24 Olive Street

signs of spring

First day of Spring!!!

We've been seeing signs of spring over the last week or 2. More sunshine, store shelves stocks with springtime goods, flowers starting to peek out of the ground, the sound of kids playing outside, windows open for some fresh air.

Everything is coming alive again.

Can't wait for my peonies to bloom. They look so pretty in my vintage blue mason jars :)

Yesterday we had some rain showers roll through. And in the midst of some pretty dark & grey clouds we saw the prettiest rainbow. You could see the entire arc of the rainbow. I can't say that I've ever seen a "whole" rainbow in the sky. Just gorgeous.

I've been able to do a little bit of painting outside and it's just so nice compared to being cooped up in my garage. Morning and night are still pretty chilly but we're slowly getting into the wamer weather and I'm loving it :)

Pretty soon it'll be time for flower shopping again...one of my favorite things about spring.

I'm not a hater of winter, I just don't mind it knowing that it only lasts for a while, but I'm kinda glad to be done with this...

Bring on the flip flops, capri pants, and the smell of cut grass & flowers!

Happy Spring!!!!

sunday

Another week has come and gone.

We were teased with some warm weather & then on Saturday it got cold & windy. And today it's like crazy windy!

My tulips are blooming but there are no daffodils to be found :( The leaves came up but I'm thinking they're not going to bloom this year, not sure why.

My tree that I got for Mother's Day last year is blooming pretty pink flowers.

We pulled out Addie's sandbox that I got at a yard sale last year. She looooves it.

Had a few good junkin' trips...always makes me happy!

More baseball & soccer.

Hitting the local nursery to buy some flowers. Still too early to plant but I have them in my little greenhouse. I'll be able to plant them in about 2 weeks. I think tonight we're going to have another frost which is exactly why I can't plant yet.

We're adopting another dog. I went to a local rescue group & took him home last week to see how it'd work out. At first he was a bit grumpy with my other dog but now they're becoming buddies. So he's a keeper :) I'll share more when it's 'official'.

My Sunday mood is usually determined by how church goes. Some weeks are good, some not so good. This week Addie decided she didn't want to behave in church. It's just the age. This is a hard age for church. It'll pass. I keep telling myself that.

I've known people who say 'we don't go to church because my kid doesn't behave' which always seems so silly to me. The same thing goes with 'my kid doesn't behave at a restaurant so we don't go out to eat." I'm a firm believer that if you don't do these things there's no way your kid will ever learn.

We don't have a cry room in our church. And quite honestly, I like it that way. I don't like cry rooms for 2 reasons: 1) it doesn't teach kids how to act in church (usually I've seen people just letting kids run around like they're not even in church) and 2) it doesn't teach the kids that they are as much a part of church as everyone else. At least, that's what I've seen in some churches I've attended but it's not always true for all churches.

But on days like yesterday I had to leave about halfway through. Addie ended up falling asleep in the car. Church time is right around the time that she's getting ready for a nap which is why it sometimes doesn't go so well. But I just can't get up early enough to make it to 9am mass!

Lunch at Tomato Street definitely lightened the mood. Homemade 'playdough' for the kids to play with? A huge chalkboard in the lobby? Brick oven pizza? Yes please!! Even the older kids like playing with the playdough...they were making characters from Minecraft. haha

We've decided that every other Sunday we will go out for lunch after church & we will alternate between the kids & adults.

The rules:

NO complaining about the choice or you lose your next turn.

Mom gets the choice to veto a kid's choice if it's too far/too expensive/etc (although there's not too many places I would veto).

NO fast food (unless it's Jimmy Johns, Subway, etc). We don't really eat fast food anyway so that's not really an issue.

I've put our family on a pretty tight budget but I feel it's important to have some 'fun' time and going out to lunch after church definitely qualifies in our family :)

friday

I love short weeks! Especially when you're getting used to a new routine.

The kids went back to school this week. It was pretty easy slipping back into the routine. Addie has adjusted well to getting up earlier...and is compensating with a longer morning nap. yey!! Especially considering she pretty much only takes one good nap a day.

Yes, 1 yr old and only 1 good nap a day.

{sigh}

So I take full advantage of that!

My son had a great first day. My daughter...not so much. It seems there's a kid in her class who was less than nice to her. I will save the words I would really like to use and let's just say this boy is a brat and leave it at that...shall we??

{double sigh}

But it's getting better and the teacher it seems has already recognized it...which in my book is half the battle already won.

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Speaking of the first day of school, it was also my birthday :) These pretty flowers came for me...

Aren't they gorgeous??!! Oh man, I could smell them even before the guy came up on my porch! And that sunflower is huge!!

I {heart} sunflowers

And my new love from Ephiphanie (from my hubby)...

{swoon}

Seriously, I haven't had something this nice since before I had kids!!

I've been drooling over these for a loooong time. The mustard colored one is my 2nd fave. I can fit my camera, lens, Fuji instax, video camera & wallet in there with a bit of room to spare!

Although, I will tell you, I don't think the colors on the website look the same in person. At least not with this one. Online it looks more blue but in person it's more green. Just an FYI.

But it doesn't matter to me, I still love it :)

So I guess this will carry me through the next 40 yrs. Right honey??!

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Moving on...

I hit up an estate sale out in Deer Park this morning. I was a little hesitant driving out there because the ad on Craigslist didn't look super promising.

I was wrong. Love when I'm wrong about that!

When the van is full...it's a good day junkin'!!

Some cute furniture pieces. About 10 gorgeous big frames (one I'm definitely keeping for myself...stay tuned on that one!)

That little nightstand reminds me of the dresser redo I did for my daughter's room a while back...

Now to find room in my garage...hopefully I can manage to do that before the hubby gets home ;)

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I managed to sneek in a tiny bit of crafty time to whip up these cute little tags...

I love cute packaging :) These will go on some goodies I'm taking up to my space at This Old House.

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My garden is slowly but surely coming along. I planted it about a month late. I think I might have a batch of Romas by this weekend. That means some canning!

I have quickly discovered that my twine 'trellises' do NOT work with these Roma tomatoes. These things are growing EVERYwhere. It's crazy! I definitely need to use something better next year...

But they're working perfectly for the 'regular' tomatoes...can't remember what I planted...

Olivia's flowers are loving where we planted them...

baby green pepper :)

I'm hoping to head up to Green Bluff this weekend & maybe get some peaches :)

TGIF!!!

2012 garden...baby steps

When we moved here last year I didn't have a chance to start a garden. Having a baby a month after moving will kind of put you behind on things! I have lots of plans on what I want to do with our yard but there just isn't enough time or money to do everything all at once so I have realized that I'll have to do it in baby steps.

One day I envision several raised beds filled with veggies & herbs with tall, pretty sunflower plants around the edge. And maybe some rows of corn. And I've always said I wanted to grow some pumpkins.

But for now I have just 2 raised beds of tomatoes and a pepper plant. A couple of them didn't make it because I started my garden about a month later than I should have. 2 of them are struggling to revive themselves so it still remains to be seen if I'll get any tomatoes off of them or not. Off to the other side I have a couple blueberry plants.

I started my garden just to the left of where the builder did the landscaping. Eventually I envision that entire area filled with raised beds with mulch in between. I chose this part of the yard because it's off to the side, in the corner. It gets great sunlight and isn't in the way of the rest of the yard, i.e. playing children.

I had the hubby make these raised beds out of cedar fencing. They're lightweight so if I decide to move them they'll be easy to move. But I wanted cedar to help prevent rotting since I plan on using these year after year. Since I picked such lightweight pieces they were very inexpensive...only a couple bucks for an 8ft piece.

To support the tomato plants we screwed in pieces of wood with string. This isn't something I plan on doing every year, I really want to do some version of this in the future...

Source

But again...time and money. So for now it's wooden stakes & some string :)

While we were in Seattle a few tomatoes popped up on my plants.

My daughter also has her own little flower garden made with smaller cedar fencing planks...

I wasn't sure where I wanted to put my herb garden (and I didn't get my seeds planted early so I didn't have that many anyway) so I decided to put them up on my deck. That way they'd be easy to get to when I'm cooking.

Sadly, my herb garden didn't make it past July...

This is what happens when you lock one of my dogs on the back porch (because she was wet from a bath) & head out for the day. She's a bit neurotic & cannot stand it if she is locked somewhere where she can't protect her house. She is extremely protective...probably the shepherd in her. The newly replaced screen door suffered her wrath as well.

Someone (not me) thought it would 'be ok' even though someone (me) said 'you know how she is'

I hate being right sometimes. {sigh}

What's funny (or not) is that we had just replaced that screen the week before (actually it might not have even been a week) from when the other dog accidentally ran into it & busted it open.

I think I'm going to start some herbs from seed & probably end up growing them inside until I can start a new herb garden next year.

So that's this year's garden. I can't wait to see the progress year after year until it turns into my 'dream' yard :)