Thankful Thursday: SwaddleMe & Yard

It's thankful Thursday time! We all have so much to be thankful for and we love to take this opportunity just to write down each and everything that comes to mind. Please take this time to share with us what you're thankful for as well. If you have a blog expressing your thankfulness, please share the link! Without further ado, here's what we're thankful for:

Mandi's List:

I'm thankful for my brother. This sounds like a no-brainer, I'm sure. But it's worth mentioning! He called on his way home from work yesterday to chat and we talked about his day, work, etc. Man do I feel so blessed that I have such a great brother and that we have such a great relationship. I mean, we're practically neighbors (they live in our neighborhood) yet we still chat on the phone. He's one of the best guys I know, and I feel blessed to call him my big brother!!

I'm thankful for SwaddleMe swaddling blankets. They make it so easy to swaddle Mckenna. You just flip over the sides and it velcros on one side so it stays all nicely help together.

I'm thankful for a great hubby! Ronnie's been Mr. ChoreMaster the last several weeks. He's been taking care of all of the stuff around the house AND doing chores like planting bushes, decorating for xmas, etc....on top of being really helpful and doing 50% of the work with Mckenna! He's so amazing!!!!

Ronnie's List:

I'm so thankful for our yard. Even though I get super frustrated by some of the work required of it, not that I don't enjoy it, I'm just not good at it yet, I still love looking out to a green, lush yard. When looking for a house, having grass was really important to Mandi and not so important to me. I'm sure glad she stuck to her guns.

I'm so thankful for the children of our friends'. We had some friends over and they brought their little baby girl who is a few months older the Mckenna. It's nice to know people who have kids in the same age range as our little girl. Speaking of that, our neighbor had a baby about two weeks ago. Bonus!!!

I'm thankful for the area that we live in. It's so nice to have access to just about any type of store that you can think of within 2 miles of us. It was one of the main draws for this area, and now that we're living it, I see why. Need to make a quick grocery run? No problem, be back in a jiff! What's that, irrigation parts? They're on the way! Jezzabel needs a cut and color? You get the point :)

So, what are you thankful for today?

Landscaping for Dummies

As many of you know, Ronnie and I moved into our first home when we got married. We've posted a few photos, and I know we've raved about the yard. Our backyard is like a little oasis in the middle of the desert; grass, green, plants...the works. It is so wonderful....until you have to try to keep it alive in July, in the desert, when you're a landscaping moron.

Ronnie has been doing a great job. Using well over what environmentalists would consider our share of water, Ronnie's successfully kept the yard alive with gallons upon, gallons of it. The plan so far has been: water it, mow it, and hope that everything lives. The plan has worked well for the most part. The grass is green. And (most) of the plants are still living.

Last night, we decided to move from just mowing and watering and tried to tackle hedge trimming. I'm sure our neighbors watched in disbelief as tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum haphazardly cut back the bushes in our front yard. At one point, I realized I was cutting a bush without even really watching where/how I was cutting....it was at that point I realized we probably should have waited til it was even darker, so no one could witness this embarrassing attempt at landscaping. Most of the time Ronnie was using the hedge trimmers, he was laughing. "How's this?" he'd ask. "I have no idea," I'd respond. Talk about the blind leading the blind. I'm sure neighbors cringed as I'd bend down to pick up the debris, with my face just inches from where Ronnie was throwing around the hedge trimmer - talk about trust....or stupidity!

Anyways, after a few hours of cutting, raking, pulling and picking up, the yard does look better...in our opinion (I'm sure landscapers across the country would laugh at the shape of some of our bushes).

So here's to learning curves and giving it a good old college try. Anyone have any landscaping tips or horror stories for us?? Help us out or at least make us feel better by telling us how badly you stunk before you got the hang of it!