Eddie & Omar

This morning I woke up and decided that I needed to clean my house. I am a little ashamed to say that I haven’t mopped very often since I’ve lived in my house, which is really gross since my house is 85% tile. So, I put on some grungy clothes and opened up all the windows to get a nice breeze going through the house and I cranked up some music and vacuumed the whole house and then mopped the floors. Nate ran all the way from Mom & Dad’s over to our house to get in some exercise. Mom called and said she was going to Chipotle to get some food for the workers and told us to come meet her there. We looked like quite the Motley crew. Nate was wearing Autumn’s jammies as a t-shirt b/c he had been running bare chested. Autumn dressed herself and wouldn’t let me do her hair, so she was looking like a rag-a-muffin. Then there was me and I was just looking rough and tattered.

We got our food and headed home to enjoy it while eating out on the patio. The weather was absolutely perfect and I could have stayed out there all day. Nate was really hungry b/c he ate all of his burrito and then had Autumn feed him some of ours and ate a little bit of Mom’s!

Autumn wanted to go play in the sandbox and then I noticed her crouched over by the daisies. She was looking at them and smelling them and then she noticed me watching her and said, “I no pick them, Mama.”

While we were sitting outside and talking, we kept seeing these little flying bugs all over. One landed on me and I looked at it and realized it was a termite swarmer! I freaked out and went to find where they were coming from. There were HUNDREDS of swarmers coming out of the shed in the garden. I noticed there was this little green lizard sitting on the fence post right by the shed and he was eating some of the termites. Then I noticed some birds over there eating the termites, too. Mom said, “This is like our very own version of the crickets & the seagulls except we’ve got termites & sparrows!” We got a good laugh out of that and told Nate he has to spray the shed when he gets done w/ his route today.

I can’t get over how country-like and pretty the lilacs are on the garden fence.

I can’t help myself and just have to take a ton of pictures. It’s one of my favorite places in the yard, which is saying a lot b/c the whole yard looks like the Garden of Eden. Dad has done so much work back there to make it lush and beautiful. With all of the construction they’ve been doing, we were talking about how awful the backyard used to look when we moved in. It was just a big hill of dirt and now it’s completely different.

What would a day in Papa’s backyard be without a splash in the pool? Autumn took off her pink boots and very nicely placed them next to the hot tub before going over and dappling her hand across the smooth surface of the water to create some ripples.

After the boots came off, I knew it wouldn’t be long before her dress came off, too. Sure enough…4 minutes later she came over and wanted me to take off her dress so she could get in. I made sure all of my pockets were empty so that I could jump in after her just in case she went in further than up to her waist. But, that water must have been really cold b/c she didn’t get in too much further than this.

After she went swimming, she got cold and wanted to get out and get dressed. We decided to go over and check on the flowers on the lot and see if they were still in bloom. On the way over she got something in her boot and had to stop and take it out. She was telling me, “Wait, Mama! No leave me!”

We got over to the lot and I was sad to see that most of the flowers were no longer in bloom. Those things don’t last for very long, so that’s why I try to enjoy them as much as I can while they are there. We did find this pretty one that had white petals on top and purple on the bottom.

After checking out the flowers, we walked over to the lot north of us that has the abandoned barn on it. I tired a few different editing processes. I can’t decide which one I like the best. Which one do y’all like the best? This one is color pop and really brings out the blue in her dress.

This one is sepia tone. I thought it was cute that she kept lifting up her dress a little bit b/c of the tall weeds.

On this one I just darkened the temperature of the photo. I like how it kind of makes it look a little 7o’s-ish.

We came back into the house to take a little break and relax. Autumn spent at least 45 minutes loading up this little old-fashioned stroller w/ her dolls and especially her armadillo that Papa told her is named Autumn. She is such a funny little bug to watch. She entertains herself with such simple things, and I want to be more like that.

This is Eddie, one of the workers that was making all of the mess (but in a good way). He and Omar were awesome and were very friendly even though they didn’t speak very good English. We made sandwiches and asked if they wanted some and they said yes. They came outside and ate with us and they were telling us that some people are rude and just completely ignore them and don’t even say hi, so they liked that we were so nice and personable. I can’t imagine anyone not being nice, but maybe that’s just b/c I’ve always been brought up seeing how nice Mom & Dad are to people.

Autumn didn’t like it when Eddie used the power gun to shoot texture onto the ceiling b/c it was loud. She kept covering her ears and would run over to the plastic sheet they had up to keep the mess to a minimum and then she’d come running back over to Mom & I laughing.

After being cooped up inside for a few hours, she wanted to go back outside. We went out to the garden to see if there was anything that needed to be weeded. I couldn’t resist taking a close up of the lilac. I love how the petals at the top burst open first and then just work their way down to the end.

We got out to the garden and I couldn’t decide what were plants and what were weeds, so I didn’t pull too many. I didn’t know that the ends of onions turn into these beautiful flowers. I loved that just a few of these buds have burst into little tiny flowers and the rest are waiting to explode.

Once it got dark, we came back in the house. Eddie & Omar finished up in Mom & Dad’s room and packed up their truck to head home. Autumn wrapped in a blanket and went and sat on the floor by the front door to watch them. Then she went & helped Mimi fold the laundry. I hope someday when she’s older she’ll realize what a charmed life she has. I am trying to start teaching her now how to help with chores, though, b/c I want her to learn how to be a hard worker and know the value of hard work. She’s so good at helping me set the table and she likes helping me cook in the kitchen. It was a very relaxing and laid back Saturday.