Outdoors

I was going through last week's pictures and really noticed how much things have changed around here the last week.

Last Monday night we got the little flower garden we built planted. This was before the top coat of sand for the new patio and the edge pieces cut. I think I'm also going to add some blooming flowers in there for more color.And I took another side view of the alley where Mom and I planted the hostas.
And then the storms with all the hail came on Monday night. This is the same side of the house right above the hostas now. While the paint certainly wasn't perfect before, all the hail ripped a TON of paint off this entire side of the house.
Now there are lots of completely exposed wood sections. Ugh. We didn't even notice it last week, even though some neighborhood friends had talked about it knocking the paint off their house. I noticed it over the weekend when I was checking on my hostas.
I thought some of them looked just awful and wondered if they were getting too much sun, then I noticed all the paint chips which extend the length of that side of the house. The hostas are fine, several of them were just ripped to shreds by all the hail we got. I was already planning to have the insurance company come and just check the roof, now I guess we have something else for them to look at.
The cicadas outside Lilli's daycare. Awful. I am so over these things. Our cherry tree in the back looks just like this.
Little Miss has been helping me "plant" flowers. And by that I mean dumping entire packets of seeds in one singular spot.
Her current obsession is putting on the previous night's pajamas as soon as she gets home. So on this evening Dora the Explorer PJs helped me garden. My garden is doing really well! I already have a couple of green tomatoes and some small peppers, and the blackberries are nearly ready too.

Strawberries and Parties...

A few of my favorite pictures from last Sunday...

Two babies had to go to church with us - both named "Ella Kate Roses". Everything has been named Ella Kate Roses lately - from flies to cicadas to dolls and everything in-between.Strawberries were at their peak (but sadly we didn't get any in our CSA box last week due to wet weather), so she wore her strawberry dress last Sunday.
We've really enjoyed the berries in our box. Wash and eat, can't be easier than that. At one point this weekend when Brent was looking for something in the fridge he might have said it is possible to have too much produce. We've been eating a lot of greens this week!
This isn't a great pic, but she is loving her little heels right now. And she doesn't have any problems walking (or running or jumping or climbing.....) in them.
Our favorite one. The strawberries have been a BIG hit!

That Sunday night we went over to Adam and Julia's for Life Group. We took the jumpy and Lilli and Luke had a great time playing around in it. They also had a great time picking on little brother Owen in some sort of strange kissing game. I have no clue why YouTube isn't letting me enbed video tonight.
We've had a great Memorial Day weekend, had lots of fun and got lots of projects accomplished around the house. And since Lilli was being extra stubborn and wouldn't eat her dinner (after not eating breakfast or lunch either) and got sent to bed extra early we all had a little more free time tonight! The Food Police are in full force these days as we have no intentions of raising a chicken tender and french fry for our child. She's either going to get a lot of extra sleep and lose some weight or learn to listen and try new things. I guess tonight she chose sleep!

Presents and Pictures

Last weekend Brent and Lilli surprised me with a few presents, including some roses delivered to my office! It's always pretty humorous to see what she wants to pick out for you - she wanted me to have this yellow bird with wings that go around when the wind blows. Classy!And this ceramic swinging frog! So decorative!
Brent was a little more upscale and got me a very nice professional double Belgium waffle maker, like the ones in a lot of hotels we've stayed in. The first one didn't work right, so he took it back and we all enjoyed some great waffles on Saturday morning!
Last Saturday we also had our pictures taken for the new church directory by Olan Mills. Awful! Lilli was scared to death of the guy and he did a horrible job posing us all. It was a pretty terrible experience all around. We didn't buy any extra pictures, for sure!
I think the ones we took of her just playing around as we waited our turn were much better than the professional ones.
So glad tomorrow is a holiday for a nice long weekend! We've already hit the pool up for the first time this summer and Lilli had a blast. Ribs are currently marinading in the fridge for a great Memorial Day feast tomorrow!

Brent's Birthday

Brent's birthday was back on the 19th. His coworkers went all out and spared no expense on the decor!

All he really wanted for his birthday was a chocolate cake from Publix (his favorite). So he went and picked it out himself since I'm never around any Publix stores downtown.

I can't believe I didn't check to make sure we had a # 4. I don't know what we did back for #24!

Lilli was a big fan of the cake! I took her to the store and let her pick out a few things for Brent for his birthday. The big box was from me though!
She picked him out some Goldfish, Tic Tacs, Raisinettes, and a bouncy ball that lit up.
I picked out a nice professional tri-pod for him!
I read a lot of reviews on Amazon and it seemed to have the most bang for the buck with its versatility and weight. He's already put it to good use filming our annual ant invasion this past week. For whatever reason ants invade our window every May, since we know their number we've already figured out the best baits to use and they were in and dead within 24 hours.
Too bad we can't do the same with the thousands of cicadas invading us outside right now!

And here's a video of Lilli singing Happy Birthday to her Daddy!

Date Night!

Early last week Brent and I went out for our monthly date night. Actually, April ended up being so busy with Pippin that Stephanie hadn't been over to watch "the kids" since the end of March. They were VERY happy to see her and Brent actually recorded the response she gets when she shows up! They both just love her and Lilli talks about her all the time. Whatever they do when we're not here is clearly something she's enjoying and Lilli is the only kid she will watch so she must not mind coming over!

We were heading out to celebrate Brent's birthday and the end of his Biggest Loser competition at work. He had been wanting to try Copper Kettle, and I really like the one in SoBro and go there sometimes for lunch. That one isn't open for dinner so we had to go over to the Lipscomb area one and it just wasn't the same! His sandwich wasn't very good and their buffet options weren't nearly as nice as the one downtown (and they seriously didn't have as many of the healthier options I normally go for either!). I was a little disappointed for his since it was his pick. My pecan crusted chicken was dry, dry, dry.

Afterwards we went over to Green Hills Mall to do some shopping. My new favorite store in all the world is Charming Charlie's. Absolutely huge jewelry, shoe and accessory store. Everything is sorted by color and it's pretty much overwhelming. Great deals, but I do have a hard time buying things knowing I can get the same stuff for half that in Atlanta at Market. I did pick up a few things I needed to fill in some holes in my accessories for the spring and early summer!

From there we went to Krispy Kreme and grabbed some donuts. I think Brent was trying to really fill back in from all the weight he had lost!

It was a great date night out for May!

Today, Cicadas, Dinner with Friends

This has not been my favorite week and I think I say that a lot lately. Three nights we've had little sleep due to storms - last night it was after midnight before we really went to sleep and when you get up at 5 am, three nights of about 4-5 hours of sleep is just exhausting. And then the day got even better when my tire looked like this this morning:

That's a very, very large nail in my tire. Brent heard me driving on it while we was out in the backyard and I made it about a block and when my phone started ringing I was actually starting to think something was wrong with my car. So Brent started his day doing this:

At first we weren't sure if I just had a leak or something in it, so he aired it back up out front and we pulled in the garage and saw the big nail. He had actually suggested I take the air compressor with me to work and if it was flat when I left that I just air it back up to get home. Is this the outfit of someone who wants to do that? I think not, so he put the spare on and took my tire with him today and had it patched, along with new brakes for his car and a patch for a tire of his that is leaking slowly as well as an oil change down in LaVergne where we like to have our cars worked on (near his office). Expensive automative day for us.

About two weeks ago, the same weekend Mom and Dad were here, we treated Lilli to a $1 strawberry lemonade. She was in heaven!
This was also when cicadas were really hatching out of their shells and all over everything in the yard. Now it's the full grown, screaming ones everywhere so I kind of miss the shell ones!
She had a lot of fun collecting them and finding them all.
She likes to count them, and when she gets up to 19 she starts over again at 1.
There's no telling what princess was upset about.....
This dress cracks me up, a nice little '80s party look for a little diva!
That's the night we had Adam, Julia and Ella Kate over for a little organic, local dinner party! Lilli was obsessed with Ella Kate. She's named all her dolls "Ella Kate Roses" now. I have no clue where the Roses comes from.

And when I say obsessed I mean she didn't give her a seconds peace! She also picked this outfit all herself which is why nothing matches.
It's kind of hard to see in here, but I think Ella was giving Julia the "what in the world is in your lap" face! Well Pippin isn't about to miss out on hanging out on the couch with the girls!
So glad tomorrow is a LONG weekend and maybe we can get some sleep, relax, and of course make our annual semi-famous ribs and hopefully hit up the Y-pool for the first time this season! I can't wait!

Visit from the Grandparents

About a week and a half ago my parents came up to help Brent with the "mud pit" aka the new patio. It was a little bit of a rainy/misty Saturday but we made the most of it and got a lot done outside. Luckily the large hackberry in the back provides a lot of sun and rain shade. For lunch we made some open face sandwiches and Mom and Lilli chopped up some strawberries from their garden for dessert.The guys were "working hard" or "hardly working"? They got the rest of the pit dug out, the fabric down and used all the gravel we had.

Hanging out with Grandpa after eating lunch.
While Lilli took her afternoon nap the side yard between us and Mark became our project. This area by our cellar entrance has always been a major eye sore and a dumping ground. The steel stairwell had been laying there for nearly 3 years before I drug it out the alley recently, and it was time for this area to get some attention! We raked up all the leaves and trash, and pulled all the weeds.
The finished product! I had bought two hostas and then Mom divided some of hers and brought them up here. This was right after we were finished, the rain we've had since then has cleaned off the sidewalk and the hostas are growing nicely in their new home. I'm also going to plant some small shade flowers in front of them for this summer while they're still spreading and to add some color.
I think Mom and I had a very productive nap-time!
The guys project at the end of the day:
Of course there had to be some bicycle riding since Dad had a new road bike to show off. As he and Brent were loading up to ride a certain smaller cycling enthusiast wasn't about to be left behind. And it was all worth it to her since a train was coming through Shelby Bottoms as they biked through!
It looks like we're in for more storms tonight, good thing the bikes are still in the foyer from two days ago. A lot of our neighbors still don't have power, and every news broadcast since Tuesday morning has had reporters standing around in our neighborhood! Even this afternoon there was a reporter broadcasting less than two blocks from us, and this morning I told Brent to turn it on because I went past one standing about five blocks from us. And the helicopters were showing footage overhead this morning as I went to work. "Power Man!" is one of Lilli's new phrases for all the electric trucks circling around as well. By this afternoon all the traffic lights in our neighborhood were back up and running and hopefully the rest of the power will be restored soon.