Curb appeal and Luella Faye

So this was our house's front last week. It still basically is. But we did a few teeny tiny updates to the yard and the porch.

I tried to get a good picture of the whole thing but that tree pretty much covers our house.

I got some ceramic pots to put flowers in on the porch, which is an improvement from the plastic pots that our summer flowers came in. I also realized that I'm bad at keeping summer flowers alive because they need so much water! So I'm glad it's fall and we can have mums for a little bit. I know they die quickly, but I just plopped them into the pots and if they die, who cares...they were $5!

I am no landscaper. But Matt and I thought up this little scheme for the front "yard" that we have. We bought 4 boxwoods and 3 tall red boxwood-looking things that are supposed to shoot up quickly and be pretty tall and colorful. Then, we (okay Matt) took the scrubbier bushes out of the front and moved them to the back behind our tiny Japanese Maple tree to fill out that area a bit.

This is what we had going on before, so you have to admit it's a bit better.

I want to either get the bricks that are struggling replaced on the front of our house, or paint the whole thing, but for now I'm settling with painting the underneath of the little portico a light tan/cream.

It was a peeling dark brown before so it's a little lighter and brighter at least!

It's not a giant transformation, but for one weekend it made me feel a little better.

And now to Luella Faye.

She's such a big girl.

Here she was today getting ready to go pick Sammy up from school.

It's getting cold outside so she was all bundled. I love these little hats. I bought a million of them on sale for $3 at a Hannah Anderson outlet the week I found out I was pregnant with Wella. They are all tan, red, and blue since I didn't know if it was going to be a girl or boy. So no pink.

Our friend from church, Janeil, gave us this little Bumbo seat. I never had one for my other kids. It's really funny!

They really like sitting up in it, but I think she gets tired of it after a while (I'd think it would be a little hard on their spines don't you think?) so we just put her in it for a little bit. It's soft and foamy so it's comfortable at least!

And speaking of curb appeal....

...check out the new addition to our school, City Garden!

Mr. Frank built this little log house/gnome home for the kids this ear. Can you see that the roof has green mossy stuff growing off of it? I wanted to move into it myself when I first saw it. Too bad it wasn't there when Claire attended that school. She would have just put on a bonnet and called herself a pioneer girl for 3 years.

Ack! I just saw our mouse. Did I mention we have mice? We thought it was just one and we caught him, but now his family is coming upstairs to find him. Grose.