garden work...

so. today was a crazy productive day. i woke up early and planted my seedlings (zinnias & marigolds) and then planted some seeds (sunflowers & daisies) in the bed around the grass. i fertilized the roses and weeded all over the place. i'm excited for everything to grow! 

i also got the garden planted. this year i'm trying my hand at a salsa garden. i planted tomatoes and peppers and jalapeños. but i did plant zucchini and summer squash too. i just love zucchini bread too much not to plant them. ooh...i also got my basil and cilantro planted. funny story. i found these red tins at goodwill and had an idea. i painted them and voila! they are now my herb containers. pretty cute right? (ps... i'm looking for a third herb... what should i plant? i'm leaning towards another cilantro... since i am planning on making lots of salsa this summer. ideas?)

anyway. remember that one time that i told you how much chowder loves mud and water? [see here.] yeah. he also has an interest in newly planted plants... last year he dug up my jojoba plants. i knew i needed to do something about that this year... so dad built me this super neat fence from some scrap wood and then i white washed it.  it's seriously adorable. and it is now proudly safe-guarding my new plants. winner! i sure love my dad for letting me have a garden... and then helping me with it. he sure is cool.

dad mowed the grass today for the first time this year. it's already looking greener. anyway. it doesn't look like we did a whole lot today, but we did. and i did get sunburned today... first time of the year! it was totally worth it though... this is gonna be a great year. much greener than normal (in our backyard at least). haha....

 this morning....

this afternoon.... do you see the difference? i swear it's there!

and don't you worry. i'll post more as everything starts to grow and we work more :)

tree house part deux...

there was more work completed on the tree house this weekend. 

austin and dad added a swing, finished a wall, almost finished a door,  a mailbox (which was my contribution to the project), added a folding table inside and got the pulley system up and running. 

and we were right... hayley loves it. 

i'm getting excited to finish it up!

hayley loves it! see?! 

so does chowder! see?!

she's really good at climbing up and down the ladder...

how cute is this mail box? it use to look like this. 

side note: we're still working on the path... it's pretty wobbly and uneven at this point, but this kid still loves to run on it...

...unless chowder is blocking the path. then she doesn't love it as much. haha.

and she still loves to help papa water the plants. 

:)

tree house...

about a million years ago, tino convinced the dad to help him build a tree house. they had big plans for this tree house... complete with a hidden storage box, a pole to slide down, and a pulley system. well... life happened.... we all got busy. five years have passed and they are still working on this tree house, but now it's not for tino's fort... it's for the grandkid(s) - at this point it's just hayley (who btdubs loves it!). they have been working on it the last few weekends. they have added a ladder (for hayley's safe and easy access) and austin's long-awaited sliding pole. they're making great progress. maybe they'll even finish it this year! my fingers are crossed!

what a deal...

as we are all aware... i enjoy thrift store shopping. i've been on the lookout for a desk recently. i found one a few days ago. it's a little ikea desk originally marked at $40 then down to $20... and then when the kid who was working there wrote my ticket up he marked it as $15! a similar one at ikea right now is $140. holy winner. 

anyway... it looked like someone sure abused loved this thing. and that "anna was the best" haha... so i gave it a removal of a tower holder and keyboard drawer (with the little brother's help), a quick sanding, and a very yellow paint job.

it's perfect :)

before....

after.... 

dive, dive, dive....

if you recall... last year we redid our pool. 

it went from that....

to this...

we are still ooh-ing & ahh-ing :)

well... the only down side to our redo was that we lost our diving board. it was kinda broken anyway and we had plans on replacing it, but that didn't happen... until this last weekend.

our year without a diving board has finally come to an end. and we couldn't be happier.

austin got the privilege of breaking it in...

zac might have gotten a jump in there too...

yay for summer!

::

also... my friend danielle made the martha stewart 1234 cake recently and we decided to give it a go too. we actually made it last weekend. it didn't turn out well at all. so... we did it again this weekend and instead of making a cake from scratch we just used a boxed cake mix... it turned out much better. it was delicious.

i've got a bug...

so i think i'm infected with this nasty little creativity bug. it's in my system and does not want to get out... and so what do i do? i blog-stalk all of these random diy blogs to find tons of inspiration. [my favorite is someday crafts. brilliant.] i found a bunch of fun ideas on there. so i decided to redo my mom's mantel decor [and do a little something something on top of the entertainment center too]. and man oh man did i ever! i'm pretty pleased with the way it all turned out.

the fireplace area... 

i painted a cheap letter f [bought it at michaels]... and used paper that i had on hand from another project and hot glued buttons on it.[the plant was on sale at michaels].

i modpodged newspaper on styrofoam balls then tied it up with some cute twine. i did the picture frame when i was in utah [click here for that].

the wreath... this was an interesting one. its a styrofoam wreath covered in modpodge & split peas. super cheap... and absolutely fantastic. i tied a burlap bow on it.

the entertainment center area... [i suppose i should have turned

off the tv for the picture. haha whoops...]

the cake platter is from home goods [i love that store!] the baby plant inside was on sale at michaels, the corked bottle was $1 at michael's [filled with leftover peas] and i had bought the vase at di in utah for $2... i modpodged that just wrapped burgundy thread around it.. its now an awesome votive! :)

now this... this was my favorite project. i got a 4x4 piece of lumber from home depot [they would cut it down to size... lowe's would not. boo on lowe's.] i painted them brown, cut out 3x3 pictures of the fam [and decorative papers from joann's], modpodged them all on, used the same color brown paint to do a little vignette around the pictures and paper, traced then painted letters on... sanded the edges to distress them more... modpodged again... and tada! we now have some awesome "family" blocks. sigh. they are fantastic! [i plan on doing smaller ones for hayley soon.] too cute right? lol... i just love the way they turned out.

 i really just love the way everything turned out. and yes... 

mod podge is my new best friend.

:)

grass...

"if the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, 

if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, 

if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, 

rejoice, for your soul is alive!"

 ~eleanora duse

yesterday was a fantastic day... another finished project that has been months in the works and years in the wishing & hoping category... another check mark on our backyard renovation project list. we finally have a beautiful green lawn! we bought 73 rolls of sod [about 700 square feet] and with help from dustin, mason & nicole [including me, kels, austin & dad] got it all laid down. it was a beast of a project... but oh so worth it! im just hoping that we can keep it alive under the arizona sun! 

we are so thankful for all of the help that we have recieved during this project... and we arent even done yet! haha... we have the greatest friends and family! :) 

before...

 now...

extra pictures... 

[ps... do people even realize how pooping heavy rolls of sod are? 

its ridiculous. im just saying...]

 the first strip of sod is down!! 

hayley loves the grass too! :)

our pretty grass....

 after our hard day of work, we took a dip in the pool. 

and man oh man do we love the lagoon and umbrella! its just so fantastic!!