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Florida is getting hotter and hotter. I know the days are getting few as far as how much longer I can bear to be outside, so we made a trip to the park this weekend. I dressed in my finest t-shirt and we headed to the outdoors.

This park is deceiving...it always makes me think we're somewhere else other than Florida. Not really a palm tree in sight.

It's funny finding out the random similarities between yourself and your kid. I found that Finn tucks his hand under his neck just like I do when I sleep. He also has an aversion to dirty hands. This was a known fact of Rob's that came up early in our marriage where he would tell me he hated having dirt on his hands. Like father, like son apparently. Finn has the same feelings.

Here's daddy helping clean them off.

His first pair of flip flops. A Florida must.

Family of three...I'm realizing the few shots we have of the three of us.

This weekend we also upgraded Finn to his new car seat. I felt kinda late to doing this, but he's such a small boy, he still fit the requirements of his previous little baby car seat. Daddy had fun installing the thing.

I had to point out to him that this was his bassist pose from his back-in-the-day metal band.

Finn sat on the stoop and played with the door mat while Rob installed the ginormous thing.

Then he put his mouth on the screen...this boy is building up his immunity for sure. Anyone wanna come over and pressure wash our house? :)

I'm planning on sharing the art pieces I've been working on this week. At least one of them is done. I think. I've been really taking my time with them.

Hoping you all have a wonderful week!

My Flower Bed of Shame Has Been Redeemed

I may have caught the gardening bug. I'm just hoping my thumb will be green instead of black. Yep, I did the unthinkable for Lisa. I have redeemed my flower bed of shame.

Here's a far away before...

And after...I know they look tiny right now, but the plan is for growth. Please, Lord, let there be growth.

So let's rewind and look a little closer. Prettttty...

So I started the work by shoveling up the old red mulch and dead plants into a pile. There were also a ton of pebbles in the dirt, like a whole lot. So I dug those up as well and then mixed in the new garden soil. Never knew the satisfaction of working the ground for new plants.

Then the fun part came...spacing out these lovelies and planting them.

I've been a fan of those green foxtail ferns for a while...my mom says they're hardy plants. I hoping that rings true. Rob said he felt we should put a "You're Welcome" sign to our neighbors. 

A lil pressure washing is in our future for sure. But I'm looking past that right now.

I have more plans as our yard has plennnnnnty of room for growth. 

Thank you neighbors for your patience. 

This one's for you. :-D

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!

Sprucing Up the Lanai

When we bought our house a jacuzzi was included in the back lanai. Rob and I soon discovered that we're not jacuzzi people. We cleaned it up real good, and I mean real good, cause it was nasty, and then tried it out. Only to realize that it just wasn't our thing. I got itchy from the jets and overly hot real quick. I was practically hanging off the side after a few minutes. We did try it in the cold weather, but it still wasn't cutting it. So we knew one day we would love to get rid of this thing.

After the lengthy process of selling the Jeep, we were in no mood to sell this jacuzzi. One of the main reasons being that we would have to pretty much take apart a portion of our lanai to fit this thing out the door. And finding people to purchase or take a jacuzzi and transport it, is hard to find.

So maybe to some people's disappointment, Rob and his dad had the idea to chop the thing up.

Yep, with a saw. And shimmied it out the door.

It was a great feeling to be rid of that thing. They ended up cutting it into 4ths and took it to the dump.

We were looking forward to getting a table out there so I had been searching craigslist for some time. Rob likes to play a lot of games, so a round table was most ideal. The night before Rob's birthday party, we finally found a table and chairs listed for $50! With the help of our friend, we drove out there and picked it up that night. The cushions that came with it were dingy, but the table itself was really nice and the chairs were wide and sturdy. So the next morning we purchased new cushions from Home Depot. Which completely made the set look like new to us.

We still have plans to make it a lot nicer out there. Like a squeegee brush to keep that dang floor clean! It gets so dirty in there so fast...big thanks to our Jackson five (one of Jack's million of nicknames) We're also thinking a good outdoor rug under the table and chairs to ground it a little more. I'm sure we'll have lots of stuff for Finn out there too, since we find ourselves hanging out there a lot more lately. Slowly but surely this house is feeling more like our own.

Ah, and the view from the couch in our living room is much nicer. So happy to not see that jacuzzi anymore. Jack really appreciates the better view too.

Hoping you all are doing well. Can you believe 2013 is only a few days away?? Since this baby boy is still comfy, it looks like we'll be ringing in the new year from a couch, no partyin for us. But who am I kidding, we typically always ring it in on a couch, lol.

Praying and wishing you all a blessed new year!

Exterior Updates

I thought I'd bring back the list I posted 5 months ago, because nothing feels better than crossing completed tasks off. Woop, woop!

• Pressure wash outside of house, driveways and lanais
• Dig up existing bushes
• Landscape front yard
• Update shutters
• Update front porch lighting fixture
• Replace front door or paint
• Purchase chairs and table for front porch
• Purchase outdoor pillows for chairs
• Place potted plants in front porch to bring color
• Paint forest green trim a different color
• Paint forest green side door a different color
• Paint mailbox trim a different color
• (Newly added) Update brick walkway, since currently it's covered in weeds
• (Newly added) Replace siding of the house...far far away, but pretty necessary

For today I wanna show you the rest of the front exterior updates completed last week. Lighting has been updated, shutters have been painted, as well as the rest of any forest green trim out there!

Lighting before...

Lighting after...

Shutters before...

Shutters after...

Mailbox before...

Mailbox after...(yes, it truly is crooked, will get to that someday)

Exterior before...

Exterior after...

Landscape will definitely dress it all up better, but for now it's coming along. I'm ready to commit to at least landscaping the plant bed under the large front window, get rid of the red mulch and get something nice in there. I just need to set little goals and eventually it'll get done.

Any easy-care plant recommendations for a shady area? Definitely looking for some color!

Happy mid-week everyone! :)

Diggin Up Bushes Under The Brutal Sun

Welp, today we attempted to dig up our bushes in our front yard for our landscape makeover. Even though I knew it wasn't going to be easy...I didn't quite expect it to be that hard either. With wasps and snakes and thorns and stubborn roots, we only got so far (with an extra helper!) (yay, Kenny, yay) Looks like we're gonna need a part two...or three.

Let me also state, Florida sun is brutal.

So here we go, we started with the goal to remove all the bushes or old roots starting from the big front window down to the right.

We started by chopping off the branches of the bushes...

Then Rob got stung by a wasp on his hand... :(  (hard to see, but trust me the puncture is there!)

Then as more chopping continued, we found this little guy hanging out in a bush...he then proceeded to go into our siding...eek. At least they eat bugs. :)

Then we came across a bush with mambo jambo thorns...we placed those choppings in a different pile so we'd know to handle later a little more delicately.

So these are the bushes mostly chopped up...remember it feels like 100 degrees out...this looks like a moment of cloud coverage. (thank you, God!)

And well, here is where we ended...not completed, but hey, it's progress!!

We have two bushes (stumps/roots) left to dig out of the ground. At least we got two. The sun was beating down hard and we eventually found ourselves inside laying on the floor loving a/c and cold travertine tile.

Here's the before again...

and after

So, I'm thinking during the week, Rob and I will pick at these bushes (roots) when the sun is almost gone. It was just too brutal today...there was no way we could have continued. MAJOR RESPECT for roofers and manual outdoor laborers in Florida.

I. do. not. know. how. you. do. it.

So that's all for today. Progress to be documented! Oh and I will also mention my final print arrived from Australia for our collage wall! I'm now just editing the photos (lighting in our hallway is so baddd) and will have pictures of that soon! (maybe bad lighting and all!) lol

Had a great rest of the day (post bush uprootal) with my sees and dad at Miguels restaurant (oyeh! Cinco de Mayo!) lol. And then at Lifequest. Still fighting off this heat headache.

Anyway, everyone enjoy your evening!! Couch time callllllllls. (I am coming, akee akee!)