Hi-ya....
Man, I feel like I have all kinds of things to catch up on with you....just random happenings around here. Thought I'd just dive in with a few of them today.
If you've been coming around here for very long, then you probably remember me telling you last month about how we lost our sweet Riley dog. I also told you that we'd planned to plant a redbud tree in Riley's honor and that tree was planted a couple weeks ago. Of course I had to stick my head out the back door and take a few photos while the nursery guys were planting the tree. I'm fairly certain this was the first time these guys had been photographed while they were on the job! Haha. They decided to ham it up a bit for the above photo. The guy in the middle even hid his face, and then we all had a good laugh after I snapped the photo. Honestly, I was glad they were laughing about it all because it was a little emotional that day, as they planted Riley's Redbud.
I was so happy to have the tree planted. Redbuds are beautiful trees and I've wanted one for a long time so it was a happy occasion and yet at the same time, it obviously reminded me of Riley. It was a little bittersweet that day.
I can't tell you how glad I am though, that we have that pretty little tree in the back yard. I know that next spring when that little guy is blooming it's head off, it'll bring us so much joy. It's a good thing.
I guess we have a new tradition now, when we plant a new tree. You might remember a similar photo of Bartley with "Blaze" (our Autumn Blaze Maple). I love this photo tradition. It lets us see, over the years, just how much a tree has grown since we planted it. And so, I give you the photo of Bart with Riley's Redbud. :)
And now, let me backtrack just a bit, for purposes of telling you another little story. See that purple bush way back in the back of our yard? The one over on the right side of the photo? That's a purple leaf plum bush. (Not to be confused with our purple leaf plum TREE in the front yard.)
Anyway, that's what it looked like the day they planted Riley's Redbud. However this morning, it looks like this.....
We had some CRAZY wind & thunderstorms that came thru in the middle of the night last night. Crazy. And when we went outside this morning, we discovered our purple leaf plum bush had been pulled up out of the ground and laid completely over on it's side. Bummer.
All in all though, I'm feeling mighty thankful this morning, that if we had to lose something, it was the purple leaf plum bush and not Riley's Redbud. It's all about our perspective, isn't it?
So moving on......last night, my sneaky-sneakster husband invited my family over for a little impromptu birthday celebration for me while my sister and her family were still in town. (My birthday isn't until next week.) Goodness, but I love that man. He played it off like he just wanted to make sure I got to see Baby Zoey and the littles one more time before they went back home (they live a few hours away from here), but really, he had my favorite cupcakes for dessert, he'd bought all kinds of food so he could grill hamburgers for dinner and he'd had them all help keep his secret until about 20 minutes before he needed to start cooking. Hard to keep the secret from me at that point! Ha.
I'm sorry for this blurry photo, but I had to show you this one because this piccie cracks me up! This is Baby Zoey, my niece. She's 3 months old. No, she doesn't eat chocolate yet. So you might be wondering how she got that chocolate all over her face. We were too. That's when we figured out that Malachi, her 2 year old big brother, gave her a big kiss right after he'd finished his cupcake and before he'd gotten his face cleaned up! Hahaha. Doesn't Zoey look like she's thinking, "I'm innocent! I didn't do it!"?
One thing we have around our yard all the time are bunnies. Precious little bunnies. Adorable little nose-twitching bunnies. Darling little thumpers with long ears and white cottontails. Dear sweet little turkeys that eat our flowers! Grr.
We've come to realize though, that it's great fun for 2 & 3 year olds to hunt for bunnies when they come to auntie & uncle's house!
Ally & Malachi wanted to go "pet a bunny" last night (good luck catching them!) so we went on a bunny hunt around our yard. Believe it or not, we saw 3 bunnies (although I think 2 of them were the same bunny, coming back again.....they're brave little dudes.). Ally just took Chi's hand and off they went, all around the yard looking for bunnies, holding hands. How adorable is that?!
And yes, she wore her sunnies for the bunny hunt.
Before I go, here's one more photo that melts my heart. Ally with her Uncle Bart. She was getting sleepy and snuggled right up with him. Sigh. So sweet.
Happy Saturday!
Wishing you a bunnies and cupcakes and happy new trees kind of day,
