Lovely Day

Besides gardening yesterday, the girls and I headed to the park with some friends.  When we got home, Stephen was grilling our dinner and we all got to play outside for a bit.

Stephen got out the spray bottle and was spraying them with water. :)

And they're off!

Gardening- Trials and Tribulations

I think I've mentioned it on my blog before... I have a brown thumb.  And I just don't get gardening.  I wish I was one who was really interested in learning about plants, which ones should go in what kind of light... I'm not one to recognize what most flowers are in a vase... I'm just not.  I love the looks of a well-maintained garden, I love going to Botanical Garden-type places... I'm just not a good gardener myself.

So, with our "garden" (I use the term loosely) at our house, we've gone through a few stages.

The first stage consisted of all the builder-placed shrub greenery... that's all it was.  All along the front and side of our house, there were holly bushes, green shrubs, etc.  Nothing really with color.  That lasted for about 2 years.

In 2008, when I was pregnant with Sydney, I had this awesome idea.  I wanted the whole front of our house to have colorful flowers that would bloom- one big happy family of flowers, greens, bushes, etc.  I remember Stephen and I would work in the spring, ripping up the old stuff and putting in the new, fabulous garden.  (Don't worry, plant lovers... I totally replanted the stuff we ripped up.)  I'm talking, tulips, lillies, mums, irises, and more. 

This is what used to be at the front of our house... lovely holly bushes.  I replanted them to the side, in hopes they would survive the move!

So, these were taken in about May of 2008.  Not necessarily the flowering garden I had hoped for, but I figured it was a start and I could add more the next year.

Well, fast forward almost 5 blooming seasons later... the mums don't look that good (plus, they get really dried up and crispy after their blooming period which lasts for a whopping few weeks); I've learned that flowers bloom at different times of the year (duh) so when a third of my garden is in bloom, 2/3 is not.  Plus, the bad thing about these flowers is that there is nothing there for all of the winter months.  I started to see why the holly bushes came in handy.  Oops.

So, I was determined this year.  I ripped up all of the mums and any other random flowers I could find the roots to.  We had a blank front garden from about November until today.  This is what it looked like:

OK, there are a couple of plants, but you get the idea... blah.  But, that was okay with me.  I wanted to wait until the local nurseries opened so I could plant some new things.

I went to a lovely nursery in Snellville today.  The "4 for $10 Azaleas" sign got my attention everytime I went to Snellville this week to shop.  So, I stopped by today and found some nice plants.  All are flowering evergreens, so they'll be pretty when they bloom, but there will be something left in the dead of winter.

Today was the perfect day to be outside, period.  79 and sunny??  Hello!!  I wore a tank top and shorts, and actually got some sun on my pasty skin!

So, I planted all the plants... it doesn't look super fabulous right now, as the plants are still pretty little.  But, it'll be fun to compare this blog to years from now, to see the difference.  I got some gardenias, azaleas, and some bush I can't remember the name of, but the leaves were really pretty.  Hopefully I made some wiser gardening decisions this go round.

This is what the side of the house looks like now, 4 years later.

Laying out the plants.

Part of the garden, completed.  The other pictures didn't come out well, but you get the jist.



PS- I did leave the really pretty tulips that I planted back in 2008- they are already in bloom and they are bright yellow.  I love them!  You can see them a little bit- all the way at the end of the row (near my car).

Pictures

Ok, I am a little better at taking pictures lately than I give myself credit for.  I found a bunch on the camera and my phone that I hadn't uploaded yet.  Check them out!

Celebrating Avery's 4th birthday, princess-style.

Heading to church... had to take some photos.

Both my and my neighbor's hubbies were out of town on Valentine's Day, so we treated ourselves to take-out Chinese topped off with brownie sundaes.  Plus, an added bonus is that we got to hang out and the kids got to play.

What are you doing with my sippy cup....???

Oh, just picking it up for me?  Thanks!

Holding her down to give her a kiss... what a sweet sister! ;)

Lovely princess attire.

Taylor and Landon playing with trucks.  That's my girl.  Your daddy will be very proud!

Taylor's not feeling this so much!

Yay, I was pinteresty this week!  I saw this on Pinterest, and my dear friend/fellow blogger Kristine made it for her house... and I fell in love!  Plus, knowing that a friend of mine can do it gave me hope that I could, as well.  (Thanks, Kristine- I checked out your blog for helpful hints.  Glad you said to stay with it- I wasn't sure how it would look about halfway through!)

What's been going on?

I feel like I've been a stranger to the blogging world lately!  We have been busy, busy beavers over here.  It seems like our weeks are non-stop, and then we've had filled weekends that don't allow us to catch up before Monday comes.  But, such is life, and, trust me, I will take that!

And this post is going to be pretty lame-o, because I have been slacking in the picture department!  Must.get.better!

Some of the highlights include:

• We celebrated my niece, Madeline's, 9th birthday in style at Dave & Buster's on February 4th.  I love that place.  Brings out the kid in me. :)
• Sydney and Taylor visited the dentist on the 11th.  Got a good report from both of them.  Sydney had quite the melt down, though... she didn't want to get x-rays taken.  You could probably hear her cries from across the street!
• Sydney had a play date at her BFF Raegan's house.  It was a pre-Valentine shin-dig, and it was Sydney, Raegan, and Riley.  Taylor joined the party later. 
• Sydney's class had a lovely Valentine's Day party that I got to attend.
• Celebrated a neighbor's birthday with a big group at a local Japanese place on the 17th. 
• Went to the circus on the 18th with Stephen, the girls, my sister, brother-in-law, and 2  nieces.  We did a picnic lunch in Centennial Olympic Park afterwards.  Lots of fun!

• In the midst of all this weekend fun were CRAZY weeks at work, Stephen traveling every week, me not feeling great, Taylor being stopped up like crazy, church, HOA meeting, church meetings, dinners with the neighbors, orthodontist appointments, meeting with a real estate agent about one of our rental houses, {insert word of choice here} FTE count (trust me, you don't want to know what it is, and you SURELY don't want to have to do this report!), and trying to stay sane.
• But, the plus side is that I have this entire week off (woohoo!) and I'm trying to take advantage of it.  Although, the aforementioned {word of choice} FTE count has occupied the last 4.5 hours of my free time (plus countless hours before tonight).  But, I'm happy to say... I'm DONE.

The rest of February should be good, and then it'll be back to the swing of work.  I'm sure it'll start back with a vengeance.  Until then, I will be soaking in all this free time... ahhhhhhh...

Oh, Sydney

Here's a little snapshot of a typical dinner conversation with Sydney and her wild imagination. 

Ridiculous

This weather we've been having has been ridiculous... as in, ridiculously amazing.  70 degrees and sunny on February 5?  Seriously? 

Needless to say, we have all been enjoying the warmer winter weather.  Here are some fun pictures from our day today:



PS- Mother Nature, if you can read this... I really am okay with this weather.  Please don't make up for warm times by bringing in a March blizzard.  Thanks!  Your friend, Brooke

One Smart Cookie

Sydney's teacher stopped me in the hallway at her daycare the other day, saying, "I need to talk to you about something!"  Of course, my first reaction is, "uh oh..."  She assured me that it was a great thing.

She proceeds to tell me that she was doing individual assessments with each child in her room to see what they have learned so far, halfway through the school year.  She said that Sydney was so smart!  She said she barely had to look at the flash cards to tell what letter/number was being shown.  She gave me the sheet where she marked what Sydney did/didn't know.

This is what she can do:
-Recognize all the letters (upper and lowercase)
-Can sing the ABCs
-Can recognize numbers up to 12
-Can count to 30 (really, she can count to over 100 now, with guidance on the order of 40/50/60/etc)
-She knows all her colors
-She knows all of her shapes (including crescent, star, and heart) with the exception of an octagon.
-She was rated excellent on social skills, including:

• Overall interaction with other children
• Overall interaction with other adults
• Sharing
• Showing kindness
• Showing respect for others
• Being helpful
• Making good choices
• Independence
• Staying on task
• Following directions

-For motor skills, she can:

• Hop on one foot
• Run
• Skip
• Walk
• Hold pencil/crayon correctly
• Color in the lines (well, this seems to go along with her mood to color)
• Beginning writing skills

**The one motor skill she needs help with is holding scissors correctly.

I am so proud!!  This is the first official "report" I've seen for Sydney.  Of course, I see what she can do at home but you never know how it translates at school.  Plus, now I know to work with her on recognizing numbers over 12, how to cut, and what an octagon is.

Oh, and one funny thing... whenever Sydney finds one of the excess monkeys, we say it is monkey's cousin from Africa.  Sydney's teacher said the other day, they were learning about continents, and the teacher pointed out where Africa was.  She said that Sydney said, "That's where monkey's cousin lives!!"  I had already told the teacher about it, so she said she had a good laugh. :)

Go Sydney!

Bumpety Bump

We discovered that Taylor loves the bumpy area your cart goes over when you leave a store.  We were leaving Buy Buy Baby last weekend when Stephen captured this.  Check out Taylor.

14 Months!

Taylor is 14 months old!!!!

2-1-2012

Taylor has had a big month of growing into a... toddler.  I don't know a better word to describe it.  She has become feistier, she's trying to communicate more, and she is trying to do "big girl" things.  Some examples include:

• Trying to "talk".  She really doesn't really say anything more than "mama", "dada", and "uh oh" on a consistent basis, but she is definitely babbling more using more syllables.  It's like she's trying to tell us something, we just can't decipher.  I swear I've heard her say "hi" and "Diddy" when I asked her to say Sydney.  But, jury is still out on those words!
• Taylor has started to do the sign for "more".
• Having RSV and being sick for about 2 weeks. :(
• Is becoming a little aggressor- she has been hitting and pulling the hair of the other kids in her class!  So hard to teach a 1 year old to not hit.
• Got her first bite mark from a fellow classmate.  Gotta love the one year-old class.
• She is growing out of her 18 month clothes and is pretty much in almost all 24 month clothes!  She is a head taller than all of her classmates.
• Climbing on anything her height... stools, small chairs at school, the refrigerator. 
• She mimicks others emotions... if you pretend to cry, she actually will cry.  She'll laugh with others, too. 
• She has really started to use things appropriately- for example, she will pick up a brush and try to brush her hair... she will drink out of play teacups, she will out sunglasses on her face, etc.

That is about it for this past month.  Check out some recent pictures of Taylor!

This always cracks me up... Taylor's hair sticks out of her crib at nighttime.

My sleeping beauty.

Hanging with Daddy.

Loving this warm January weather.

Spaghetti face.