Thursday, May 14, 2015

Mother's Day

It is the best day of the year.I used to be so into birthdays. but nothing compares to Mother's Day anymore. (In two years, my birthday is on Mother's Day!) There is just something so peaceful and calm on this day that everyone shows love to the woman that they call mother. Jon made this a fantastic mother's day for me. He knows how much I love picnics and that is all I asked for. I do not need gifts... I just want to spend time with my family. we went to Rip Van Winkle Gardens and had our picnic on the lake. Finn snoozed by the lake while Jon and I sipped on mimosas. My heart was very full. I am so very thankful that I was able to have a child, and a pretty darn good one if I must say so myself! The only thing I wished is that Jon and I could spend Mother's Day with our own moms. Now that I have my own child, I respect every single thing that mom did for me. It is hard being a mom sometimes, yet very rewarding. I can't imagine how hard it will be in the teenage years.

Mother's Day Flowers
The tree when first pulling in to Rip Van Winkle Gardens
Mimosas while Finn slept!
zzzzz....
Beautiful!
Finn loved the peacocks everywhere!
Little guy was camera shy. It was time for bed.

Friday, May 8, 2015

In God's Hands

I have been impatiently waiting to hear about job openings and where in the heck I will be teaching next year. I am not a patient person. At all. Just ask my husband. When I get my mind set on something, it usually has to happen right then and there. So this waiting game is no fun for me. I just want to get excited about my new room, new students, new school, and start to prepare as early as possible. I had a teacher tell me today that God will place you wherever he wants you, and I need to just believe in that. This time will fly by and I will be wherever am supposed to be in a blink of an eye.

In the last few weeks, I have realized that my little man is getting so big and smart. He is saying so much more every single day. And he seems like he wants to just learn, learn, learn! 

Painting time!
Jon created a succulent garden for our island in the kitchen. He as always loved the look of succulents and I am starting to like them. It turned out pretty cute!
Succulent Garden

Jon's little helper
It is crawfish season here in Louisiana. It is quite possibly the best time of year! I didn't eat these things when I first moved here, but I am so glad that I do now! There is nothing like some hot crawfish and a cold beer!
Yum!
Finn likes to play with the live crawfish. They have their pinchers torn off so they can't get him!
We went to Disney on Ice and the boys absolutely loved it!!
They couldn't take their eyes off!
My little man loves to give big hugs these days. It may be the best thing in the world!

Friday, May 1, 2015

DIY Cinder Block Herb Garden


It's project time again and this time it's an herb garden! This is my our first time having a garden that produces food. So, it will be very trial and error! I am not ashamed to say that I am not the green thumb of our family. I can (and will) kill every plant that I am in charge of keeping alive. Thanks so Jon, plants do very well in our house, so we decided to attempt a real garden! Due to space constraints, we agreed on doing a simple herb garden since we love to cook so much. To match our new DIY Cinder Block Bench, we found some great cinder block garden ideas on Pinterest. Not only are they very inexpensive, but it also matches all of our reused and upcycled look of our backyard. And I just love the industrial look with the love garden.

Let's get to work!


 

We have a very small space to work with due to the fact that we don't want to take a ton of our grass and yard away in order for Finn to have some playing area. We decided to go right in front of the walkway that Jon put together. The space shown could not really be utilized in any other way. We first dug up most of the grass, but not all.


 We then put cardboard down as the first layer. We read that this will kill all the weeds that will try and snake their way up into the garden. We will see about that. Jon then placed 14 cinder blocks in a rectangle to utilize the space as much as possible. We wanted the river rock from the walkway to continue along the front so it would look like one area


Jon took charge of the outside ring of plants. He had a pretty clear vision on what he wanted, and I think it turned out perfect. There are some grass plants, succulents, flowers, etc. Nothing edible in the outside area. And I LOVE the river rocks in every other hole. Great job, hubby!


Now it was my turn. And boy, was it hard. I had no clue what to get. First I wanted to grow mt herbs from spices, but then I read that if it was your first time that it would be easier to grow from plants. (Next year, I will grow from seeds because I feel like I am cheating). Then, I didn't know if I should add flowers or not.
 

Isn't my little helper so cute?!


I decided on just herbs and no flowers. We were worried that the herbs would get big and start to take over the flowers. I guess it is a waiting game now to see if we made the right decision.



Next step was to make the markers. I would love to say that I came up with this idea all on my own, but it was yet another Pinterest find. I can take the credit for drinking the wine and having some fairly good script handwriting!



Our last step will be to add some kind of saying on the wall above the garden. We still aren't sure what we are doing there, but I love the look of the frames on the fence.

    

The wine corks were placed on bamboo skewers. We happened to have all of these items laying around our house, so no trip to the store for this!

    
Our Garden Markers













 


       

The final project is complete! Well, with the exception of the artwork that we will have above the garden. This was a very inexpensive project and I hope that we will have lots of herbs for our meals. I guess I better get to researching on how to make yourself a green thumb!