Life as we go it

A friend of mine recently moved into a new home with her hubby and two kids. And last week she hosted July Crafty Club in her new digs :) 

One of the Crafty Club ladies came up with a great idea a few weeks ago --- to shower our friend with housewarming gifts when we showed up at her house for Crafty Club last week!

We all started brainstorming (and Pinteresting) ideas for cool homemade housewarming gifts. Each of us created something totally unique and brought it along with us the night of Crafty Club.

I'll share all of the homemade gifts the ladies made in another post, but for the time being I'll just share with you what I made for my friend.

I went the 'simple' route because the only time I had to make this was the day before Crafty Club & while the kids were napping (I procrastinated...big surprise).

I used painters tape to create a simple design on a cute little pot and then plopped a plant into it. Easy and inexpensive.

I found a cute 6" clay pot at Menards on sale for $1.50.

We've been spending lots of time in our yard, now that the weather's become more pleasant! There's a never-ending list of things we can do in our yard at any given time. 

Our front yard is almost all landscaping, filled with huge hydrangea bushes, shrubs, trees and a variety of perennials (crocus, tulips, bleeding heart, iris, daylilly, daffodils, decorative grasses, hosta, etc). I also plant annuals amongst the perennials once the weather is for sure going to stay warm. 

One side of our home is also landscaped with large shrubs and more perennials. Then there's a huge landscaped area between our deck and yard, and more landscaping that runs along the entire length of our backyard fence. And along an entire side of our garage. We also have a garden planted along the other side of our garage. Phew!

All of this landscaping + perennials + annuals = much to do! We're always trying to keep up with the raking and pruning and trimming and stick collecting. 

It's really therapeutic to me though. It's a great sense of accomplishment when you clean up a section of your yard and it looks good :) 

When Liam is napping it gives me an opportunity to get outside in the fresh air and just zone out. Plus I get a ton of exercise doing it, and Liam LOVES being outside. He either sits in his stroller and watches us do the yard work, or he'll walk around/sit on the ground and play with leaves, sticks and dirt. 

A few more photos I took of flowers growing in our yard right now:

I planted our garden last night. I planted mini pumpkins, which I think Liam will get a kick out of when Fall arrives :) I also planted lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini and we'll be planting a ton of tomatoes once we get the plants. We buy our tomato plants from our neighbor, Jane, because she does such a great job at getting them started. 

As much as I'd love to plant more things in the garden, we've decided to just get the rest at our wonderful farmers market every week. Our farmers market is open on Wednesdays AND Saturdays each week, so it's really easy to just run there with Liam and pick out some fresh veggies.