What I've Been Working On

My friend Julie is having a baby in August (yay!) and her baby shower was last Saturday. I had been planning on just buying something off of her registry, but then I saw what our friend Leah had planned! Leah made Julie a really awesome baby scrapbook so that Julie can just add pictures in after the baby is born. I decided I needed to give Julie a more "personal" gift as well.

My gift isn't anywhere near as cool as Leah's, but I really liked how it turned out:



In case you can't tell, it's a bib on which I cross-stitched the little dog and saying. I did get Julie something off of her registry as well, but I was really excited about being able to include something I had made myself! I finished Friday night, in the nick of time :)

Backyard Gardening

Last fall, the neighbors that we share a back property line with put a fence up. Both us and the neighbors have large picture windows facing the back, and two of our arborvitae had died, so we were happy to have the fence put in. Now we don't have to look out our back window right into theirs!

Anyway, as soon as I saw the fence last fall, I knew I would want to plant a flower garden in front of it. I've already put some things in and have a few more items planned but not bought yet. Here is what the fence area looks like now:


I'm hoping to put another picture up next summer that has a lot more color in it (and a lot less fence). We'll see!

Also, we bought and planted a lilac bush in one corner of our backyard. I absolutely love lilacs and hope to enjoy this bush for many years to come!


Since I just cut back to working part time this week, I'm hoping to be able to spend a lot more time gardening this summer. It's something I really enjoy. Grow, flowers, grow!