Friday Happiness

We went to a friend's for dinner on Sunday (and also to swap freezer meals).  Georgia plays with their kids so well.

Jonathan has worked so so hard in our back yard.  When we moved in the backyard was very much over grown.  There were very large plants, almost touching the roof, and covering the windows.  That's just a breeding ground for bug, let's them into the house easier, and has a lot of places for snakes to hide.  Ick.  So we took out all the plants.  Well, when we took out all the plants it left a very low area near our house and we would get a lot of standing water, almost coming onto our covered porch.  So, something needed to be done.  We're slowly working on it (fixer upper problems) but so far J has raised and graded the area and we added a drain and river rocks.  It hasn't rained since then but I'm anxious to see what happens.  We still have a ways to go...add border and more plants (grass needs to grow back) and do the opposite side as well.  But, I'm so glad we've actually made headway.

You can see two of our three porches in this picture.  Well, we have two porches and one "deck" ish area a few yards from the house.  A bit random.  The far right is Jonathan's man porch where the guys go and grill.  It's connected by that white door to the garage.  The screen porch doesn't look like much but it's super valuble here in Texas.  It is 100% shaded all day and has no bugs.  It's great although a bit dingy.  J is still working on the pavers.  He's about 40% done with the this backyard project so still a ways to go.

 I still need to add a lot of large planters filled with mosquito hating plants.  I'll get around to it ;)

A few in progress shots from when we FIRST moved in.  We had already taken out a lot of plants at this point.

Georgia works independently so well.  She wanted to go spend her birthday money and I told her that was fine but we needed to work on something first.  She found her school work herself and did it all with no directions.  It's times like that where I'm like, "yeah...she'll be fine in life" ;)

I like baking but rarely do it.  We were taking cupcakes to a friend so I wanted to fancy them up a bit.  I put the icing in a bag and put different food coloring (in color order) around the side.  I pushed it down the sides of the bad with skewers and then piped it onto the cupcakes.  I thought they were pretty fun.

Georgia also finished up dance this week.  She's really excited to be done.  We're not sure we will be continuing on or not.  I'm signing her up for another gymnastics class in the summer so she'll go twice a week.  We will see how that goes.

Our neighborhood's resident deer.  I've seen up to 11 at one time including a buck in my own back yard.  They just chill in our yards...in the middle of the day...eating any plants we try to grow...mind you, I live 5 minutes from a Target, HEB, Kroger, and CVS.  I live in the middle of town.

 We are still working on our mixed media art.  This week was throwing paint covered loofahs.  It was huge hit.  I think our final layer will be oil pastels.

 My very own little mermaid is half way through her swim lessons.  She's supposed to be swimming by the end of them...we'll see. (And yes, I'm a nut about swim hair.  I keep it 100% out of her face.)  She's seriously pretty, y'all :)

We also went to our favorite snow cone stand for the first time of the "summer".  So yummy.

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