7 Years and Forever

    This week, My Love and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. I was thinking about it, when we got married, I was 22 and these 7 years have kinda flown by. In comparison, 7 years before we got married I was 15 and those years seemed to be much slower. Funny how that works. Regardless of how fast or slow time may move, I am so thankful that I get to do life with Luke. He's a wonderful husband and daddy, provider and friend.

As per usual, we celebrated our anniversary at the Itasca Family Bluegrass Festival. It was fun and Buirlen had a blast. He was quite the brave adventurer and tromped far and wide enjoying music, swings, tractors, and the great unknown...and he got nice and dirty. 

These two...They are already such good friends and it makes me so happy. 

My garden just keeps a growing and recently we've started eating things from it. Such fun. The other night we had collards, broccoli, green beans, and a beat fresh from the garden and I've already got a few packages of broccoli in the freezer. Yay!

I think that if flowers were emotions personified, zinnias would be joy. 

He discovered a perfect little hideout under the beans. He thought it was a pretty neat little place to hang out. 

Fresh produce!

The sunflowers just keep going.

Hmmm....Have you been in the bean patch by chance?

Summer fun 

Grandma Style

     I have been told on more than one occasion that I have a grandmaish style. Meaning that often the patterns and items I am drawn too are supposedly something a grandma would pick out. This has been brought up this summer as I am redoing my kitchen cabinets. I decided to line my freshly painted cabinets and drawers with some lovely contact paper that I found. The bright pops of color against the white just make me happy and I figured it would keep things from scuffing up as fast. When my brother stopped by the other day he commented on the grandma-ishness of the pattern. Then someone else pointed out to me that contact paper in and of itself is a rather grandmay thing. And I'm ok with this, in fact I've decided to just fully embrace it.

     Last weekend I came home from the store with a roll of that grippy mat stuff because Buirlen's booster seat kept sliding around on the chair and I thought it might solve the problem(it did). As I was getting a piece cut out and put under the seat Luke commented that that is also something that grandma's are known to have. And I decided then and there that, you know what, grandmas know what's up. They've been running their household's a lot longer than me and seem to have discovered secrets like "contact paper and grippy mats are useful things," so I'm just going to tap into that wisdom and rock my grandma style.
   Speaking of Grandma's, my Grandma and Grandpa Shearer just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. They are awesome and  I am so very blessed to have their wonderful example in my life.

Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Frances 65 years ago. 

This week my sunflowers finally passed me up, at least this one did. Non of them have bloomed yet, but I'm sure looking forward to when they do!

Yesterday, my friend Emily, her kids, Buirlen, and I drove south a few hours to meet up with my dear friend Katy and her kids for a quick visit. We visited a lovely public garden that gave me serious joy and garden inspiration. So many colors and types of flowers that I had never seen before....The few pictures I got do not do it justice! 

(Photo credits on these 2 go to Katy)

Buirlen and Brody. Cute little buddies!

A storm just rolled in and the rain sounds lovely as it comes down with rolls of thunder. May your evening be delightful and filled with the peace of The One who designed each and every flower, created marriages that last 65 plus years, and brings the rain. Good night!

"Where flowers bloom, so does hope." ~Lady Bird Johnson

"Love is not an affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained." ~C.S. Lewis

Crawfish and Flowers

    Last night, we had the chance to go to a crawfish boil. We had never been and it was a lot of fun...and tasty. It was at the fire station and Buirlen enjoyed making the rounds and exploring.

He thought this was fun...Luke mentioned that he probably thought it was a steering wheel. I think he was right because I caught him pressing the middle and making a honking noise at one point. 

I have been enjoying puttering in my flower garden lately.  When we moved here, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a whole row of peonie bushes. However, they weren't in a great location and with the upcoming siding project, were in the path of destruction, so I moved them and they seem to be doing just fine in their new location. I also moved the irises I had put in last spring. The past few years I've had sunflowers and zinnias in this spot, and I plan to continue with that but it is now home to my peonies and irises as well, plus a few different annuals. I do love flowers.

This guy is a good little gardener...Digging is fun. 

Helping mama plant impatients around the tree. 

There were loads of violets up around the house, so they got moved to be with the impatients. I keep wanting to go out and look at my flowers. 

My brother Jordan came over to hang out this past Friday and he helped me open up and clean out the porch for the season.

The hammock is back and open for business. 

We decided to play a game of scrabble when we were all done. It was warm and a nice rain was coming down...Pure loveliness. 

And as far as the latest installment in the Siding Saga goes, the steel and insulation is here and now it's just waiting for the time to get started. 

Luke brought the big truck home with everything on it as couple weeks ago. Buirlen thought this was  great. 

And lastly, my baby is growing up so fast. These two pictures of Buirlen waiting for Daddy to come home are just about 1 year apart. Life is good. 

May 2017

May 2018

May your week be grand!

"Flowers are the music of the ground. From earth's lips, spoken without sound." ~Edwin Curran