photo session

Thursday I met a girl in Salado and she took Mia's 2 year photos, as well as some of Luke and both kids also. She is a friend of a friend, and reminded me so much of Amy and her style of taking photos. Click on the right under "Blogs I Visit - Melody" if you want to see a sampling of what she took.

Landscaping Day

the day had finally come for us to do some type of landscaping to our yard. when we moved in, there were only 3 bushes, and they were ugly, so we pulled them out. since then, we've mostly had dead grass and weeds to bring out the beauty of our yard. today marc's parents came up to help. nonno and i did the shopping, and i had found a great nursery in town where i got most of the bushes. we ended up putting in 9 bushes - 6 to hide the slab and pipes on the front of the house, and 3 to try to hide the big green poles/boxes that i guess are for electricity?? marc dug up the grass for the flower bed and we were fortunate enough to have white rock left from the house that we used to edge the bed. we hoped to add a big magnolia tree, but the one i wanted was already sold to someone. we ran into a few issues along the way. we live right across the road from an area called "white rock estates" and it's called that for a reason. as soon as you start digging holes, you hit plenty of white rock. we're not even sure if we could have dug a 2 foot hole for the giant tree i wanted, so glad i didn't spend $219 on it if it can't even be planted! the other issue came in planting bushes by the front of the house. nonno was digging and very quickly water came spraying out everywhere- so because of the rock, the water line is not very deep!!! luckily he had experience with this and was able to fix it. so here's our improved front yard. things will grow and cover up slabs, boxes, etc soon, and we have to add some new sod since ours died before we bought it, but it's an improvement!
PS (added Sunday morning) Last night after midnight Marc woke me up. We were running the sprinklers through all 9 or 10 stations, which takes a while. Well, it came time for the area in front of the windows to water, and guess what?? another broken pipe! water was spraying everywhere. luckily this time it is the sprinkler pipe, not the main water line, so we just shut it off and tried to go back to sleep. now we are on our own fixing it today. 

before shot... nothing but dead grass

getting some help

after... no regular bushes here - 2 rose bushes, 2 blue plumbago, and 2 of something else i can't remember right now, but one has pink flowers and one yellow. plus, a lantana in the middle. i love that the white rock is the same as what the house is made of!

these are red tipped bushes... they will eventually hide the slab more. there are also 3 little ones to the left of the tree. on the far right is where we busted the water line!

you can still see all the pretty utility cases, but when the bushes grow it should help hide them! the house to the right is for sale, and currently has 2 foot weeds everywhere, so just know those aren't OUR weeds!

birthday girl

i love this girl. happy birthday miss mia!

birthday dinner at jason's deli

eating ice cream from the bottom of the cone... this was all good until it started to drip out the bottom!

her final present... radio flyer tricycle, complete with a horn, radio, and light up/noise making turn signals

Mia's Elmo Party

I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Couldn't get a good photo of Mia smiling with her presents - she wasn't into waiting and smiling at the camera that day!

Had to put this one on... what is Carsyn thinking at this moment??



I knew I had to have a pinata... if you've seen my house, I have the perfect spot to hang it inside my front door!

Feeding Abby at the end of the day

...and daddy just couldn't keep up with the rest of us and had to check out for a little while.

Go Chargers!

Luke's soccer season officially ended last Saturday. He really showed a lot of improvement from last year, and almost kicked a goal at one of his last games. The problem this year was that the weather would be great all week, but every Saturday it seemed to end up 40-50 degrees and super windy. Thankfully his last day of games was much warmer for us all to enjoy.

Pretty Piggies

Mia loves having her nails painted, so Monday night I painted both her toes and fingers orange. She sits so still, blows on them, and knows to keep her fingers apart until they dry. Too cute. Last night Mia was missing and way too quiet for a few minutes, so I sent Luke off to hunt her down and see what she was up to. He came back to me with the OPEN bottle of orange nail polish and said Mia was painting herself! I had visions of an orange face and it spilled all over her new Elmo jammies and my bathroom floor, but when I went in to check on her, she was seated on my ottoman in the bathroom, neater than expected! She had been repainting her nails - guess she knew it had chipped off a bit and needed a touch up?? - and she did surprisingly well! Just a few orange toes and fingers (not all nails!). She is way too silly and definitely my little girlie girl.

What did YOU do today?

Today I took a personal day and skipped work, knowing I had a lot to get done before tomorrow... and now that's it's almost 10:00pm I am realizing why I am so exhausted!

Today I...

*started my day with an hour work out

*got haircut and hilights

*returned a few things at the mall and bought several more things

*bought plants and soil at Lowes

*went searching 3 stores for red sandals for Mia, but with no luck... but managed to buy a few other things at Kohls

*spent some time on facebook and emailing friends

*picked up Luke from school and ran home to empty out the car

*drove to Cove to pick up Mia's cake (which is once again adorable, and worth the hour it took to drive to get it and back!)

*got Mia from daycare then went to Target and picked up dinner

*cleaned the kids' rooms, study, living room, bathroom, and cleaned off the patio

*put away laundry

*filled an Elmo pinata

*made goodie bags for the party

*read half a novel

*wrapped Mia's presents 

And finally I'm sitting down, while Marc is mopping and finishing up the kitchen... glad he didn't get home too late tonight so he could help out! 

Check back soon for photos from Luke's last games and Mia's party!! 

Done.

The reading TAKS test is done. My kids worked hard, and whether or not they passed, I'm just glad it's over for now! It was a long day... I got very little sleep because Luke was up sick. He ended up staying home with Marc - so much for the Minatreas staying healthy!