Hydraenga

This year's spring weather caused havoc on my hydraenga bushes and I wasn't sure if they were going to do much this year or not.  Well, all I can say is that even though the bush itself doesn't look good (the leaves took a beating), both of them are overflowing in blooms!

This is the bush in the front (I did not take a pic of the backyard one).  You can kinda see the brown edge leaves.  But notice ALL the blooms!!!

The bush out front has always bloomed pink flowers and the one out back has bloomed blue.  For those of you who don't know, the type of soil determines what color flower you get.  There is some additive you can add to the soil to make the pink ones turn blue.  I've always thought about it, but never done it.  This is a flower in front.

But I've been also noticing that a few of the flowers are coming in blue!  Not sure what is causing this, but I'm not complaining!

Almost a two-toned flower - bluish, pinkish.

Remember When . . .

Came across this picture this afternoon.  Janae is 9 months and Allyson is 3 1/2 years old.  

Birthday Girl!

Today we celebrated Allyson's 8th birthday (which just happens to be her Grandpa Schrock's birthday too) even though her actual birthday is not until tomorrow.   We did the normal birthday tradition - Sunday afternoon party with both sets of grandparents, aunt and uncles.

Here are a few of the celebration pictures.

The Birthday Girl!!!  She is growing up way too fast!

My attempt at her birthday cake.  I had totally spaced buying the decorating frosting, so this is what I came up with.  :o)

One of her three gift cards!  She's at the age now where she likes getting gift cards/money so she can pick out what she wants.  She definitely made out like a bandit this year :o)

Allyson is also really liking chapter books.  She got four books and this is one of them.   She ended up getting the animated video of it too :o)

Her new jewelry box.

We got her a cd/radio boombox, and she really loved it!  Later that evening she was in her room listening to the radio.  I have a feeling this might be a regular occurrence now :o)

Mother's Day

Me and my girls!

Play Ball!!! Game Opener

Saturday was Janae's t-ball game opener and also team picture day.  After the pictures were taken, the ball playing started.

As you can clearly see her number is 1.  We did not ask for any particular number, but it might be cuz she was the first one to get a shirt (besides the coach's son) and this is what she got.  Before she got the shirt Saturday morning, we were trying to figure out what color her shirt would be.  Since her team name is the Grasshoppers, we were thinking either green or brown and sure enough it was green :o)

Here is Janae's first time at bat.

Waiting to run.

Running.  Notice she has to hold her helmet.  This is the same thing Allyson had to do when she played a couple of years ago.  I'm wondering if Janae got any ideas from watching home videos of Allyson :o)

Part of the peanut gallery.

Short stop.

I wish I could take credit for this picture, but I can't.  Branden was there with his much more advanced camera and captured this awesome picture!

Preschool Spring Program

On Wednesday evening Janae's preschool class put on their annual Spring Program.  This program was a showcase of some of the songs the kids learned during the year as well as talk about the different themes they learned about.

Here is Janae as an apple tree. :o)  Last fall the class had a field trip to a local orchard and got to pick apples.  They had a song to go along with this.

At the end of the program they gave us parents/family the opportunity to take pics of the class.  Here is Janae's class.  Can you find her?  Miss Jane, her lead teacher, is on the far right and Miss Diane, the teacher's assistant, is next to Janae.

Janae did a great job in the program.  I wasn't sure if she'd sing or not, but she did and we are all very proud of her!  It's hard to believe her year at preschool will be over next week!

Project Piano Bench

A few days after we got our piano, I got the notion to try and re-do the top of the bench as it is not in the greatest looking shape.  I've seen many DIY segments on TV and my brain started turning on how I could do this.  A plan started taking shape.

Here are the before pictures:

My plan was to find some wood no more than maybe 1/4" thick and wrap it in fabric.  My next decision was on how to attach it to the bench.  My solution - velcro!

I went to The Depot to look for something else but soon discovered that they had a lot of upholstry scraps that would be big enough for me to use.  I decided that would be the way to go instead of just normal cotton fabric.  I found some that I thought would go really well with our living room colors.  I bought that for $1.00. 

After talking with dad, he said he'd have some sheets of wood that would work, but Rodney would have to cut it down to the size I needed.  I picked it up on Friday, and then bought the velcro I needed at Walmart for less than $4.00.

I then thought that I should probably wrap the wood in some sort of batting to help protect the fabric and lo and behold, I found I had some in storage. :o)

Saturday morning Rodney cut two pieces to size and I glued them together later.  Now today I took on the challenge of actually seeing if my project would turn out.

Wrapping my board in batting.

Upholstry fabric wrapped and stapled around the board.  Figuring out how to do the corners so it wasn't so thick was more challenging than I was counting on, but I did figure it out. :o)

Velcro strips

The final result!  Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself :o)