How does your garden grow...???

I took a little stroll outside in my yard yesterday to check out all of my flowers and my vegetable garden.  Amazingly, everything is growing so well!  We haven't had any measurable rain for a long time, but my mother in law, Debbie, has been faithfully working in the garden and it really shows!  She has a wonderful green thumb when it comes to gardening, whether with flowers or veggies.  

                                      

                       Doesn't this look great?   
John was working in the garden as well, and picked a bunch of radishes!  My wonderful husband has been doing a lot of the watering of the garden.  He and my son, Derek, planted the whole thing.   But, don't worry!!  My time is coming when it's harvest time....I get to do all the freezing, canning, and cooking of the garden!  

                                      
               I found our first cucumber of the year!   

                                     
I also seen a lot of tomatoes growing and tons of blooms!!

Big boys

Romas

cherry tomatoes

look at all those blooms!

                                         
             Our squash and zucchini are blooming too! 

    Well, you've seen the vegetable garden....so here are a few pictures of the flowers that were starting to bloom.....

Mums already??

columbine

 Look at the best husband in the whole world...planting more flowers for me!!!

my husband, John

                                        
 I could spend all day outside with the flowers and my garden.   My kids enjoy planting and watching it grow.  It's how we got Derek to eat radishes, onions, and zucchini.  Emily loves helping to make pickles and salsa in the fall!  I hope you enjoyed all the pics.  Feel free to leave your comments below!                                                                     

More flowers....

     Over the years, I've had a lot of girls spending the night with my girls.  You know how it is.....cute little pajamas, fixing hair, playing with stuffed animals, dolls, horses, and watching cute movies that makes them tear up!  Then swimming in the pool, catching a thousand lightening bugs, Popsicles......well you get my point.   
       Last night was the first time that Derek had a boy spend the night.  Oh what a difference!  The sounds that come out of those boys!  haha  They wanted to sleep outside in the tent with sleeping bags, jugs of stuff to drink, listening to the bugs and frogs and playing games.   Fought over flashlights, and who was going to sleep with Joey, the huge chocolate lab who runs the back yard.  It's funny how boys and girls can be so different!!  I hope Derek had fun last night.  Although, I know he didn't get enough sleep! 

Derek and Cody making faces!

                                      
         Recently, we planted a few flowers at Mom's house but we still had some left to weed through.  My perennials have  tripled over the last few years.  So John and I chose to make over one of the flower beds at church.   We added hostas, coral bells, and several other perennials.  We also purchased some very colorful annuals and some pretty red mulch.  I think the colors of the flowers just look so vibrant against the red mulch.  Not too mention there is a dark red brick wall across the yard that it reflects well from.  Just trying to take the eye off of the country blue.  lol

Hostas are in

Coral bells are in

annuals and mulch in

much brighter

here are come of the original flowers

Pretty?

      The green grassy looking stuff is ground cover and will have little purple of blue flowers on it.  So, what do you think??   I hope everyone likes it.  We enjoyed doing it!      
            I just had to share the cute picture of the day with you all.....I was up and down all night with a stomach ache...and when I got up this morning I noticed our tom cat, Brady all comfy cozy at the end of the bed!!! Can you all say SPOILED?

Brady

                                     
                                       
  I love comments!!  Please click on the word comment below and let me know what you think about this  or other posts.  Is there anything you would like to see on My Blog???  Let me know.  Hopefully I will be having more recipes coming up!

June.....

We have been so busy already this summer!  Last week when we were out running our errands....our windshield got hit by a rock....We were so bummed!!  So off we went to Glass Specialty to get it fixed!  Wes and Linda are very sweet people and the windshield looks fantastic!

Later that day we ended up at Taco Bell.  Emily's BFF, Courtney, was with us...

        You can tell that Derek was thrilled about having another girl around!  haha

As most of you know....John had a small tumor removed from the back of his head/neck area..

His surgery was a success and Dr thinks it was just a fatty tumor.  We will find out for sure in a few weeks.  John has 7 staples and will have them removed on the 11th.  In the mean time, Derek is helping mow the yard and is using the rider for the first time...

He did a great job!

A few days ago, Derek and Emily and I went to Galesburg and they begged (I really mean bbeeegggggggeeeddd!!!) for a frosty....so here they are enjoying their chocolate frostys!

They crack me up!

On Sunday, June 3rd....John and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary.  It just so happened we had six kids with us after Sunday School, So we celebrated by taking them all to McDonalds!  lol  

Kayden and Ieshia

Alysia

John and Derek

BFF's  Courtney and Emily

I was there somewhere...oh yeah....I was the one taking pics!!  (as usual)

Ieshia's sisters were here and spent the night with her.  They have gotten taller since we seen them last!

We spent last night over at Mom's planting flowers.  For her birthday, we landscaped a little in the front of her house.   She had some horrible bushes that were taken out....and the front needed a little sprucing up.

We planted hostas, Coral bells, mums, geraniums, daisy's, dahlias, and a few other plants too. I think it looks real nice.   

John also put up a few more hooks for her plants...

  Today was the last day for volleyball camp.  Emily has been going to United School by Monmouth for their camp with her friend Courtney.

Today I went over and watched them do a lot of drills that they learned.  Emily had a lot of fun!

                                    

Family Day

It's nice when we can take time out of our busy schedules to spend some time with each other.  It seems like everyone gets so busy that it's hard to have family time. Oh, how nice it is to spend time with my kids and grand kids.  Yesterday, we met at Pizza Hut for lunch and then went shopping together. 

Lyndie

Blaize

Emily, Blaize, Ieshia

Derek and I

Ieshia and Sharayah

Lyndie and Emily

                                        
What beautiful smile they all have!  We had fun spending the day together.  Later on......I took Emily to softball practice and she practiced batting....

   The rest of us were sitting and eating ice cream!  yummy!   Later on in the evening, we went and watched my other daughter, Ieshia, play in her softball game.

      Above is Emily, Kirk, (a family friend) and Derek watching the game!  Final score was 15-13  We Won!


      A few days ago, Emily and I were out checking my flowers and she took a few pics.  She caught a butterfly on the lilac bush!  Here are a few of her pictures she took!    

    Earlier that day, Derek and Emily helped me plant some of my canna bulbs.....

                   I have a lot of them to plant!    
Our wonderful pets were hanging around......

Mocha

Purdy

Brady    

Have a great weekend!!