Shhhh...they are sleeping.

Ellie was asleep by 7:30 and Mary by 8pm. Woohoo! I think John fell asleep with Mary. It's nice and quiet in here.

I've been thinking a lot about our home and property. We are so happy here. I'll never forget the first time I stepped into the house. We came by to see it in November 2006. The previous owner still lived here, but was kind enough to let us come see it. She sold the house to John's Dad and Step-Mom and we ended up buying it from them in June 2007. So anyway, we walked into the kitchen having no idea what to expect. The lady had several animals in the house, and it was very (to put it mildly) messy. But I immediately saw through the mess. I saw it as a home. It was cozy. Sure it needed a little TLC. But I loved it. I can't believe that was 2006.

We came back up here at Christmas and the house was empty. We took some pictures. We talked about putting our Evansville house on the market, and about what improvements we'd make to this house before we moved. John still had to figure out what he'd do as far as a job, etc. Anyway, here's a picture John took of the front of the house in December 2006.

Turns out those trees being SUPER close to the house were causing MAJOR erosion issues. So they got cut down, the house repaired and the downspouts re-routed. So when we bought the house, there was nothing around it as far as landscaping. I can see it in my mind though. We started by planting our plum tree in September 2007. Last year Mom brought some ornamental grasses and they are on the end of the house. Now I've planted a row of hostas on the side of the house. Yesterday, we mulched those two areas.

When the grasses are up for the year, I'll take another picture. I have a row of coneflower seeds planted in front of the grasses, but they haven't come up yet. Hopefully they'll be up this week.

Here's another area we mulched yesterday. I call it the daffodil garden. There are ferns from my Grandpa Joe's woods, columbine, some big hostas that my sister in law gave me this spring, and some small hostas I brought from Evansville.

Isn't this a cool picture? I took that around 8 in the morning, and by 10:30 it had bloomed.


These poppies are planted next to our new maple tree, on the opposite side of the driveway from the daffodil garden. The maple tree is the outer edge of what I call our "front" garden. But there's no garden. It's just in my mind right now. I want to completely change the front porch before we finish landscaping the front. Who knows when. Someday.

And here's the best before picture of the view as you pull up to the house.

See those planters outside the garage? The were completely rotten (they were old wooden barrels) and were actually being held together by the ivy.

Now, we have these BEAUTIFUL planter boxes that John made me when I saw something very similar in Cottage Living. I have pots inside, and I just got them filled with annuals on Friday.


You can see our plum tree (that's decided to grow crooked, we're getting ready to stake it back up and hope for the best. John thinks the wind comes over the house and encourages it to grow that way.) next to the house. I think it's tripled in size since we got it. The new maple and the poppies are off to the right, just barely out of the picture.

I'll try to take more pictures later this summer when my annuals are bigger and the grasses (and hopefully the darn coneflowers!!) are taller.

And now, some random pictures.

Mary and "Bippy" the turtle whose life was saved yesterday when John and Mary found him in the road on the way to get the mulch. Mary had never seen a turtle up close before. She and John took him down to the creek and he jumped right in and swam off. Mary named him Bippy. Yesterday afternoon and today I heard "What do you think Bippy is doing right now?" about 400 times. We'll never see Bippy again I am sure, but I do hope he's happy down in our creek.


The same poppy as above, this pic taken about 6pm.


The morning dew on one of the hostas up by the side of the house.


I hope we never move from here. I hope I have years with this house and yard to make it as amazing as I see it in my head. I hope the girls will love to garden as much as I do. I hope my Mom will continue to come over in the spring to help me divide and move plants. I hope that friends and family keep giving me their free, extra plants so that I can look at them and have memories of each person. Stay tuned and watch it grow with us:).