DIY Yardwork

Well, if DIY means Do-It-Yourselfhusband-with-your-bff's-expertise-and-bff's-husband's-muscles. When we moved into our house we had some serious work to do to get the yard to our liking.  Our problem last summer? We were putting all of our effort into painting the interior of the house and creating a baby nursery.  Our problem this summer? We had no clue where to start to make our yard pretty.  Thankfully Billie is a landscape architect and has told us all along that she would help us transplant a few plants that needed to move and she would also help us pick out plants to make everything look cohesive. Jonathan started a few weeks ago working on all of the dead spots of grass and already the grass is looking so much better.

Here are some before pics: (Please enjoy that middle awkward plant...it has weird like arms coming out of every side.)

 See the half dead plant at the corner of the house? Classy. Also, you can barely see it but there was a pretty hydrangea behind the three little bushes. The whole set up was very choppy and not cohesive.

 This has some dead spots but it's going to the backyard and it will hopefully thrive back there.

Saturday Jonathan and I had the day open so I called Billie to see if she could meet us at the nursery to choose some plants.  She and Derek and Eli met us there and we picked some great plants out. It's so wonderful to walk around the nursery with someone who knows what the plants are and all of the necessary information that I wouldn't even think about (which are hearty, which need sun, which have burrs).  I really appreciate how specific she is about how the actual plants look.  They then came over for a hot dog dinner that night and then started in on yard work (hoping that the evening would have less heat and humidity) and the boys got to digging up every single plant that was already in the yard.  The biggest issue was the Japanese Maple that was planted in a very awkward area so it was really difficult to dig up. (Cement on almost every side. Moving it was the best thing because where it was didn't give it enough room to grow! It really opens up the walkway and it highlights the maple now that it is in the yard now.)

All of the plants dug up waiting for their new homes. Some of the homes were in the backyard (like that ugly arm-y green plant and some other little plants with prickers. yuck!).  We have no landscape in the backyard so prickery and ugly is better than nothing right? right??

Working on digging up that maple.

Right after the guys got the maple out of the ground it started pouring down rain.  They got it done right in time! Thankfully Derek and Billie offered to come back Sunday after church to help plant everything.  It was HOT and HUMID but that didn't stop them! {Notice I said "them". I was on baby/child duty.  I'm pretty sure I would have been ZERO help had I tried.} It started raining and hailing about 2/3 of the way through the planting process and they worked on through it! Superstars! When it finally stopped raining everything was completed.  We just have to go buy some flowers, mulch, oh...and a tree. (The nursery we went to didn't have a big enough selection for the type we want.)

After Pictures!

How much better does that maple look now that it has a nice place to grow and have some limelight! We are going to plant a tree in behind the maple next to the last green bush (Billie would have a more technical name for it than that.) We are also going to be planting flowers this week in front of the green bushes but behind the liriope! {Look, I used a real plant name!}

Now our hydrangea is in a prominent spot so you can see it! And I LOVE that red tree. It's going to look awesome once it grows a bit taller!

The right side of the garage now balances the left side. We put a hosta and a small bush (that we dug up from the front porch area) next to the evergreen and I think it looks so good!

Can you tell that this summer is the summer of exterior sprucing-up? I hope you enjoyed my oh so not technical post about our landscape. Once we get the tree, flowers and mulch down I'll post some true after pictures! Next on the summer agenda will be painting the front door and shutters. (I have yet to decide what color I want them to be!)

We are so very blessed to have friends who are willing to work so hard and give up a beautiful weekend to help us out!! Thanks guys!!! We love you!

Sunday Pics

I love getting pictures of Adalyn's cute dresses each week before church! She has so many sweet dresses and I want to remember her wearing each of them!  This dress was from a consignment sale (where else?) and I think it was somewhere between $5 and $8. I think it was a steal! Such a sweet sundress.

 I love the back!

She wasn't really in a "look at the camera" mood today.  Oh well.  I could still kiss those cheeks!

Adalyn's Dedication

Last Sunday (the 15th) we dedicated Adalyn to God.  It was another one of those surreal parent/child milestones.  It was very sweet.  We do things differently at our church because it's big (I feel like I say that I lot on this blog, but we have our own way of doing things compared to smaller churches.)  Instead of dedicating babies during Sunday services we have special services in the afternoon just for dedications.  There were two dedication services on Sunday and over 90 children dedicated!! We had a very sweet and short service about what it means to be a parent and to raise our children God's way. And then all the parents and babies went up on stage to verbally acknowledge our commitment to raise our children according to the Bible.  For those of you who have only ever been to a christening or a baptism; a dedication is not the same thing. We don't believe in baptizing a baby so that they will go to heaven. But we do believe in a verbal and visual dedication to raise our child according to the Bible.

Here are some pictures during the service.

 They had a slideshow with a picture of each baby/family.

 The front of the room. This room and stage was pretty full.  Maybe next year they will do one service in our main auditorium.

 We were front and center!

 

We were so blessed that our family was able to come in town to come to the dedication.

My parents

Jonathan's mom and sister

Ms. Connie aka Nona aka Adalyn's daily caregiver. Wasn't it so sweet that she came? I love that she has become a part of our family. And I love how she loves my child!

Billie, Derek and Eli

Eli only had eyes for Adalyn:)

We had everyone back over to our house afterwards and Eli got some more Adalyn-lovin in. And the rest of us ate some cupcakes and fruit.  Adalyn was also given some very special gifts to remember this very special day. She is a very loved little girl!

What a wonderful weekend!  We then spent the next couple days enjoying my parents' company and Adalyn skipped daycare to spend time with Grandma Nan and Papa.  I wish we weren't so far away so that these moments could be more often!!

6 Months!!

It's been way too long since my last post...life is busy and I just can never find time to go through pictures or type up a post.  But it has now been over a week since Adalyn turned 6 months so I think it's high time for a post!  Monday the 9th Adalyn turned 6 months old.  I know I say this every month, but I don't know where the time goes! I keep trying to live in the moment with her but those moments are just flying by!  She is such a happy and content baby.  She is always happy to roll along with whatever we have going on.

Last Tuesday we had her 6 month well-check and shots (poor baby).  She had been having a runny nose and cough and for the first time since she was 4 weeks old she was waking up at night screaming.  I could tell that something was not right.  I felt horrible because I could tell that she was in pain.  So the doctor checked her ears and her throat and other than a slight temperature she was fine. So the doctor was okay with giving her her shots.  We had a new (to us) nurse and when she saw that Adalyn literally stops crying from the shots when we pull her off of the table she said that she wants to request us from now on because she is such a good baby.  Here are her stats from her appointment.  No surprises...still a little string bean with a little head:)

Height: 26 3/4 inches = 75-90%
Weight: 14lbs 13oz = 25-50%
Head: 15 3/4 inches = < 5%

Unfortunately my baby kept waking up throughout the nights and I felt horrible! Finally Thursday afternoon I stuck my finger in her mouth (she has been drooling and biting on everything for a few months so that wasn't new) and sure enough TWO TEETH were sticking through! I could even see them! I think I may have screamed when I felt them because I was so excited for this next milestone.  Then we called daddy at work to tell him the news that our baby was becoming a big girl! And then I was relieved that I finally knew why she seemed to be in pain at night.  Unfortunately she continues to wake up at night even with the medicine and orajel that we've been giving her.  So Jonathan and I feel a bit zombie-like!  It's so crazy because we never really had this problem even when she was a newborn.  Hopefully soon she'll be back to sleeping like a rock star!

Adalyn has pretty much grown (length-wise) out of her 3-6 month clothes but with our weather she is still wearing them.  Her next size of clothes are all sundresses and shorts (who would think that we would have 55* days in May?!?)  She is still wearing 0-3 size onesies. (We should probably bump those up to 3-6 soon.)  She is still in size 2 diapers but once we finish this box she will be in size 3.  The very few pairs of shoes that she has are all size 0-3 and still too wide. She's so petite!

Adalyn loves "talking".  She is constantly making noises and talking to us. It's so sweet.  I'm confident that when she knows how to form words that she will never again stop talking! :) (Just like her mama!)  She can almost sit up by herself. She does well sitting with the boppy behind her.  She has yet to roll over.  I think that goes back to being so content.  She doesn't feel a need to roll over because she's just content hanging out where ever we put her. (And I'm not complaining.  She will be moving soon enough.)  She loves her exersaucer and her Johnny Jump Up has been a huge hit! We keep it in our bathroom/closet door so she just jumps away while we are getting ready in the morning.

Adalyn has really started enjoying eating. (Imagine that!...again her mother's child.) She now is happy to eat Rice or Oatmeal.  The only other two foods she has tried are Acorn squash and sweet potatoes.  Sweet potatoes are her favorite! We're going to try peas and pears next!! It's so cute.  Jonathan said she looks like a baby bird sitting with her mouth open waiting for her next bite! She's not quite sure about her sippy cup with water.  But we keep trying to get the hang of it.

I was telling Jonathan the other day that I never want her to grow up because I want her to be a baby forever but every new stage that we are in is my favorite.  We are having so much fun getting to know her sweet personality.  I hope I always remember the precious wide-opened-mouth happy squeels she makes when her daddy is playing with her. And the sweet moments I have with her when I'm nursing her. 

Look how big she is!

Baby girl, your daddy and I love you more than you can ever imagine and we are so happy to have you in our family!!

My First Mother's Day

My day started with breakfast in bed... (sorry it's a pic from my phone)

Then I opened a sweet new Willowtree figure.  I love it! It goes with the one I got when I was pregnant:)

Then I took a few pictures with my sweet girl before church.

At church they recognized all of the moms by having us stand up.  It really hit me that I'm finally a mom.  I actually got to stand up.  It reminded me of the past years that Mother's Day was so painful because I wanted to be a mom so bad.  And it reminded me of how blessed I am that I have a healthy, beautiful baby girl. And a wonderful husband too!

We went to Panera for lunch and then back home to relax and take a much needed nap. (I took a few more pictures with my girl.) And then we went to Orange Leaf for 1/2 off! YUM! 

All in all, it was a wonderful first Mother's Day!! I am so blessed to have a wonderful family and an amazing mom who taught me what it is to be a wonderful mom!

Highchair!

Adalyn keeps growing and doing new things every day! This past week we finally got the highchair out! I was so over using the bumbo for Adalyn's rice cereal. She would get distracted and arch her back and turn around.  So the highchair has been wonderful so far.  It keeps her facing forward and focused on eating.  In fact she's been scarfing down her cereal.  I think we'll start veggies soon!  Plus now she has a great view of the dinner table while we eat and it keeps her entertained.  Here are a couple pics from her first dinner in her highchair!

My Fur-Baby

Dakota is my first baby and even though he's 6 I think our new addition to our family has got him reverting back to puppy-hood.  Although I must say that he has been great with Adalyn.  He doesn't jump on her or lick her to death which is a relief since that's what he does to guests in our house.  Today she was in her exersaucer and he brought her his new toy and laid it in front of her and started barking which means he wants her to play with him.  So cute.

Last night not so cute...but still cute. You know what I mean? We accidently left one of Adalyn's paci's on the ottoman and left the room.  When we came back guess who had the paci? When she was using Soothies and Gum Drops he would eat the plastic around the edge but never mess with the nipple.  Well her new paci's are hard plastic so he never tried chewing it. But when I looked over at him and he looked up at me like this I had to laugh!

Please notice his doggie bed and all of the bajillions of dog toys in it. Yet he'd rather have his sister's paci.

I mean, he stayed like this ALL.NIGHT.LONG. Literally.  He never even came to bed until the middle of the night. (Which is unheard of!)  Then this morning when Jonathan tried to find it he had buried it in his toy basket so it took Jonathan forever to find it.  And after close inspection, there weren't even teeth marks in it. He just savored it.  Think he's reverting back to being a puppy?  He'll always be my fur-baby.