Progress

You know that on April 5th, we worked hard, hard, hard in the yard, yard, yard.  (Look here if you didn't see the earlier post.)   Our yard is a MONSTER.  I am pleased to tell you we are making tiny bits of progress.  Hooray!  We've all been taking whatever time we have to work a bit here and there.  Admittedly, Free is the biggest contributor.  Thank you, Free.  The four missionaries from our ward came and helped this past Saturday and got a lot done.  While I know it is still a looooooong way away, hopefully you can see some progress.  We have.

I don't know if we had a photo of this before, but see all those leaves?  They were about a foot deep, and the avocado tree branches blocked passage.  That's our little shed in the background.  We used to have to use a machete to get to it.

These are branches from one of trees that the missionaries helped trim up.  Oh, the strength of YOUTH. 

The fun thing is that we have chosen not to wait until the yard is completely clear to plant our veggie garden.  We have two planter boxes that my dad made for us for Christmas this past year, and a strawberry planter that he made for us the year before that.  With all that was going on with Jax, we didn't get it planted.  We have now planted the strawberry box, one of the planters and have prepped the other box for planting soon.  

Here are our tomato and pepper plants.  Emily found an interesting technique on the internet that I'll share with you in another post.

Our Strawberry Planter.  We filled the top portion with herbs.  We'll probably plant some more things soon. 

Our first little strawberry!

Pinterest Day!

My friend, Melissa, and I have gotten together once a month on a Saturday for the past five months to do crafts.  We felt like we needed to MAKE time for creativity, or time just slips away and you never "get to" what you like.  Since we are such Pinterest hounds, we decided to take turns choosing a craft or project off Pinterest. The hostess picks the project, gets the supplies, provides the workspace and buys lunch.  I must tell you, when crafty people (or those who want to be crafty) hear about our Pinterest day, they tell us how awesome it is and that they wish they could do something like that.  You can, ladies! 

 

We've done it five times now, and it is working out wonderfully.  We've learned a couple of things.  The first is that things don't always turn out as picture-perfect as they look in photos.  The second is that it's OK if it doesn't turn out great.  The best part is being together, laughing, talking, laughing, crying, eating, laughing!  We've made dip-dyed t-shirts and wreaths out of ribbon and dyed-coffee-filter roses.  We've burned organza to make roses and various gift package tie-ons and tried our hands at painting canvasses.  Often one of us loves our creations and one of us hates them. 

 

Saturday at Melissa's house we treated glass (vases and candle holders) with different types of materials.  We learned alot.  We always say, "we're practicing this technique for later."  Not sure when LATER is???  Our results were mixed.  I think we agree that the best part was the bagel sandwiches....MMMmmmmm.  Melissa provided lots of glass options for us.



The cylindrical vase we put rubber bands around to create a masking effect.

Next, we took them out to the back yard and sprayed them with white primer.

While we worked on some other stuff, we left them to dry.  After removing the rubber bands, we came out with this!  I sprayed mine with some clearcoat so the primer wouldn't flake off.  It's not perfect, but I like it. 



Here it is filled with some of Melissa's beautiful Calla lillies. (I'm jealous.  I love Callas and I can never seem to get them to grow at my house.)

And here are some of our other finished projects.

So next month is my turn.  Wait and see!











Quiet Book

My mom and I made grandboy Strong a quiet book to use at church.  We bound it with rings and grommets so that we can add new pages and take some away as he gets bored with them.  It was a fun project and many of my friends have asked to see the finished product since they saw all the cutting out, etc.  I am including just a few pages....my favorites.

 





This is the first page.  It a tactile page he can feel.  The different ribbons and loops are fun to play with!

 

This is the work truck page.  Strong loves the trash truck!  There are little trucks in the garage...

 

 Here is my absolute favorite!  I love the counting page with the buttons and the paint palette with paint brush.  He can button and unbutton the paint blobs or use the paint brush to pretend he is creating a masterpiece.

 

Strong can put his hand in the baseball glove like his uncle and grandpas.  In the barn are finger puppets to play with.

 

 Last, but not least, is the toolbox with tools inside!  Strong can pretend to hammer and saw, and use a wrench and screwdriver.  What fun! 

 

We created several more pages, not shown here.  I am appreciative of the many people online who have willingly shared their ideas and patterns to make it easier.  Everyone's always look a little different, which I really love.  Thanks for working on it with me, Grandma Ina! 



Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Today is my daughter's birthday.  Emily Suzan Dunbar.  She's a beaut.  From cradling her as a newborn...

 

...to loving her fun and entertaining growing up years...

 

 

...to enjoying her holding her own little babe...

 

 

I have loved everything about being her mamelah.

 

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

 

 

Jackson's Garden...really?

 

We had a big yard clean up day last Friday.  This is just one of the views before we started.  Oye.  If anyone knows how to get rid of grapevine that has grown out into the yard a significant amount, please leave a comment!  We started the day nice and early, with the full intention of getting everything cleared in one shot.  HA!  I think this photo doesn't adequately show the tangle of vines that this area had.  You can't see it, but there is an actual tree under there.  And it looked like some"one" or some"thing" may have been taking refuge inside.

And here is another view...sort of behind the house.  This is actually quite embarrassing.  Who let's their yard get this out of hand?  Us, that's who!  As the day progressed, Free and Emily were hacking away at the grapevine, Jack was taking out some other bushes, and I was weed-whacking my way through this part of the yard.  There is a little, OLD shed back there, and I had to do considerable work just to find it.  On my search and destroy mission I found a little apple tree that was in the process of being overtaken by a beautiful, blooming wisteria vine.  Although, I doubt the apple tree thought of the wisteria as beautiful.  Behind the apple tree is a pomegranate tree, with brown, dried-out, hanging fruit.  Sort of creepy looking.  And in the corner is a very tall mulberry tree that I thought belonged to the neighbors!  Nope...all ours.  I feel quite sorry for those neighbors...    

Little Strong was having a great time playing under the tree, watching all of the madness.  He loves being outside more than anything.  We need to remember that a big part of why we are doing this is so that he can be safe outside.  He was filthy by the end of the day, and was thrilled when Grampa carried him around.  

Free discovered termites in the avocado trees.  Since we really can't do much about it now, we needed to make sure that the dead parts were removed from the roof.  He got the job of getting up on the roof.  He cut off the smaller branches, and then he tied an old hose (that's all we had!) to the large limb. Jack and I held the hose really tightly while Free cut the limb.  We wanted to keep it from hitting the greenhouse window you see here.  Success!  I was actually amazed that Jack and I didn't tumble over, but we were good!

The question really IS "why now"?  Jackson always loved a yard.  He didn't always follow through, but he often planted tomatoes or peppers, and he had great dreams of a nice, relaxing yard.  When he was preparing to come home from Mexico, he talked about it.  He finally allowed himself to think of a life at home.  His desires were simple.  Mowing the lawn, watering, sitting outside.  Such simple things.  He never got to achieve them in this life.  We are preparing for a celebration of his life on Saturday, September 14th, when we will dedicate this space, whatever it may look like, as "Jackson's Garden."  We will work hard to make it a place he would be proud of.  I will keep you updated on our progress...