I haven’t mentioned it, but Josh has been out of town since LAST Thursday. Let’s let that sink in. I’m really good at managing the household and the girls’ schedules and getting it all done, but it’s absolutely exhausting. Maybe it’s totally archaic sounding and it probably ruffles the feminist feathers, but he kind of holds all the things together. My girls start to fall apart when their daddy is gone for an extended period of time and I tend to follow suit.
On Friday night, we went shopping and out to dinner with my parents. I knew it would be good to get the girls out of the house for a few hours and we all know Soph loves to eat dinner at “Banana Bread“. We ran to At Home {formerly Garden Ridge} and snagged a few things for some outdoor projects. We woke up bright and early on Saturday, fueled up with some biscuits for breakfast and made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a few more supplies. I decided {again} to keep us out of the house as much as possible. When the girls get lazy and watch too much TV, they start to bicker, so we decided to enjoy the beautiful weather and spend as much of the day outside as we could.
Our morning started with this furniture. It’s vintage Homecrest wire patio furniture that I picked up six or seven years ago at a local antique mall. Don’t kill me when I tell you I got these two “mama chairs” and table, plus a “papa chair” that’s in the girls’ room, for a measly $25. I checked eBay to see if I could find an ottoman over the weekend and individual pieces are going for triple digits!! I have loved this set, but it’s been on the gazebo for a few seasons and needed a little love. I picked up some pretty cushions on Friday and spray paint on Saturday morning, with a makeover in their future.
Let’s change the subject for a second and talk about this guy. After all the cat drama we had last summer, it is so nice to find Copper still snoozing on our front porch. Even after two years, he is not a fan of human touch, but cries for his breakfast every morning and always come when we call. He supervised our spray painting efforts for most of the morning before crashing in the shade a few hours later in the day. The kids are beside themselves thinking about how we will take him with us when we move. They are dreaming up elaborate plans to trap him in a cage with food and carry him to the new house. I have images of screeching cats and scratched up arms every time I think about it!
We had to take a little break on the front porch and Ella wanted to try out my camera. How glamorous do we look?! We were most definitely in our work clothes and praying that no visitors decided to stop by. When I finally downloaded my images later that night I found numerous funny photos courtesy of my girls.
While we were waiting on our spray paint to dry, we worked in the side garden for a few hours. Many years ago, we transplanted strawberries from my grandparents’ {insanely large} strawberry garden and they have really taken off. What used to be a few plants under the laundry room window has now turned into a full blown strawberry patch! My girls stalk these plants every year watching the tiny yellow flowers turn into little white berries and then bigger red berries before they are ready to pick. We still have another week or so before they’ll be ready to eat, but Sophie did manage to find a nice big, ripe one! We have to harvest these almost as soon as they are ready or Beemer will keep them all to herself. We’ve found her eating them straight off the vine on numerous spring mornings.
At some point, the girls disappeared inside for a “project”. It turns out they made a poster out of copy paper and my favorite washi tape {we’ve since had a discussion} and hung it up on the front porch while serenading me and working on their choreography. They moved on from Carly Ray Jepsen, right into a little Houndmouth, which you likely saw on Instagram or Twitter if you follow along.
FINALLY, our spray paint was dry and I moved the furniture onto the front porch. I could not believe how perfectly the new cushions fit these chairs and I was finally okay with my decision to toss the original chair cushions several years ago. I had recovered them initially, but the foam was rotting and there just wasn’t much to be done. These are almost the exact same shape, super comfy and covered in Sunbrella fabric, so they should last outside for much longer than their predecessors. I must confess that I took a nap in this very spot while the girls continued to play and we’ve been spotted on our front porch almost every evening this week.
How cute is she? We are working a few hours every day to tackle some last minute projects before we officially put the Rock House on the market. It is so weird. I love this house so much and it will be crazy hard not to turn into this driveway every day, but we are so excited about what the future holds!
Can we talk about this angle? My daddy and I transplanted the tiniest Confederate Jasmine plant to this side of the house almost 11 years ago. I hung a trellis on the chimney and prayed it would grow. Last year, the repeated freezes throughout the winter sent it into serious shock and I was worried it might never recover. And this year? It’s the prettiest it’s ever been. In case you’re curious, it covers almost the entire side of our house from the ground to the roof, including a stone chimney and two of the windows in our master bedroom. Yes, it means we can’t open those windows, but the smell alone makes it worth it.
Of course, once I released the girls from their indentured servitude, they started digging for earthworms. For two squeamish girls who are terrified of everything, they don’t bat an eyelash over a worm or a slug. They dug for hours and made a nice home for them in my tupperware before I forced them to set them free.
I had two concrete planters that I was prepping for flowers {that have now been relocated to the front porch} and they were full of rich soil and tons of worms. The girls sat right here under the kitchen window and dug while I cleaned myself up and got dinner started.
In between fajitas and fresh pico de gallo, a head {or two} would pop up through the kitchen window to show me their loot. I have never seen four dirtier hands!
They have enjoyed this spring more than any other. Maybe it’s that Sophie is finally able to keep up with Ella and they are finding so many fun things to do. Maybe it’s the knowledge that this is our last spring in the Rock House and they are taking full advantage. Either way, our afternoons are filled with earthworms and secret hideouts. They keep telling me that when we move they “won’t have any property lines to keep them from exploring”. Can you tell they are excited about some wide open spaces? They even managed to get some tree-climbing experience in at the barn on Monday afternoon. Granted, the crepe myrtles keep them close to the ground and maximize their adventurous spirits.
I anticipate we won’t be spending too much time outside today, because OUR PERSON IS COMING HOME! He’s due to land and pull into the driveway just after bedtime, so we’ll be donning fresh pjs and staying up a few minutes late to greet him. If something happens and we all come down with an unexplained virus tomorrow, you’ll all know why!
Forgive my absence for the last few days — it was completely unintentional. As if parenting alone wasn’t time consuming enough, Google totally threw me for a loop with the modifications for mobile sites. It’s taken me the better part of a week to get the site redesigned in a way that looked good and functioned well. I had a temporary header up last week while I played around with the layout and I finally got the update installed last night. Maybe I can leave it alone for a bit. Maybe.
