When we first bought this house (not long after we were married in 1998) we were so gung-ho on gardening and making our yard look pretty. I mean, that is what first homeowners love, right? The chance to make a home their own. And gardening was at the top of my priority list back then.
But where we live, there's this crazy hard red clay to deal with and then we had all of those horrible hot summers and a really bad drought.. and.. well, we just kind of gave up. We just didn't have that coveted green thumb. And it was a lot of money down the drain. And honestly, we weren't very good about maintaining anything, especially with both of us having full-time jobs.
Then we had kids.. and you know, it's just hard to find the time.





We did plant some flowers last year in one flower bed in front of the house (that is about all we have time to maintain) and the boys loved helping me out with the prepping and planting. They were so excited to help us out this year.
Buying flowers gets pretty expensive and we are never good at planning ahead to save money with bulbs and seeds. But our little flower bed looks pretty and we actually did think ahead this time and planted some wildflower tubers and seeds. Hopefully we'll see some more prettyness in the summer.
The boys had a ball.. they didn't really "help" so much but gathered earthworms and dirt instead, which was fine with us. That's what boys are supposed to do right? By the end of the morning, we were all FILTHY, but had a pretty flower bed to show for it.






AND...
Guess who moved into a strip mall near us? ... HOME GOODS. I had always heard of people talking about that store and when I saw one open very near to us, I was curious to check it out. While most of it isn't my style, they had some really cute garden stuff. The turtle (that reminded me of this turtle, although obviously not as cute!) and mushroom (with the bird on top) I found at Home Goods today. The vintage dutch girl and boy I blogged about a while back. Some helpful bloggers informed me that they're supposed to be KISSING, so now they are properly placed. ; ) The mushrooms are from Target.
I've also been doing a lot of pressure washing on the house and on the driveway (there's something quite satisfying about cleaning things with a pressure washer!). The house is really shaping up after mooooonths of neglect. It's been so wonderful getting outside so much lately, and I have to admit to a tiny bit of envy of those people that get to work outside all day. Working at a desk is kind of soul sucking.
Hope you all had a lovely Easter! Here's the boys with all of their Easter loot. It tickles me that Cam is wearing his Halloween shirt.. a bit of a holiday identity crisis there ; )