I don’t know if I can explain how much I love spring! There is something about watching everything that was “dead” all winter come back to life and green up again. It’s like I drive around and I have to look at how everyone’s yard is shaping up… their super green grass, the blooming daffodils and forsythia and how the trees are budding up and showing off their leaves. I just love it!
This week we’ve had a roller coaster of weather – started off in the 70s and went all the way up to the 80s, but today was a completely different season with our 40s and rainy cold. Ugh, can we go back to the 80s already and just skip spring and move straight to summer.
Luckily I spent as much time as I could while it was warm and went around our yard to spy on what is blooming. It’s been a lot of fun to see what surprises are hiding in our yard – since when we moved in, most things were dead from the crazy dry summer we had last year. So enjoy the tour of our yard, and there will be more to come as things grow and bloom! I’ve also been dreaming out how to transform our outdoor space and I’ll give you a little hint below.
We’ll start in the front – we’ve got some lovely daffodils and iris in bloom, and the tulips are working their way up. For the area by the front door, I purchased two lanterns from TJMaxx, but plan to add some more planters and other decor. We also got these little solar powered lights for the pathway, and I love how they look at night!
Moving on to the side of our house, you’ll see the lovely damage by our woodpecker! In the fall we repaired/filled some of the holes, however they’ve been at it again this spring. We even had a tree on the side of the house that they used to hang from and tap their beaks against our house – but my dad cut it down this past weekend (while Drew was in China) -we hope it discourages them. We also had to cut it down because the tree was too close to our house and we were a little worried that as it grew the roots might harm our basement wall.
In the backyard, we’ve got some exciting things growing and some not so exciting things. I’m super excited for the four peony bushes we have (if you ever have planted them from bare root, you’d know they take FOREVER to get to a big bushy plant like these). Also, there are some hydrangeas, sedum and more to come as it gets warmer. We also bought two small/young forsythia bushes from Home Depot and planted them a few weeks ago, they also were in bloom this week.
The not so exciting things involves a weed that is spreading over our lawn like, well a weed. After doing some research I discovered it’s called Creeping Charlie. Some people use it as a groundcover, but from what I’ve read, it’s incredibly hard to kill and spreads really easy…. we’ll let you know how it goes.
The other side of the house is a narrow, very shaded pathway with a stack of wood and brush filled with leaves. I was surprised to see a few random things in bloom mixed in there. What a lovely surprise!
And finally in the backyard, we have a two story deck – a small deck on top that walks out from the kitchen and another larger deck on the ground level that walks out from the family room. It’s a lot of space, so we’re working on making it look a bit nicer and less bare. Here is what we’ve got so far – but I’ve been getting a lot of inspiration from pinterest for underneath the top deck, but I’ll share that another time 🙂
It was also our great grandma’s 95th birthday – doesn’t she look great? 
For Reese, birthday cake can make you go thru so many different emotions within a short amount of time. First she hated it, then she loved it, then she hated it again.
So we headed to Home Depot, got a few paint samples and decided on 
