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| As you can see, my boys like to run around without their shirts on... |
In addition to my laptop, I will be tagging along a few new books that I am reading to write reviews on...it is the perfect time to read through those...and I think I might line up some book reviews for when I have the baby, too!
Thoughts of Summer and Flowers...
So, summer is almost over, to my dismay...which means it's time to repot the last flowers for winter soon. I have been admiring my flowers for the past few weeks, since I bought them. I'm amazed at how happy they are and how much they have grown! It's un-be-lieve-able! I wish I had taken "before" pictures of when I first purchased them...
Anyways, guest blogger, Melissa Cameron, wrote a blog post that was recently published here on Mommy Rantings, titled, "Three Options for Mom-Friendly Hobbies". It made me think about my love for gardening and flowers. In the house that we previously lived in, I kept telling myself that once we moved, I would buy myself some flowers. (We knew that the house was up for sale, so we had it in our minds that we would have to move once it sold.)
With the thought of pretty flowers in the back of my mind, moving from that house didn't sound quite as bad. Truth be told, we had fallen in love with the house. It was settled across the street from a park with six - or seven? - playgrounds. You could literally walk out the front door, cross the street and be at the largest playground in the park.
We Love the Easy Cleaning
The one thing that we didn't like was the hardwood floors...the whole house was hardwood floors, which means cleaning twice - sweeping and mopping. Two times the work as carpets! Now, we have only three rooms with floors that are not carpeted in the whole house. My bedroom and Nicholas and Wes' shared bedroom are hardwood floors, but because they are bedrooms, they are low maintenance and the kitchen is, of course, a tiled kitchen floor - and the tiles are easy to clean with my Mr. Clean Wet/Dry Microfiber Mop...if you haven't tried one of these, you will fall in love! And, the kids love it, too, because it's lightweight and easy to push around. In addition, the microfiber pad does a lot of the scrubbing for you. It gets into grooves and alongside walls with ease. (Ugh! Sounds like I'm writing a review! But, I definitely recommend it!)
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| Mr. Clean Wet/Dry Microfiber Mop |
The only thing I have to worry about around here is spills and stains on the carpeting, but Woolite Heavy Traffic Carpet Cleaner has been a lifesaver - it even helped to remove Spaghetti-O's and their orange stain out of the carpet when nothing else could! I've also heard that Oxi-Clean or a white vinegar and water mixture will do the job, too.
But, now I'm getting sidetracked...back to the flowers! So, when we moved to our new house that we are steadily falling in love with, I started looking for flowers for myself. Being the end of the season, the pickin's were slim.
My oldest son, Lucas, went flower shopping with me. Not that he had a choice. We were on our way home from his dreaded doctor's appointment where he received the mandatory DTP shot (for school).
We stopped at three different garden centers/nurseries before we finally found the ones that I fell in love with. We have a wonderful spot to hang some flower baskets, so I decided to get two hanging baskets. I chose four that I really liked and asked Lucas to pick his favorite two out of the four. I also ended up getting two each of African Violets and Kalanchoe. And two purple mums (for fall, of course!).
Within two weeks, I have had to repot the African Violets and Kalanchoe - and the mums are in need of repotting, too. The mums had no blooms when I bought them, but you will see that they have bloomed fiercely!
Without further ado, I introduce my precious flowers:
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| The gazebo-like entrance area to our house, where the flowers "live" right now. |
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| One of my hanging baskets - there were only purple and white striped blooms and a few white blooms when I bought them. The pink are all new blooms. |
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| The other hanging basket. It was only half as tall as it is now when I bought it! |
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| My pink Kalanchoe and one of my African Violets |
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| My red Kalanchoe and my other African Voilet |
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| My beautiful purple mums and my "pumpkin" in the middle. :) |
Off To My Day....
On a woeful note, I will miss sending my four oldest children off for their first day of school, as I have to be at the hospital to check in at 6:00 AM with Dylan. On a good note, the children have a wonderful woman who has walked into our lives named Jean to help them get ready for school and (hopefully) take pictures. My search for Mary Poppins - or at least a someone VERY close to her - stopped quick when I met her during my recruitment process for a mother's helper. I'm hoping that she stays with us for a while. :)
So, now that I've been able to get out my rantings and ravings today, I wish you a happy day and hope everything goes as planned today. :) Try to remind yourself that there are parents out there fighting for their children's lives (I'm not referring to me - our son is having an elective surgery) in the hospital and that, no matter what goes wrong today, there are people worse off than we are.
Enjoy your day, make the most of it and hugs your kids! I will post updates on first day of school, how surgery day went and how the pregnancy is coming along in the very near future!
