Curb Appeal

The weather on Saturday was beautiful and gave us a chance to work on one of the flower beds in the front yard.  I believe that curb appeal in a home is important but we unfortunately neglected that for a long time.  My goal for the spring is to get the outside of our house looking presentable and I'm very pleased with the look so far. 

I'm very grateful that my husband offered to chip in and replace the old, worn out wood around the bed with some new wood.  It looks great.  We also purchased a new plant called Rising Sun Coreopsis. 

Right now the plant looks like this.

But with time and love it should look like this picture I found on the internet.

The Rising Sun Coreopsis is expected to grow 3' wide and 3' tall.  I've been known to screw up plants before so I'm crossing my fingers that this works.  We'll see.

Here is the finished look as of right now.  I'm hoping to add more garden decor.  We decided to go with rubber mulch instead of the real stuff.  My dad uses it in his flower beds.  It's a bit more costly than real mulch but it lasts longer and we won't have to replace it every year so in the long run it will be a huge money saver.  I don't have a green thumb so I'm very impressed with these results. 

Introducing ... The Next Babe Ruth

We signed Matthew up for t-ball and he loves it.  He's normally a very shy boy; an introvert just me, but he is so different on the field.  He has a good time and I love knowing how much he enjoys it.  It's important to me that my children get involved with sports and other activities.  They need to be active, socialize with other children and learn different things to find out what they like and what they are good at.  This is the first sport Matthew has played with a team and I can't express just how proud I am of him. 

Yesterday was the first game of the season.  There are only three t-ball teams in the league so Matthew will be playing the other two teams four times each.  He's the smallest and probably the slowest on the team so he has to push himself harder but he did well.  He can't throw the ball as far as the other kids can but that will improve over time.  It's especially awesome that his dad is an assistant coach.  It has always been a dream of Rob's to be able to coach his son's little league team and now the time is here.  I love watching them both on the field. 

 My little lefty

 Giving Coach Dad a high five after his first run.  I love this picture so much!

Kind Words From a Five Year Old

Yesterday the kids and I enjoyed the warm weather by playing in the backyard.  We have a nice swing set for them to play with.  I was sitting in the club house with my one year old while my five year old was repeatedly climbing up the slide and then sliding back down.  At one point he climbed up the slide and held a clover with three leaves.  He said, "Look Mom I have good luck."

I'm really not sure where he heard that clovers bring you good luck but I did correct him by saying that the four-leaf clovers are the ones that are supposed to bring good luck (not that I believe in any of that luck stuff).  So he tossed the leaf and said, "that's okay, I'm already lucky," and then slid down the slide.  I asked him, "why are you lucky?"  He hesitated, shrugged his shoulders and then smiled at me before answering, "because I have you."

Oh my goodness!  I can't express just how good that made me feel.  That was the sweetest thing I had ever heard and not something I expected to come out of my five year old son's mouth.  Those words might have meant nothing much to him but they meant everything to me.  I will always cherish that conversation.  Always. 

I believe I'm the lucky one.