April 28th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

It has been unseasonably warm here for the last few days – it’s hard to remember that it’s April when it’s 83 degrees during the day and warm at night! We’ve taken advantage of the nice weather to get some spring yardwork done!

I worked for quite a while putting mulch under the kids’ play area, which I am thrilled to say is finally done! When we moved in 2.5 years ago this was weedy flower bed with a decaying stump that had been made into a “water feature” that didn’t have a pump anymore, ie: a mosquito farm. The creative people who made this “water feature” also had tons of rocks cemented and placed around the decaying stump – NP earned some kind of award for getting that out of there and the ground leveled! We’ve been working on this little corner for so long, I can’t believe it’s actually a usable space now! (and who needs a sandbox when you have mulch to dig in?) ;)

It seemed fitting to recycle our old recycling bin organizer (we have curbside recylcling now and didn’t need it) to store the kids’ outside toys in. I’m glad to have a place to keep all those balls, bubble toys, chalk, water toys, etc. I’m planning to keep our sprinkler and some of my small gardening tools in the top so I can have them close at hand when we go out to play.

I can’t fully explain to you how much better our flower beds look from when we first moved in! Apparently somewhere back the line someone tried to landscape… but between sloppy work and later neglect, they weren’t in good shape! We really don’t know anything about gardening but are learning bit by bit (and our yard is almost all shade, which is challenging) – we’ve inherited lots of plants from neighbors and family, have moved everything around so much that the plants are probably dizzy, have weeded and worked and edged (NP made that awesome rock border out of rocks from the water feature!), and finally – we have mulched. Two yards of mulch later, things are looking up! I’m excited to see how this bed will be looking in another month or so!

Speaking of reusing rocks, I’ve really been wanting a bird bath (remember I have my budding birding addiction), but I’ve been bummed that the ones I have seen are either ugly or too expensive. Enter my talented husband, who built this beautiful bird bath for me out of more extra stone laying around and a glass dish that used to be under a flower pot! I love it, and the birds seem to approve, too!

What have you been tackling this week?

March 17th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

We had SUCH a fun morning! We stopped and played at our local chick-fil-a playland after dropping NP off at work – apparently first thing in the morning will be our time to do things like this! We were the only ones there! AG is very shy and timid, so if there are a lot of kids playing in one of those things she just gets pushed and trampled; this makes the experience quite unenjoyable for both her and her mother, who wants to yell at the pushy children and at their mothers for not intervening!

We left chick-fil-a and hit the library. When we were at small group on Sunday, she was just sitting down with the other kids to watch “Cinderella” when I told her it was time to go upstairs and lay down for bedtime. She has never seen it, although she is quite intrigued with the whole princess thing; she came running to the stairs and said with hope and excitement shining in her eyes, “We’re going to watch Cinderella!” I told her that it was time for bed, and she didn’t even hesitate – she just said, “ok, I’m going to bed!” and ran up the stairs. I wanted to squeeze her, give her candy, and then let her have any movie she wanted at that moment! ;) Instead, I verbally affirmed the wazoo out of that and told her that we would go to the library and get “Cinderella” so she could watch it at home as many times as she wanted. Sadly, the princess in blue appears to be vacationing at someone else’s house this week – but, she had a great time playing with the library trains, books, and dolls.

In the meantime, the day has turned glorious here – the sun is shining, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and it’s “sweatshirt warm.” I decided to add to our marathon of fun and go outside for a while before lunchtime. While the kids played (this was LB’s first real outside playtime) and found odd things that the squirrels have brought into our yard during the winter, I started spring clean-up.

I love seeing those first sprouts bravely venturing out of the ground each March! Although we have a lot of leaves and pine needles to clear out of their way, it is always so exciting to have a fresh start! And, since every spring in our house more surprise things grow in our flowerbeds (we must be stirring up the soil enough that years of dormant bulbs are being resurrected!), there is an exciting sense of mystery about it all!

After yesterday’s post, I was also reflecting on the fact that our lives so easily become clogged with decay, inhibiting the fresh growth and fruit God wants our lives to produce. Raking it away is sometimes painful, but worth it!

What are you tackling today?