Evening stroll and mini photo shoot

We took a walk this evening down to a little dirt road I spotted awhile back.  I've been dying to take some pics here and my boys happily obliged tonight!

 

Walking!

I'm still working on West's 9 month post, but in the meantime we thought we'd share a couple videos Brad took of him walking earlier this evening.

He took his first two steps on May 25 and can take several now!  He can also stand up without pulling up on anything.  We joke that his small size helps him out!  ;)  We're pretty amazed at his balance.  When he actually takes his time and takes it slow, he can walk 8 feet or so!  He can even pivot and turn directions when he's really on his A game.  He's also pretty good about falling back on his bottom most of the time (unlike in the second video below!).  Even when he does fall forward, he's a pretty tough little guy and just pops right back up.  He's seriously the best entertainment ever!

Landscaping

For Mother's Day my big gift was the promise of tackling landscaping the front of the house soon.  When we put the contract on our house to be built, there was $500 allotted for landscaping and I was so excited about having all that money to play with.  Well unfortunately, I never got the chance because one January day before our house was complete we came out to view it and they had already exhausted the $500 on 4 boxwoods, 3 alleghany virburnum, and a tree.  Cue sad music and disappointed face here.

I will say the boxwoods weren't so bad, it's just we didn't water them the first 5 months we lived here because we were young and dumb (you could definitely argue we are still those things...) and didn't know you're supposed to water things even in the winter so they ended up looking all gangly on the bottom and are going to have to be cut down completely this fall and we'll hope the new growth will look better.  (who knew?)  The viburnum, however, were plain awful and their location was even worse.  They were the first things you saw when you looked at the front door and were just an eyesore.  So we knew we'd eventually want to redo it all, and after almost a year and a half here we finally dove, or dug, in.

Before shot.  Notice the hideous "flowering shrubs" (alleghany viburnum) in front of the steps and the gangly boxwoods in front of the window.

Phase one:  Dig Rite marked utility lines and we figured out the outline of the new bed.  We used the hose first and then once we had it how we wanted we lined it with flour.  If you look closely here you can see in some spots where the white flour line is.  You can also see West chillin' in the pack 'n play.  (Who are we kidding?  If you know West, you know he wasn't chillin' in there, he desperately wanted out and part of the action.  So he was in there for maybe 10 mins.) :)

Phase two:  sod is torn up and plants are torn out.  We actually plan on transplanting them to the sides and back of the house here soon, so we're keeping them alive with their root balls wet and wrapped in a sack in the shade until we can replant them. 

Phase three:  fill dirt is in place.  We wanted a mounded look but had to make sure it didn't slope down towards the house at all, so it was just a lot of stepping back and eyeballing it. 

Phase four:  take some family pictures in front of the plants once we have arranged them exactly the way we want them.  :)

Phase five:  dig and plant!  I'll be completely honest here, I only planted 2 of the plants.  In an effort to keep things moving along and get done sooner, Johnie and Dee offered to plant everything once we had it in place while we ran and picked up a couple more plants and the mulch.  They're amazing like that.  :)

Phase six:  mulch, water, and enjoy!  Ah, this kid and his strange love for water hoses.  

Notice we laid some of the transplanted sod in front of the steps.  We love how it makes the front door look more inviting.  

Speaking of the front door, we bought a couple of planters to dress up our little porch/stoop.  Our favorite part about them is they were cheap white/gray plastic ones for $10 a piece and we spray painted them with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint to dress them up.  We love how they turned out!  

We still have our work cut out for us - we have to replant the boxwoods and viburnum, plant a couple lilac bushes my mom got us, mulch around the tree in our front yard and maybe plant some flowers at its base, and re-pot our hibiscus tree, but we have come a long way and love how it's all shaping up!