Woefully lacking in pictures

I think it's been a week or two since I posted a single picture. Since my mother may start getting complaints from her friends, I need to remedy that.

Here is a big reason why there have been so few picture.

This is L. She does not like to have her picture taken at the moment. (If she is true to form, like other children in the family, this could last for the next 10 years or so.) I was trying to get a picture of G. and L. together in their new dresses that a friend gave them. Instead I got this.

G. is quite cooperative, though. A little too cooperative perhaps, because she has entered the 'fake smile stage' where the child tried to smile on purpose and ends up grimacing. Like this. (Click on it to see it bigger.)

This one is a little better because A. was making her laugh. Don't you think the two of them would have been cute standing together in their matching dresses?

I had mentioned that we have been doing a little gardening over here. I wanted to show you some results. Results that are still a work in progress, but still progress. Here is a picture of some of the brush we created from removing some of the ugly bushes. You'll notice that there are still some large bushes in the background that we hadn't yet hacked down in the picture, but they are no longer there. Multiply this pile by three more large bushes, add several yews, and two evergreens to the pile, transport it to my backyard and you can then imagine the pile of brush sitting there waiting to be chipped.

Here is the same section of yard, taken at almost the same place as the one above. All the bushes are out and our two new apple tress are planted. We still need to think about what we are doing with the plantings around them, but we'll get to that.

And here is one side of the front steps. That tree is called a Seven Sons tree (there is a matching one on the other side) and they are supposed to get flowers in late summer and then have really interesting back/seed color in the fall and winter. Now we need to decide about some shrubs to plant around them, but I'm really enjoying not looking at the overgrown evergreen bushes that used to live here.

In other house puttering, I cleaned off the side porch and made it look habitable again. I love this porch. It is one of the nicest places to sit outside.

And another view.

I've also been adding flowers to various spots. I'm tired of ugly, ugly, ugly and think flowers always help with that. Here's the playhouse (which I intend to paint this summer to freshen it up).

And the back steps.

We also cleaned the back porch and washed the windows on it. It helps some, in that it doesn't look like squatters have been living on it, but this part of the house is so ugly that really nothing short of demolition will help it. (Yes, I know the stairs look nice, but they are new. One of the carpenters who worked on the kitchen built them because he was so offended by the ugly steps that were there before.)

Of course, now that I have planted all of these flowers, I must water them. This has not historically been a great strength of mine... this watering business. I'm hoping that my miserly tendencies will kick in and I will water them just because of the amount of money I paid for them. This method of thinking has worked for me in other areas, I hope it will work for me in this one as well.