April Showers..

...bring my favorite spring flowers.

My irises have been my faithful friends. I love them because they are so hardy! I didn't start out loving irises but they have grown on me.


This group has been with me for over 10 years. They have lived at 4 different houses with me and made it through 3 moves. I've lost a couple colors along the way but it is always hard to make sure you've got them all when you move.

When we moved to this house, these iris were lucky we even got them in the ground. My priority is always to get the daylilies in the ground first and we just didn't have much energy left when we made it to the irises. We basically just dug an area out, threw some bone meal in and planted them with the rhizomes sticking out.

This year the whites seem to be particularly hardy and are taking over. I've had this happen before when there is one color that is stronger, it will grow over the others and then the next thing you know, you only have white. So, I am labeling all the leaves. This fall I will dig them up and put all the whites in their own group.

I know. There are days when I verge on brilliance.

I've always had a weakness for clematis.

When we moved here, someone at the local nursery advised me not to try to grow clematis down here. She said they just don't do well.

But I love them and thought I'd give it a try anyways.

And look what I've got!

This is their second spring in my yard and they seem to be growing just fine thankyouverymuch!

So what's growing in your spring garden?

It's the little things that make me happy

While we were at the farm, the kids spent most of their time on the 4-wheelers. In fact, in almost every picture I took they are either on a 4-wheeler with their dad, Grandma, Grandpa, or Great-Grandpa.

There are many fields to ride through, ponds to go visit, and a gravel road to drive on down to the river. It's great fun!

During one of the rides we drove through a field where an old farm house used to be years ago. No roads to it. No foundation left. Nothing was left to show that it had ever existed.

Nothing except daffodils.

Lots and lots of daffodils!

There were at least 2 different varieties if not 3, but only one was still blooming. I asked my Grandpa if I could dig up some starts of them (seeing as how they were way back in a cow field and nobody ever saw them anyway) and he said that would be just fine if I thought they would live.

He's not a real big gardener.

And I know it's not the best time of year to dig up daffodils, but I'm just working with what I've got here.
Aren't they beautiful?

So my dad and I hopped on the 4-wheelers and rode back to the pasture and he dug up a couple clumps for me. The clumps have lots of bulbs in them because it has been many many years since they have been divided.

I am so excited!

How fun is that!?! Fancy daffodils from my Grandpa's farm. I can't wait to see what the other ones look like!

And I thought I had trouble

So we took a road trip to my Grandpa's farm last weekend.

10 hours up. 10 hours back.

Loooooong trip.

But it was so beautiful and we had such a great time.


We usually see lots of baby animals around this time of year so when the kids ran in saying they found a nest of babies, I wasn't that surprised.

I was thinking along the lines of, "Big deal, it's probably a nest of baby bunnies and we've already got 3 and counting of those in our own backyard!"

But I was wrong.

They weren't baby bunnies.

They were baby armadillos!


There were 4 in the nest and the mama was a big ole gal who wasn't very happy to see us. After she took off, the kids got adventurous and Grandpa caught them a couple to hold.

We checked all the backpacks twice to make sure we didn't bring any back to Texas with us.

***disclaimer*** no baby armadillos were injured in the making of this blog post

Modesty, it's that thought that counts

So my girl was trying on clothes.

A skirt to be exact.

She came in the room to model it with nothing else on.

I told her it fit just fine but that ladies wear shirts around the house to keep themselves modest.

She smiled at me and said, "Don't worry Mom, I'll keep myself modest on the way back to my room."

And then she took both of her hands and very carefully covered her belly button with them and ran all the way back to her room.


Great. It seems we've got a lot to discuss.

It's all worth it

All the nights of interrupted sleep.

All the shirts that will forever have the faint stain left behind by spit up.

All the exhaustion.

All the outfits ruined by a blowout.

All the endless loads of laundry.

All the diapers and binkis and onesies and socks and burp cloths.

It's all worth it.

Besides my husband heard somewhere that your oldest son

is the one who will pick out your nursing home and your

youngest daughter is the one who

will come see you.

All our hope is in her.

It's so worth it.