Parker's Garden

Dee came up last week to help Parker implement a garden plan that he designed while playing at her house (it's hard not to be inspired by her garden, even for an almost-five year-old!). She arrived bearing all sorts of gifts, from lots of succulents to a hanging basket to a birdhouse and a solar light-up dragonfly. They spent the afternoon placing his plants and rocks just right in his own spot in the back yard. He is really proud of it, and it looks great! Then Dee spent the rest of the afternoon pulling both of the boys around the back yard in her garden wagon--both boys loved it so much that they fought over whose turn it was! Luckily, Levi became distracted by the hose, although his curiosity got the best of him when he turned it and pointed it directly in his face so he could get a closer look...

Back Yard Progress

Major progress has been made in the back yard! Some of the changes are small and might not be noticed by many, but other changes are much bigger. Dee and Lisa have been a huge help with weeding, pulling out plants, trimming back the neighbor's encroaching jungle, chopping down the bottle brush tree, and putting a layer of stain on the entire fence surrounding the yard--I never could have accomplished any of these things without their help. I've also cleaned and repainted all of the metal outdoor furniture (and the chiminea), rearranged things, reduced a lot of the potted plants, and cleaned up the potting bench. We are about halfway done building the new paver wall for the planting bed along the back of the house, then we can start planting a nice garden in there. There are lots of other backyard jobs lined up in the dreams pipeline, we'll see what we can get to before we run out of steam! 

Yard Work, Yard Work, Everywhere!

Parker being goofy as always

Levi LOVES playing in dirt! 

Jared beginning the process of building a planter bed wall

Dee in the midst of cutting down the bottle brush tree--it's finally gone!!

Parker working hard in his role as "supervisor"

The last month or so has found us inspired to clean up and improve our front and back yards, and thanks to Dee and Lisa's help, we've made a ton of progress! It's been fun getting into gardening and home improvement projects again, spending time dreaming about possibilities and spending nap times trying to get as much done as I can before Levi wakes up! So many more projects ahead...we're already enjoying meals out on the patio again now that it's nice and clean.

Parker's Garden

One day, Parker decided that he really ought to have his own box in the veggie garden. So we cleared a space for him and let him choose what he would like to plant: Parker's garden is an eclectic mix right now of marigolds, succulents, corn, strawberries, enormous sunflowers, and possibly some bell pepper plants buried beneath it all. His sunflowers are in their prime right now, blooming and so tall that they are best viewed from above, from inside the house.

Garden Gnome

It was such a beautiful afternoon in Dee's garden that I wanted to prop Levi up in all of the different plants and take pictures of him like a little traveling garden gnome! But I was afraid that he'd eventually end up tipping over while I wasn't watching him properly, and he was so eager to put everything in his mouth that I kept wondering exactly which plants might have poisonous foliage...He was SO curious and intrigued by all of the plants and objects--he loved feeling the different textures of everything, and was so totally focused on looking at and touching everything within sight that I couldn't get him to look at me for a single photo. What a great place for him to learn about life!

Our First Blueberries

There were only three of them, but they tasted really good! Hopefully this will just be the beginning of some fabulous crops of blueberries right in our own back yard...