in his egg. He sat in the grass and ate all the chocolate. Then he picked up another egg and ate all the chocolate inside. Then he was done.

Our New House

Ta-daa!! I'm back with another blog post! Where I have been, you might ask. Well I have been a little pre-occupied with this:

Our new house! Yay! I was very busy during January and February looking for, buying, and moving into this beauty. Now that we have lived here for about two weeks and things have settled down a bit, I thought I would share some photos of our new home. (Which we are absolutely loving, by the way.)

Let's start with the backyard, a place the whole family loves to hang out. Having a backyard is awesome.

The boys love to hang out in their playhouse.

When Howie saw this swing set, he wanted to buy this house. Being the nice parents we are, we obliged, which made Howie very happy. He loves to play outside on the swings.

I love my crepe myrtle! Soon this tree will be covered in little pink or white flowers. 

A nice patio for grilling.

Howie calls this his tree house. Have I mentioned that Howie loves his playing outside on his playset?

The backyard as seen from the back door.

Here are some photos from the inside of the house. You will notice that the walls are bare and the rooms are mostly empty. Give me a year or two and that will all change, but in the meantime here is what the interior of the house looks like:

Terrible photo, I know. This is the kitchen. I love it.

The dining/eat in kitchen area. A perfect fit for our table and four chairs.

Here is the living room. It has lots of windows, a beautiful fireplace, and lots of cushy floor space for driving cars around. A couch is on the way.

My view as I make dinner. I can see the backyard, the TV, and my family hanging out in the living room all at the same time. This is one of my favorite things about this house.

The stairs are a favorite with the boys. Henry is getting pretty good at going up and down.

Howie playing on the stairs.

The formal living room. This room is completely empty except for the piano right now.   

Our bikes are inside, but not in our bedroom! Yay! I absolutely love having a garage!

Our master bedroom. Matt can get out of bed without crawling over me!  Hurray! The simple joys in life.

A laundry room. With cupboards. Totally awesome!

A walk in closet. So nice.

Now this is a master bath. LOVE IT!

The master bathroom.

The view from the top of the stairs.

The fourth bedroom. This will eventually be some sort of office, man cave, art studio, guest bedroom kind of a room. Right now it is the room where Matt plays his trumpet.

A coat closet that only has coats in it! Anyone who saw my previous coat closet will understand how awesome this is.

Henry's bedroom. So sweet and clean!

Howie's room. So big and so pink. First thing I paint in this house will be this room. Howie would like it to be blue.

The boys' bathroom. Howie is very possessive of his bathroom. He got mad at me when I used his toilet. I apologize in advance if anyone visits me and gets screamed at while using the bathroom.

The landing at the top of the stairs. A perfect place to play or launch toys through the air. Yes, toys have been broken. I'm just glad both boys are too fat to fit in between the bars.

And last, but not least, here are some close up photos of the front of the house. We love the magnolia trees and sego palms in the front.

There you have it. Our new house. If you want to see more, come for a visit and see it all for yourself!