How Does Your Garden Grow?

I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this time of year!! I love seeing the Dogwoods bloom in early spring, and when the blooms of the Dogwoods are fading, the bright blooms of the azaleas start shining through and pretty soon the Crape Mrytles will start showing off too! When we bought our house two years ago, Austin redid all the landscaping and he did a beautiful job. We have a year round showing of colors in the front and the back of the house. Included are a few pictures of the Spring Plant Show (lol:) at the Delanos.

The azaleas in full bloom in front of our house.

Nandinas and daylilies in the back of the house.

This is just a cute little poem I found...

Dig In by

George Shannon

Dig a little.Dig a lot.

Dig a brand-new garden spot.

Plat a little.Plant a lot.

Plant the seeds and bulbs you bought.

Wait a little.Wait a lot.

Wait much longer than you thought.

Pick a little.Pick a lot.

Share the best bouquet you’ve got!

We also decided to plant a garden for the first time. In the past I have always gone to my parents to get the fresh veggies that I wanted, but this year we wanted a small garden of our own to share with Lane. We decided to plant corn, tomotoes, a variety of peppers, cilantro, cauliflower, a squash plant, peas and Sunflowers. I am so excited to see how our garden grows! I will try to update the pics of the progress of our garden and maybe make some SALSA!!

View of Garden (minus corn) Squash

My Very Hungry Caterpillar

Friday, April 10th was Lane's first birthday and we decided to celebrate on Saturday. The day started off very cool, but by the time the party got started the sun decided to pop out and we ended up with a nice afternoon to celebrate.

Lane absolutely loves books, and one of his favorites is "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. So... I decided to use that as our theme. I found his invitations at Kodak Gallery that went with the theme. My mom made his cake and his little T-shirt to wear at the party. I also tried to incorporate some of the different foods into our lunch as well as the table decorations. The kids ran and played through the woods, and the younger ones played in Lane's new sand/water box as well as blowing bubbles and drawing with sidewalk chalk.

After eating lunch, it was cake time.

Lane got really excited with everyone singing to him and acted like he wanted to blow the candle out. He acted interested in the cake, but decided that the icing texture was not for him (thank goodness he does not have my sweet tooth).

We had a wonderful 1st birthday with Lane!!

Happy Birthday Lane! We Love You!

I Caught One!!

Today was a wonderful day spent with the family. We went to my mom and dad's for my brother and brother in law's birthday. She made a wonderful breakfast and we all ate WAAAAYYY too much!! After eating, my dad (PaPa) took the grands down to the pond to fish. We had no clue that there were actually fish in that pond! Michael and Rylee (nephew and niece) were catching fish like crazy (they were tiny). Lane just enjoyed getting to touch the fish and and play with sticks. After being at mom's, we came home, Lane napped and we enjoyed cleaning up our landscaping. I only have one picture of Lane "fishing". It was hilarious watching Michael and Rylee "fishing". They were having a BLAST!! I think it is precious! I think we better get our fishing poles ready:)

Simplified

I have found the relief to my constant weekly "headache". I have never enjoyed grocery shopping or meal planning but do enjoy cooking. I caught myself in the same old rut of dinners. Any given day of the week, you could bank on me having spaghetti, tacos, roast, breakfast, or something very similar to those types of meals. I would get so bored with the same old thing that we got to where we were eating out way to often and spending way too much money on food.

I have a friend at work who told me about e-mealz.com. HOLY COW!! Why hasn't someone told me about this before. I came home telling Austin about it and he said "Oh yeah, I heard about that on the Dave Ramsey show and meant to tell you about it". What??? I have been using this for about three weeks now and it is WONDERFUL!! All you do is sign up, pay $5 a month, and choose the weekly meal plan that you want. For instance, I am on the WalMart Thursday plan. I sign in on Thursdays, and there is a menu for the next 7 days with a grocery list for the items on your menu at Wal-Mart. It also includes the prices of the items that you will need, and also organizes it into store sections (frozen, produce, etc). The recipes are super easy and all of the ones that I have used have been wonderful. Of course I do not cook 7 days a week, so I pick and choose the days that I want to cook and only buy those grocery items.

I can tell that we are saving money on food and are not eating out like we were. It is AWESOME, WONDERFUL and has SIMPLIFIED my life!! Try it out for yourself, I got my sister hooked too!

www.e-mealz.com

ENJOY!!

Shake, Shake, Shake

Firsts

As a first time mom, there are so many "firsts" that I have experienced in the last 10 months (or did it actually start 19 months ago). Lane has had so many firsts and I try to document all of those. But last night I had my "first" night away from Lane. Austin and I went to Huntsville to spend the night for Valentine's day and had a blast. We stayed at the Bridgestreet Westin, ate, shopped, and watched the movie Grand Torino at the Monaco theatre (that place is insane). We had a good time just being "us". The weather was perfect for walking through Bridgestreet and browsing the shops. Lane stayed with my parents and mom said he did great! He slept like a little angel and was very pleasant. However, when we got back, he was running a slight fever (teeth?) but was in a happy mood! I think we are going to have to do this more often!

Boys Will Be Boys!

After Lane's nap, we decided to venture outside to enjoy the beautiful weather! We took a stroll through the neighborhood, played with our dog D.J., then went to the deck. I put Lane down to crawl around, and well, he went straight for the pot with his daddy's plant in it. I think Lane is already thinking about pursuing a career in dirt:) Here are a few pics...