Mid-April Details

I'm still enjoying my bright red azaleas and I fully intend to put a brick on a limb as soon as I think it can handle it :) I've been really watching one of my amaryllis in the front garden because it's been about to bloom for about a week now! I can't stand the suspense!! So, this morning, it finally opened! It's not at 100% just yet but you can see that it will be gorgeous! White with crimson stripes! Yay! You know, at first I was skeptical about the things growin in the front flower beds, but now I just see it as a continual supply of fun surprises! :)

In related news, the hydrangea from Mrs. Cheryl is doing really really well! I'm a little jealous because I saw hers last weekend and it has the beginnings of buds :( Mine doesn't ... YET! Check out its progress though:

Something else is making insane progress (apparently I'm a goober and was out almost exactly one month ago taking pictures of these same plants!) Anyways, my canna lillies are just growing and growing- even though I chopped them back when we moved in! SEE:

And - I don't know if I posted it here or not but I have one semi-funny story... When we moved in, there was a pot on the front porch housing some scraggly dead strands of grass... I thought I might as well scoop that out and reuse the pot for some freesia :) As I was cleaning out the dirt I found a surprise - 10 (10!) bulbs all crammed into one small pot!! So I called my mom about them (Mom, do you remember this conversation? It felt like Christmas finding free bulbs!) I described them to Mom and she declared them to be gladiolas (a later trip to Lowe's confirmed this) and so I repotted about 4 of the healthy ones and hoped for the best :) .... And much time passed with no sign of anything growing :( and then, some sort of white puffy things sprouted so I knew the dirt must have "gone bad" like Mom had cautioned :( So I quit watering them and just left the pot sitting there. :( So sad :( .... Later, I remembered the pot and thought, "Well, I can put some brand new dirt in there and plant something else... Happy day!" So I went to reclaim the pot and... THIS is what I found:





*glee*

Ok, enough garden-talk :) As I mentioned, Brad, Wes and I went to visit his parents last weekend. We just drove over on Saturday and stayed the afternoon, but a good time was had in that short time :) We had a yummy lunch and Wes got to have catfish :) Then, we split up. Brad and Mr. Herb headed off to do some hardware shopping and I was headed to visit Kim :) LUCKILY, I didn't leave right when the guys left because they drove off with the key to the house and Mrs. Cheryl was locked out! So, she went with me to Kim's and we had a super fun time doing much-needed girl bonding :) PLUS, I got to check out Kim's garden! She's gonna give us a run for our money - She planted tons of yummy things and her lettuce is already sprouting!

While we were there, she even had a cool project for Connor and Wes to work on together:

Wes handled the yellow icing and Connor had the blue - I think they did a a beautiful job and we were all impressed at how well they worked together!

After soaking in our share of girliness it was time to regroup with the men at the Smiths' house... And Wes immediately set to work on his usual task at their house - Making signs to decorate their foyer. Usually, he makes warnings about their daschund - "beware of Lucy" etc. They have a fun stairwell that calls to Wes and all of his creative juices... As you can see, he certainly can make a lot of signs in a short period of time:

In other news, I've been worried about the Birthday Cupcake situation... The last batch I made was super tasty, but flat and ugly! So I bought new cake mixes AND better food coloring and tried it again - I even got Wes to help decorate! Much better, don't you think?

And, lastly - Wes has been making up his own game show complete with question and answer cards for the host (him) to use. So, he quizzed Brad and me the other night and one question stood out as my instant favorite!

I've included a photo below, but it's hard to read so I'll translate:

Question: What was a lonely art?

Answer: The Lonely Lisa!

I asked him if he made that up and he replied, "No, Mom, that's a real art!" He thought that was the name of the painting! So I explained that it was the MONA Lisa.... Then, he asked me if she was lonely and I said no, but a lot of experts study her facial expression because they can't tell if she's smiling or frowning or what she might be thinking... And he said, "Well, I think she looks lonely" :)