Yard Work with Toro

Well friends, you picked a good blog to read, because I have an announcement to make!

Drum roll please....

We. Did. Yard work.

Oh! And we're having another baby. That too. 😊 But I'll talk about that in another post. (Aka, newwww nursery!!!)

I'm honestly not sure which is more impressive -- the yard work or baby #2. 😂 Life has felt crazy lately. Between getting everything ready for the grand opening of SUPPLY, and barfing more than I'd ever like to, thanks due to Baby #2, our yard got wayyyy out of control. Ferns everywhere. Tree bark everywhere. Weeds, and dirt, and chaos. See photos for proof. Even Penny was like "🙀". #sorryneighbors #dontworrywetookcareofit

Enter Toro to save the day. 🙌🏽 I've partnered with Toro to show you their new Toro PowerPlex™ 40V Max* Lithium Ion Products -- and they're just as awesome as they sound.

T.J. was pummmped up about the new Brushless Blower. As you can see we have some really big trees on our street and he is the one to handle all 1.2 million leaves that fall from them come October. The blower worked great to clear away all of the bark, leaves and dirt.

I trimmed back all of our ferns because they'd just gotten too crazy, while T.J. used the String Trimmer to edge along all of our sidewalks. We'd never done this before, but it looks so nice afterwards!! What? Are we grown-ups or something!?!

The string trimmer also rotates from an edger to a trimmer, which was perfect for the madness happening in our garden and back lot.

It was really enjoyable working outside with T.J. on this project. 💕 We listened to Good Old War, talked about future business ideas, and went through an entire bottle of bug spray. Poor T.J., he's just too sweet -- he get's eaten alive. Thanks for taking one for the team, babe!

We decided to mulch everything, even though it's late in the season for it, and it turned out so nice. I used the Brushless Blower to clean off the sidewalks, driveway and front porch when it was all done. My favorite part is clicking the battery into place. I feel so cool every time I do it. 😂

After several hard days of work, I made our front porch look happy again to celebrate a fresh yard and summertime flavors -- 14 grain bread with The Peach Truck's Jam and lime/mint ice water.

Ahhh.... no more weeds. Now I'm off to daydream about a nursery for Baby #2. 

Our 2017 Garden | Step 1: Buy Plants 🌱

First of all, it is only Tuesday evening and I already feel like it's been a long week. 😂 Most of that is due to the fact that June's had a rough couple of days. She just seems... off. Extra tender. Extra frustrated. Extra everything. Poor girl! Added with the fact that we'd planned to start potty training yesterday, and have since thrown that out the window entirely because she just cries and cries and says "Noooo please" when we ask her to try sitting on the potty, I am also feeling extra tender. Extra frustrated. Extra everything. Oi vey. 😂 That's just motherhood sometimes. I am learning to lean into it and be okay with tossing everything out the window and just enjoying what the day has for me instead. One of the ways I am able to do that is by taking my real camera along for the "every day things" June and I do together. It helps me focus on how beautiful the little things really are.

Today's plan: buy stuff for our garden. 😍 Last year we ripped up part of the parking area at the back of our yard that we never use and put in four raised gardening beds! You can see those before/progress photos here!

June and I only grabbed a few of the basics for our garden today, as I'm sure I'll go back several times yet to purchase more once I've begun to fill the beds and figure out the design.

I picked up some yellow and red cherry tomatoes, a few pepper plants, green beans and cucumbers. June picked up 18 containers of Golden Lemon Thyme and had to be convinced that we only need one. "Dat one" she'd say and point to all the pots we "needed for our cart". 

I kept trying to get June to smell the herbs, but she'd either get it too close to her face and get upset (I told you she's tender these days), or she'd rub the leaves with one hand but then sniff the other! Ha ha ha! Which reminds me of this kid from America's Funniest Home Videos who licks his one hand but then uses the other to turn the magazine page. 😂

It's been so beautiful in Manheim the last few days, so I was happy to let Junie wander around outside before we paid for our items. After all, there was a giant gravel area outside and how. can. you. not. play in it?

So, there you have it. Just a little bit of what my day looked like. I am really looking forward to planting everything we bought today and seeing how the entire garden turns out. I learned a lot last year about which areas get the best sun, what we wished we'd planted more of, and which flowers did well in the heat. I'll share more with ya'll when I've started planting!

Are you planting anything this year? I'd love to know!

Also, if you're local - check out The Flower Wagon in Manheim, PA. Crazy low prices on the best stuff!

That Front Porch Life

I have always wanted a front porch to live on - to sip iced coffees, and read books, and have long afternoon conversations on. A porch to hand out Halloween candy from, decorate for Christmas and dry pool towels on in the heat of summer. I mean, technically we've always had a front porch. When we moved in to our little 1929 house seven years ago, the front porch was sufficient, but missing a railing. It left you feeling very open and exposed if you sat out there in your morning pajamas, or jammie-jams as we call them in our house, which wasn't very enjoyable. Years went by and we basically never used our front porch.

BUT NOT ANYMORE! Last fall, our talented friend Josh built us a porch railing and I'm so in love with it. I'm obsessed with the way it looks and the design he came up with. My only instructions to him were "something horizontal and stripe-y", while waving my hands side to side real fast, trying to picture what it would look like completed. 😂 Not only did we need a railing period, I also wanted it to look more modern and "us" than something we could have picked out at a local hardware store. Again, I'm so thrilled with how it turned out!

I'd been in the market for a baby gate for awhile when Munchkin reached out to partner up and promote their Vibe Baby Gate. It couldn't have been more perfect timing. June adores being outside and playing on our porch, I however, do not adore the idea of her falling down the porch steps, or climbing down them and half way across the block while I pop back inside for an iced coffee refill. I really didn't want to put a gate out there that was, for lack of a better word, ugly. Ha ha! Enter: the Vibe.

The weather has been beautiful lately. Yesterday we were out on the front porch for almost two hours playing with toys, reading books, eating snacks, pointing at airplanes, and all of it made my Momma heart so happy. Note June's dirty little feet in the photo below... I just... I can't even... 😍

One of my favorite things about the Vibe gate, besides how sturdy it is, is the mesh panel in the middle. Hello privacy. Not only does the color of the gate happen to match our front porch perfectly - like, weirdly perfectly - the clean and modern design fits seamlessly with our new railing. Amazing. Knowing the front porch is safe for June has quite literally added a whole new room to our house during the warmer months.

If you're in the market for a baby gate, I'd highly suggest Munchkin's Vibe Gate. It's baller. (Register for it if you're expecting, too!)

June's neighbor and bestie, Clara, came over yesterday to play. June was pumped up when she saw Kim and Clara coming across the street. I love watching her get so excited about things!

Now that kids are back in school, June loves watching the school buses drive by our house every afternoon. I picked up a toy school bus at a thrift store this week for $2.75 and she loves it. When they drive by she claps and yells "YAY!" for them, like it's a parade.

Clara has started giving kisses and leans in with this face when she wants to give you one. 😂 It's so cute. I can't imagine not having awesome neighbors like we do. You have no idea how often Kim and I text each other with "Can my kid come over and stare at yours?" when we're trying to keep them awake, busy or are just looking for an excuse to eat cookies together.

I'm already thinking about how I want to decorate the porch for fall. And Halloween. And Christmas. And next spring...  And then I get thinking about our back deck and all the possibilities that holds if we get that redone! (It's currently really ugly and sinking into the ground. For reals. 😂) Dinner parties and sandboxes and comfy chairs and all. the. plants. Next year!

This post was sponsored by Munchkin. As always, all opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting my blog and the awesome people who sponsor it.

Rattan Children's Chair for June!

You better believe I just about leapt over all the things in my way when I spotted this amazing children's sized rattan chair in the back corner of a thrift store a few weeks ago. I hadn't been having much luck all day and then bam!, there it was in all it's glory. And only $15 for that matter! I'm certain I would have paid twice as much, but obviously am thrilled that I didn't have to.

I love to thrift all sorts of things, but what I would call "secondary" furniture is always some of my favorite find! Things like end tables, chairs, shelves, plant stands, etc. (That's not to say that you can't thrift something like your couch or bed, but I simply haven't found those worth purchasing.)

I also love that thrifting items allows me to try out new styles and decades for our home. More than once I have thrifted an item that I wasn't totally sure about, ended up loving it, and then we upgraded to something very similar from a newer store - like Ikea, or West Elm or something!

Our front porch is pretty empty right now, minus the house plants I have moved outdoors for the summer, and June's new little chair. Furniture for the entire front porch is currently on my "things to thrift list" and the hunt is going well! Just need to find a few more items and then I'll be able to call it done! (At least for this season.😉 )

Chair - Vintage / June's Headband - Iris & Lark / Plant Stands - Vintage / Garden Boots - Target / Pacifier Clip - Ryan & Rose

Our Garden / Before Photos

I have always wanted a garden. Like, for yearssss. But every Spring, I forget to plant the things I want, or if I do remember to plant a few things, I've completely forgotten about them come mid-summer and they're all scraggly and literally laying down on the ground like we can't even. To give myself some credit though, I have transplanted quite a few ferns, hostas and other shade-loving perennials from my parent's house to our yard, and those do awesome every year! But our actual food garden has always been lacking one thing - my time. Seriously, if you want to learn a few lessons on patience and "good things come to those who wait", plant a garden. Have you ever seen how tiny carrot seeds are!?!?! They're practically invisible! So you just gotta dump out the package into the dirt and hope that in 3 months time they've turned into beautiful, Martha-Stewart-cover-worthy rainbow carrots. Things I planted in April are only now starting to show up. Geeesh!

Months ago, when we were having an unusually warm spring day, I was in the backyard with my friend/neighbor Kim, when she pointed to the (what I would call terribly embarrassing) overgrown area at the back of our yard and said "Oh, is that your garden?" 😂 Obviously that's why I keep someone like Kim around, because she believes that even the worst sections of my yard will somehow bloom into something amazing and edible, which is excellent for my self esteem, but alas, I had to laugh and say "No! Ha ha! That's our 'parking area'". However, it got me thinking. We NEVER park back there. Like, ever. So why not make it into a garden area? That would allow us to keep more of our grass/yard and give us space to plant stuff! Win, win! When we first moved into our house, the previous owners had installed six square garden beds right in the middle of the whole yard, which was not very functional. We tore those out almost immediately and the grass has grown back in quite nicely giving us a cute little spot of grass for June to play in.

Here is what that back area looked like before T.J. got started clearing an area for the garden beds. As you can see, our backyard backs up against the local lumber yard, which was really convenient when we needed to get stuff for our garden boxes!

It took us only a few hours to dig up the front portion of the parking area and prep it for the beds to be installed. And T.J. was looking pretty, pretty, cool in a tank top -- just saying.

About a week after we prepped the beds, we built the super easy garden boxes and filled them with dirt from our compost pile! Unfortunately I forget to take pictures of the actual boxes being built and filled. Oh well! But now that a few things are starting to pop up you can see the garden bed layout! We took some of the extra gravel from the parking area and moved it up in between the boxes to help control the weeds and mud.

Some of the plants I started myself from seeds months ago, and others I purchased at our local greenhouse just before planting.

In just the few weeks that have passed, you can see that the GIANT tree in the backyard has leaves now, and many of the other things around our yard are loving all the rain. In the words of Phyllis (Lapin) Vance, "The plants are gonna love this."

Just this past Friday, I planted a handful of flowers and herbs in the box closest to our back deck. I am really looking forward to having fresh herbs right beside our grill, and colorful flowers to look at while we sit out back and enjoy our summer watermelon and iced coffees. C'moooonnn summer!

I apologize for the glommy photos, it was literally raining while I planted these and took the pictures.

I am so excited to watch everything grow over the next few months and continue to clean up our yard and outdoor living areas so we can enjoy them more of the year. I really, really believe that living in a home you're proud of, in a home that brings you joy deep in your being, is so valuable to our lives and families - and your yard is a beautiful, living extension of that. I hope you'll take a little bit of time to plant a few things for yourself, too! If you have any questions you think I could answer, please leave a comment! I'd love to know what you're planting or hoping to grow!

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.”

— Luther Burbank

Good Day Sunshine

GUYS. The sun actually came out the other day and it was warm enough to put little June in shorts and it was basically the cutest thing of all time. June was thrilled to be outside, picking dandelions and finding rocks.