One project down...100 to go

There is a list a mile long of projects and different things I'd like to do in our new place. It'll take me a while, especially since we're not rich *gasp* and I don't have a ton of me time with Ruby around. So slowly and surely I'll start chipping away at that list until it's done. Who am I kidding? I'm sure it'll never be done and I'll keep adding to it. I love decorating and making our home beautiful. It's always a work in progress and is never finished.

Here's the latest thing I've checked off the list: our gallery wall of family photos. We've got a massive bare wall in our living room and I thought this would be a great way of filling it. So over the last few weeks I've been gathering white and silver frames and I finally took the time to fill them and hang them. I love it.

When Ruby Plays...

...I find the funniest things. Like when she got into our empty water jugs and I found them here:

Sprinklers

We've had to water our lawn every evening since we've sodded. Can I tell you how over it we are? We can't wait until this nightly ritual of Bobby and I running in and out of the house and moving sprinklers is done. The other evening as we started our watering routine, we brought Ruby out with us...and she saw the sprinklers. And took matters into her own hands.


Sure she was still wearing her clothes, but she was having too much fun for us to stop her. So we let her play for a few minutes before it was time to come in and take a bath. She was absolutely soaked, but gloriously happy.

Hide and Seek

Over the last few days Ruby's really developed an affinity for Hide and Seek. Maybe it's the new house with all of it's new nooks and closets and new places to play...whatever it is, she loves it. Bobby will go hide somewhere and call her name and she'll run looking for him and squeal when she finds him. And then they'll do it over and over again and it just makes me smile to see him tearing through the house to hide before she can catch him and hear her peals of laughter echoing. I absolutely love it...there are few things better than seeing my husband being a wonderful father to our beautiful little girl.

Visitors

We had Bobby's good friend Johnny and his wife Sarah come visit us this weekend. We had such a great time catching up and having some time to relax, since that's all there is to do in this small town. And Ruby loved having a couple more people to dote on her and give her their undivided attention. By the end of their short trip, she was already giving Sarah kisses and snuggles. Thanks for coming guys! We had a great time!

Shades

Ruby's never really worn her sunglasses all that much. West Virginia never had crazy sunny days and she's never spent too much time outside, especially since we just came off of winter and a very wet spring. But now that we're in Texas and the sun is blazing we've been trying to get her used to wearing them. And now sometimes she just has to wear them in the house.

Some cuteness...and look at all those teeth!

Horsey ride...without the horsey

So we do this little song with Ruby while we bounce her on our knee. It goes like this and with each line you bounce her faster and higher and higher:

This is the way my Ruby rides, pace, pace (repeat)
This is the way Mommy rides, trit-trot, trit-trot (repeat)
This is the way Daddy rides, hoppity-gee, hoppity-gee, hoppity hoppity hoppity-gee!

Anyway, she loves it, but lately she's decided she doesn't need our knees, all she needs is us to sing it to her:

Peaceful Sleeping

Landscaping

We've spent many hours this week beautifying the front yard. I was getting tired of having a dirt pit and what an eyesore it was. And I'm getting seriously tired of dirt in the house. By the end of the day the bottom of Ruby's little feet are black and I'm sick of sweeping and mopping nearly every day to get rid of it.

So we ordered some sod and compost and had it delivered on Wednesday. Then we went to the nursery and bought some shrubs and plants. Bobby and I laid out and planted our flower beds Wednesday evening. A lot of work, but already the yard was looking a thousand times better.

As for the sod, we had kind of thought we'd be doing the labor ourselves (and dreaded it) but Wednesday afternoon our doorbell rang and I answered it and there stood a teenage kid. "We noticed that you had some sod in your front yard and wondered if my brothers and I could help you lay it?" Ummm...yeah! So said kid and his younger brothers came over on Thursday and spent 7 hours in the hot hot sun making a lawn for us. They were really good kids and did a great job.

So by the end of the day on Thursday, we had a front yard (and part of a back yard...the rest will come in the fall). Can I tell you how happy it makes me? We still have to finish mulching since Walmart didn't have enough, but that's easy-peasy. I can't wait to see how it grows!

A reminder of what we started with:


And the almost-finished product:



We've got a bunch of things in there that are new to me, so we'll see how it goes. We put in a few native shrubs, some ornamental grasses as well as a grapefruit tree. We're hoping it does well and we don't kill it! The bare spot is being reserved for daylilies I plan to order in the fall. I can't wait for those, they're some of my favorites!