Lord, give me a green thumb

This weekend we got to spend some time outside finishing our little garden. Brandon built me a great planter box for planting veggies, and it's finally warm enough!
So here's what it looks like now...




From left to right: Camellia, cilantro, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, tomatoes, and a few green beans on the end.




Tomatoes- hopefully they'll do as well for me as they do for my PopPop!


Our friend Josh gave me this idea for how to hang our strawberries, and I must say they look pretty good so far. Now, let's just hope hope they grow!

We've both been pretty excited about all our new plants and our little veggie garden, so hopefully it'll be something we don't totally ruin.We're hoping to end up with some yummy fresh veggies!

Our Easter

Well, the Easter Bunny survived another year of not being caught by my Bailey-girl. I can't say it wasn't close, though. I've been kinda sad this year about not being with our families on Easter, so Brandon tried to make it special for me anyways. It was good being at our church and hearing Gordon preach on Easter. I always love the ways he interprets scripture- today he compared Jesus to the Undercover Boss. It was great. We decided to cook a big lunch after church. That was all the more exciting because the Easter Bunny brought me the new oven I've been wanting! We actually had a fun day cooking and doing a little spring cleaning, then tonight we grabbed dinner with some friends.


Easter lunch- EGGplant Parmesan, Brandon's all-time fave


Chopped Salad with homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette, definitely a new favorite


Carrot Cake for dessert!! Thanks Memommy for the yummy recipe!
(NOTICE how clean that oven is and that it fits not one, but TWO dishes beside each other!!!)

I'll take pictures of the new oven later in the week when we're done installing the microwave. Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

My hubby

Ok, so after last night's post, my wonderful father-in-law made sure I got hold of this keepsake. So here's a picture I'm sure Brandon will kill me for posting, but I just can't help it!!!

Is he not just the cutest thing you've ever seen?!!?

Dallas STARS!

Tonight we got tickets from Brandon's work in their box at the American Airline's Center. The Stars are one of Brandon's favorite teams, second only to the Cowboys of course. We've gotten to go to several games this year, but the game tonight was really great. Ott got a "hat trick" (or he did a hat trick?) which means he scored 3 goals tonight = big deal, and everyone throws their hats on the ice which is fun but kinda stupid to me because how are they going to get those back??? Brandon always tries to teach me all the rules and random hockey stuff, most of which I never understand. But I'm actually enjoying watching the games a lot. Tonight they won by a good bit (notice I'm not telling the score because I'm not reeealy sure what it was). But we had a good night. I just wish I had a picture of Brandon from when he played hockey to post on here because he was just so cute. But the picture of us tonight will have to suffice.


Go STARS!!!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Brandon's dad's birthday,
so we just wanted to wish him a very
HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I like this picture- taken when he was fishing with Brandon on some trip last summer. He's a great father-in-law, and he's taught Brandon much of what it means to be a Christian man and how to be a hard worker. I am so thankful to have such sweet inlaws- I just wish we didn't live like 14+ hours away from them. Sorry we can't be there to celebrate with a yummy cake from Casa Linda. We'll try to make it up to you. Hope you have a good one!

Landscaping

We've finally come to a stopping point for all the landscaping we've done over the past few weeks. And, again, I love the before and after pics to show the difference. I'll take pictures of the front soon, so here are the ones of the back yard...

BEFORE:








AFTER:











I'm gonna try some roses this year- we'll see how they do:)



We still have a few things we want to do, but that's it for now. Thankfully, we had a gorgeous weekend. Hope everyone had a good one!!!

Madness

Ok ok. I'll update my blog finally...March really has been madness. So busy, but (thankfully) not because of college basketball. I'm blogging today because we can't work in the yard as it's covered in SNOW. Yep, 5 more inches of snow in Dallas. Good thing I put off planting my tomato plants a little longer. I can't believe the Texas weather this year- I've never seen anything like it. It's been so pretty the past couple weeks. Friday night we were sitting on the back patio with friends eating ice cream, and then Saturday it was snowing! And they say tomorrow it's supposed to be 65 and sunny. What in the WORLD?!?! But today's been kinda nice. Brandon and I needed a day to just do nothing and relax, and catch up the blog of course. Here's a couple pictures taken earlier today.





Last weekend my parents were in town for several days. It was so nice. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. We went to 6th Floor Museum, did a little shopping, and Mom and I went to see Phantom of the Opera while Dad and Brandon did some home improvements. But mostly, we had a relaxing weekend with good food and some good movies. It's so hard being so far away from them, but it was such a treat that they took off work and came just to spend a few days with us.





I'm so glad they came to visit. Something about spending time with family just rejuvenates me and keeps me going. I feel so blessed to be living in Dallas and surrounded with such great friends, but I just need to spend time with my family every so often. Brandon's getting over feeling sick and I'm doing my best not to let all his germs get to me. We hung out with all Brandon's cousins on Thursday night to celebrate a bunch of the birthdays. Then yesterday we got tickets to the Stars game again from Brandon's work, so that's becoming a favorite thing to do. Other than that, we've spent a lot of our time outside getting some landscaping done and getting ready to plant a little veggie garden. But we'll wait to post pictures of all that when it's not covered in snow. Hope everyone has had a good weekend! If you are considering going to see The Bounty Hunter with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, I would highly recommend it. Meagan and I saw it last night as the snow covered our cars. Oh and also, I would highly recommend anyone to start watching Parenthood with Lauren Graham. It's on Tuesday nights and I just love it, kinda reminds me of Brothers and Sisters. That's all for now- I'll try to update again soon!

Olympics

For the first time ever, Brandon has kinda been obsessed with the Olympics, so they've been on a lot at our house. I am just constantly amazed at some of the sports these athletes commit their lives to. Like curling, for example. So weird! Brandon swears that its awesome and there's so much strategy to it, but come on. How silly would you feel if you were one of those sweepers?!?! And, by the way, I seriously think it would more appropriately be named hurling, not curling- after all hurling does describe the action more accurately- they're hurling that ball thing down the ice. Anywho, we've been enjoying the winter sports. And I respect these winter athletes all the more because I go back to the time I attempted to go snow skiing in highschool. It was brutal.

We've had a pretty lazy weekend so far. Last night Brandon and I had a nice little date night out, and today we've just kinda bummed around. Thank goodness for a dog who is as lazy as we are:) Tonight we're going over to Jared and Kristi's and I'm excited to get to see Colt. We haven't seen them in far too long so we're excited to get to see em. Tonight my parents are watching Allie's Step Sing show in Birmingham. She did all vocal directing for her club's show, so she's pretty nervous. Good luck Allie, wish we could be there!!!

Happy Birthday Daddio

Today is my dad's birthday, and I just wanted to wish him a wonderful long distance birthday from Texas. My dad is the best ever. He's really one of my best friends in the world, and I am so blessed to have grown up with him being the person I look to for guidance. He has always been there for me, but he has also taught me to do and think for myself. I only hope to be as good a parent to my kids someday. My dad is one of the reasons it is sometimes so difficult to be living in Texas, but at least we get to talk a lot. And luckily he has finally learned to text message:) I wish I were there to bake a cake and sing happy birthday you, dad, but we'll see you soon.


Happy Birthday Dad!!! Love you so much!

Snowwwwwwww

As everyone knows by now, it snowed in Dallas. A LOT. Like a record-breaking 12.5 inches- and we loved every inch. Brandon was off work and we had a great time in the snow, but Bailey had an absolute blast. Here's a few pictures and a video we took. After 24 hours of snow, this is what our house and street looked like...

Well now all the snow is melted and now life goes back to normal. But at least we had a few beautiful days to make the cold a little more acceptable. I had really fun girls night with Ashley, Meagan, and Miranda Lambert then Brandon played paint ball in the snow with guys from church. We had a great weekend and a very relaxing Valentine's day. Hope everyone had a good weekend!