Yard Makeovah

While the three of us were away on vacation, some sneakiness happened in our yard. Some very-much-appreciated-we-finally-have-some-plants-in-our-yard kind of sneakiness. After a long drive home from Destin and a very unhappy teething baby, we drove up to quite a surprise. I was even able to dig up some previous before pics to show the changes. So here we go.

Before...

After!

Plants! Plants! Plants! Finally in our little plant bed. I'm planning on getting some dark mulch to put around these sweet thangs.

Before... (cra-hay-zy!)

After! Farewell rickety picket fence. There's also a new plant back there.

Before...

After!

Yeah, this was probably the biggest surprise. I don't have a good before picture of this side of our yard but it was mainly a great. big. sand. pit. And I mean a sandy sandy sand pit. No grass. Nothing. When we first moved in, cats used to use it as their little box...thankfully that stopped once Jack ruled the yard. It be looking mighty fine now, miiighty fine.

Also, I'm finally finally finally trying to learn more about my camera. I have a Nikon DSLR D3100. I love my camera but I can't stand the fact that I don't know how to fully use it. I found a really helpful blog (manuals just don't do it for me) called Click It Up A Notch that's really getting me back into the basics about it. And I mean baby basics, like just getting an understanding of aperture and shutter speed, ISO. I finally discovered the white balance feature on my camera. (Sorry, you can just skip below if you don't wanna hear all this techy talk, lol)

So I'm giving myself the challenge to strictly shoot in manual. No more auto focus or settings. I'm going to learn these settings and get them to stay in my brain. It's due time. I do see myself looking to get a new lens in the future, because my basic lens that came with the camera has an auto feature even when shooting in manual. So one day, a new lens will be fun to play with. But for now...I'm just gonna experiment and learn.

Some little tootsies that belong to a little handsome boy. Oh and that water bottle? One of his favorite toys.

Teething cutie...still can't get over how he's just sitting up like he's been doing it forever.



So a huge thank you to our loved ones who surprised us with this beautiful yard makeover. I can only imagine the sore muscles, sweat, and possibly tears that went into this, and we seriously can't thank you enough. Slowly but surely our house is becoming our home.

I've got a DIY art piece on my mind for the area above our sectional. So seeing how things go this week, I may get started on that. It's should cost little to nothing which is even more enticing to get moving on it. I'll be sure to share.

Love to you all!