Happy Birthday, grandma!

My Side Yard...

II posted a couple weeks ago about clearing out the yard debris from the side of my house. It's taken awhile cause I could only do so much with my chest hurting from car accident. And I think I mentioned how my grandma had got me flowers for the fence and hubby bought me flowers to plant. 

Anyway, we finally finished the faux deck. Faux because it is just boards on the ground. We rent so we cannot make permanent changes. However the end result is a very quiet relaxing part of the yard where a person can read or entertain a friend with a cup of coffee or tea!

Almost The End...

Of the school year! We are usually done by Memorial Day, but wow...with the winter yuckiness we had...I decided to go for a couple more weeks. Kids are not horribly happy with me! 

Despite that, we are managing to have fun with our school days...

Birthday Month!

This month we had two birthdays: our oldest daughters turned 12 and 14! Am I really this old? It's like being in the twilight zone! 

The Lord has blessed us with wonderful daughters that love Him with all their hearts! They are such a blessing to have in our home and I am so thankful to our Father for entrusting them to our care!

Happy birthday, Mac and George!

Summer is Coming!

And we have the first fire pit of the season to prove it! It was a great way to celebrate the warmer nights, a yard cleared of winter debris and a family that is on the mend from the flu. (Yes, we have been fighting the flu for the last week!)

Mother's Day- Final Phase

The third and final phase of Mother's Day was the day itself! The morning brought me breakfast in bed from my oldest along with more cards from the kiddos and chocolate from my second oldest, yum!

The younger three made cards for me in Sunday School, which were very sweet. 

In church, in the morning, all the mothers were given a vase full of carnations in varying shades of pink. Some of my favorites!

The fun surprise came in the evening, when all the men put together a lovely dinner and some of the teens served the mothers and children! What a wonderful meal!!

All in all, a wonderful day!

Mother's Day Celebration- Phase Two

So, originally, when My hubby asked me what I wanted for my Mother's Day dinner, I told him that I would like ham. That was a month or so ago. We kept forgetting to pick up a ham and today it dawned on us we really needed to pick up the ham. Now earlier this week, Peter mentioned to me that our pastor is having a Mother's Day dinner at church Sunday evening. So we had planned on having our dinner tonight. Well, I decided to up and change things on our family!  Frankly, while I love a nice and fancy meal, especially one I don't have to fix, having two fancy meals in one weekend just seemed a little much. Plus, it would mean extra work for hubby and the kiddos as far as cooking and cleaning. And as much as they have spoiled me, it just didn't seem fair! So I got this wonderful idea to load up the family and head to the river after we were done with our outdoor projects. 

So, that's what we did! Peter took me to the store to pick up my favorite sandwich makings, we loaded up the kids/dog/chairs and headed to the river. 

Now, we have been going to the river mainly during the week. So we hadn't had any problems getting our favorite beach river spot...till today! We got to where we have been going this spring and there were already a lot of people. So what do you do? You keep driving! We drove several miles down the river and we believe we found an even better beach! PLUS....there was no park fee! Ta Da! 

It was SO relaxing!

So here are some photos from this afternoon/evening below. Lady, our dog, loved this beach even better cause we could let her run free! She had so much fun playing in the river and chasing bugs. Yeah, she is weird that way!

Enjoy! Phase Three will be uploaded tomorrow night!

Mother's Day- Phase One

My Mother's Day/Week has been so spectacular! Between my hubby, my children, my grandma and my parents, I have been spoiled beyond imagination!

There are actually going to be three different posts on my Mother's Day because we have been doing so much:

Part One:

1) My hubby bought me plants for this little nook I created on the side of the house, as well as plants for the front flower bed. I posted about this earlier in the week. 

2) My grandmother bought me some hanging flower plants for my fence in my little nook as well as citronella candles. 

3) After working really hard on clearing out and re-shaping the bushes on the side of our yard, my kids and hubby helped load the truck to take the stuff to the dump. Then we finished off the side yard by buying a cute white picket fence! 

4) Today, my hubby saw me oohing and ahhing over some tools and sweetly picked them up for me! One is a set of pruning sheers, three different sizes. I have been breaking my back/hands with old rusty ones for years. Then I saw this cool multi-purpose tool that included a hammer and he got that for me!

5) My hubby also picked me up the most beautiful flowers!

6) My two younger girls could't wait till tomorrow and gave me their sweet cards they made this afternoon. :) 

And THEN we did something super fun this evening...but that is Part Two! So you will have to read that later!