Thought I'd take some time to update everyone on the landscaping project.   Man, it sure is a HUGE project, too!  We should have purchased some Home Depot stock with as much money as we've shelled out to them. 

Let's see...the last time I talked about work on the landscaping Josh had just finished preparing and tilling the landscape beds.  Here are some before and after pictures.

    

And, then came picking out the plants.  That was definitely a difficult task. Luckily we went to different nurseries to see what they had and had an idea of what we wanted as the major foundation plants.  We decided on 2 large crepe myrtles (no idea what color the blooms will be), 2 medium sized yaupon hollies, a foster holly for the corner, a weeping yaupon holly in the other corner, a japanese maple near the patio and a small rose garden & little vegetable garden by our window.  Here is Marisa picking out a good rose bush.



Easter weekend was spent picking out all of our foundation plants and planting our new plants.  Like I've said before, Josh has done an AMAZING job on the landscape.  I only helped with the placement, while he's done the rest.  I was suffering from the worst sinus infection that weekend and when I wasn't trying to rest, I was chasing around the 2 year old.  Trying to keep her out of trouble and out of Josh's hair is hard work, you know.  But, here's what the landscaping looked like by Easter.

 

And this is what happens to a toddler when left to her own devices for 5 minutes...

 

For some reason she thinks it's easier to get off the chair by going through the arm rest hole.  Hmmm...it doesn't look like she thought that one through very well.

Our tiny vegetable garden includes, bell peppers, a tomato plant, strawberries, and some cantaloupe(these are next to the fence near Bradie's pen).  We'll also be adding some herbs into the little patch of vegetables.  And here's what it looks like today... 


       

Marisa now has her own Marisa-sized watering can to help with the watering. 

 

And, here she is showing off the beauty of our labor. 



Still to come...annuals to add eye catching colors, mulch, and the drip irrigation.  By mid-May I think we'll be ready to host a barbecue and to show off all of our hard work!

Why is it that just when you start to get used to the newest toddler phase, a new one pops up?   It seems like it came out of no where...well, I think it did.  Marisa has entered the infamous "WHY?" phase.  Is it supposed to start this early?  I thought it didn't start until they were like 3 or 4.  Everything you say to her is followed by a Why?? and if you don't answer, she continues to question it.  However, as long as you give her some semblance of an answer, she will accept it and say, "ok". 

Other than that, there hasn't been much going on.  Josh has been working like crazy planting the plants in the backyard.  The landscaping looks absolutely AMAZING!  And, it's all Josh's doing.  I haven't been able to help since I was suffering from some horrible allergies and some major sinus infection this past weekend.  Easter was pretty laid back and relaxing for us.  We did have a mini indoor Easter Egg hunt for Marisa and she was very excited about her Easter basket.  She got a new Dora backpack, a Dora digital watch, some Dora sunglasses, a mini Dora notebook, and a Dora book.  She was so excited about her goodies in her Easter basket that it practically overshadowed her new bicycle.  We did get her to finally try out her new bicycle, but she hasn't quite gotten the pedaling down since she always trying to pedal backwards.  All she needs is a little more practice.  Here are the pictures from Easter.

       

    I managed to capture this shot of Marisa as she was getting ready for bed the other night.  CRACKS ME UP!!!  She looks like she's dancing in my slippers and on her head is a Blue Bell Ice Cream Hat that GeeGee & GeePa Clemens picked up while at the Blue Bell factory in Brenham, TX.  She loves that hat!

    Sorry about that.  I kind of went into a brain lapse and forgot to keep up with this. I'm just going to write a little now to catch everyone up on the goings on around here.  I'll add pictures tomorrow and the next few days.  We've spent the entire weekend tilling and preparing the yard for our new flower beds.  I say we, but Josh did 99% of the work.  I spent most of the time keeping up with Marisa and trying to keep her entertained.  Here's what we've been up to the last couple of weeks:

Josh:  Working LOTS!  It seems that the hiring freeze Voyager put out in the January/February time frame has only made the workload larger for the current programmers.  When he's not working late in the office, he's coming home to work.  I think this weekend was to free his mind of his work, but he's definitely physically exhausted from all of the work he put into the backyard.  And, it didn't help that the tiller decided to attack him a few hours into the tilling, yesterday.  He hit the fence with it and it  kicked back and the handle shot into his ribs on his right side.  He said that the force of the kick was so strong he yelled out and fell flat on his back.  Nice!  Good thing I wasn't here to witness that!  Stay tuned, I'll be posting pictures of our progress on the yard.

RT:  I just finished the 5th Harry Potter book.  I was so disappointed at how slow it was compared to all of the others!!  I've heard nothing but good things about the 6th book, so I'm been desperate to start reading it.  I started to read it about 10 minutes ago, but started to feel guilty about the blog neglect.  I should be finalizing the plants for the landscape, but yet again, it has taken a back seat to my good buddy, Harry.  I'm really not going to know what to do with myself once I've finished the 6th book.  I guess, I join the other frenzied Harry Potter fans who are anxiously awaiting the next book.  I must say, it's all so sad.  Of course, I do have 2 baby afghans that I need to be working on.  The babies are due in July, 10 days apart.  So, I'm thinking the baby showers will be in May.  Let's hope, I get enough warning to finish them.

Marisa:  She was invited to the neighbor's last week for a playgroup and they had an Easter egg hunt.  There were 3 boys there with her, and in the first 2 minutes of the hunt, I think she had gathered more eggs than all the boys had combined.  As she picked up each egg, I heard her say, "This is my egg, this is my egg.."  CUTE!  They also had the Easter bunny come and visit.  Too bad, Marisa wouldn't go within 5 feet of him.  Sorry, everyone, there was no picture taken with the Easter bunny.  She's also becoming very nurturing these days.  Always asking if you are ok and if you hurt yourself, she asks..."need a kiss?"  and is ready to shower your booboo with her very wet lips.  SO CUTE!!

Well, that's it for now... Pictures to follow from our visit with GeeGee & GeePa Clemens & the Tickle Bug!!