While out and about this morning I saw this…

and God brought this to mind.

The Sunflowers have started to bloom this week. Our Sabbath morning started with seeing our first Sunflower fully open which was a sweet gift! Sister did laps around the downstairs screaming and dancing along the way. She was so excited!!! These seem to be a smaller variety but no matter they are bringing our household much joy! I love the process of watching them unfold and I love that they are all in process. They seem to be so much like us. . .we are all in process and we are all in different parts of the process.

The garden still amazes me! I mean food actually grows out there! It really does blow my mind sometimes! Saturday morning I went out to pick a few things and just check on the garden in general to see how everything was doing. 5 cucumbers, a pile of beans, several jalapenos, squash, okra and zucchini all went into the bucket to come back into the house. Food growing in my yard! Wild! Yes, it is work but it is still neat and exciting! I went back out to look around the garden one last time and I spied the baby watermelon! Watermelon growing in my yard! Amazing! I mean yes, I planted it but you always think, at least I always think, will it really grow!? There are so many things that have to work together to create little veggies and fruits that grow into big veggies and fruits. Who knows if they will make it to full size (maybe the large problem is that I am a negative thinker) but the baby watermelon was such a fun surprise! I went out again this evening to water and I found a honey dew growing as well! They are so cute when they are small! God is amazing in the way that He creates and grows things! Definitely amazing!

I spent rest time yesterday outside in the front yard. We recently had our bushes torn out as they were growing very old and tired and I also was growing tired of them so out they went. I replaced the bushes a few weeks ago with a the smaller Firepower Nandina and I am really excited about that choice. It took me forever to decide but I think that overall we are happy with them. We also have a TON (understatement) of monkey grass in the front beds which was fine with the larger bushes but now that we have the small bushes it needed to come out. I have definitely been putting this job off but after finding some thyme on clearance (I cannot remember the name of it but it will have white blooms in the spring and fall) at Home Depot I knew that it was time to dived and conquer the monkey grass. I finished one side but still have more monkey grass to pull out on the other side. I think that I could of finished but a bee sting slowed me down. I have not been stung by a bee since I was little but it still hurts even when you are older!!! Brad actually took the day off yesterday so he came to my rescue with ice and baking soda. He is my hero! It did feel good to accomplish at least part of this huge project and play landscaping for a day. Playing pretend landscaper is so much cheaper than hiring a landscaper but it is a ton of work!

We love flowers in this house! Especially sister who would be perfectly content if we lived in a field of nothing but flowers (minus the bugs mind you).

On the 4th while we were enjoying the pool we were also greatly enjoying our surroundings set in the midst of a beautiful garden.

I ran around and snapped some pictures trying to capture some of the beauty and wanted to share.

We did try a row of flowers in our garden this year with not a ton of luck.

We have had a few but I think that next year we will have a designated flower garden that sis and brother can get into and our of on their own (the garden has a fence) and pick the flowers until their hearts are content which means the garden will be empty but our flower vases will be full!

Brad and I escaped a few weekends ago to Asheville NC. It was a wonderful little getaway! We ended up staying downtown and having a yummy dinner at a local Italian resturaunt which was super tasty. I was hesitant to go to Biltmore as we have been in the past but I did really want to walk through the gardens there. We ended up buying tickets, as that is what one has to do even if they just want to see the gardens, so after a speed round trip through the house we hit the gardens and spent a large part of the day walking around and seeing many beautiful things. It was really wonderful to just be with Brad and to be unhurried. We both love taking pictures so we spent a lot of time doing just that throughout the garden. I love that we both enjoy pictures and I love that we both see things so differently. Looking through his pictures I gained a new appreciation for some things that I might of passed by as I was able to see them through his eyes. I am much more of a zoom in, close up kind of picture taker and Brad is a whole picture kind of guy which is actually how we are in real life as we deal with things. He is great at seeing the picture as a whole. He can take in the whole story of what is taking place. I however tend to get really intense with the little tiny details of the story. I love that God chose to put us together and I love getting to walk through life approaching things differently and learning from each other.

Welcome back blue sky! We have missed you!!! Please stay for awhile!

The ole’ blog got a little dusty again! It turns out that after that big cup of tea things went down hill a little more as brother broke out with an allergic reaction to some medication. Thankfully he is on the mend and spring decided to pay us a visit so we have been outside a lot these last few days.

Spring always seems a little tricky as it appears enough to get things blooming and growing and then we will have another cold snap and the cycle continues for a few weeks until it finally decides to set in. We are taking advantage of the tricky spring as I mentioned we have been camped out outside for these last few days trying to drink in all the wonderful sunshine and warm temperatures. Every Spring it never fails that I get so excited about the blooms on the tress and the flowers on the ground. Every year I take pictures of the beauty that surrounds our house. Even though it is always pictures of the Bradford Pear Tree blooming and the Daffodils each year the pictures look a little different and I see a little more detail. I am so thankful that God cares about the details! He cares about the details of our lives both big and small and he even cares about the little tiny and delicate details of blooms. I love that!

After a long week of snow and cold temps we hit the 60’s this weekend (what a treat). The snow was great but I forgot just how wonderful the 60’s are! These are a few pictures that I took today from just outside our door. I am looking forward to Spring. . .in a few months!

The colors have been beautiful here this week. There has been a lot of outside time trying to drink it all in. We have had lots of conversations about colors, leaves and how they bring God GLORY and tell of Him and His amazing creation. He is an incredible creator! I am not sure that I ever would of thought to make the leaves turn colors but I am so thankful that He did!