Garden and nursery progress

This past weekend my sweet mom flew up for a couple of days to help me paint the nursery!  It was so nice to see her and get to spend time together!  Here is the before picture of the nursery:

And here is the after!

The crib :-)

We still have a lot of color to infuse through curtains and decorations, and we will be adding a rocking chair/glider.  But I love the soft gray and white, I think it is sweet and calming.

Paint makes such a difference in a room!  Remember this hideously green guest bathroom that we inherited? (I love green, just not such a bold color in such a small, windowless room...it's overpowering.)

A couple of weeks ago I decided to repaint it.  I used some tan paint that I already had lying around and now it looks like this!

Ahh, so much better.  Now the shower curtain can be the star instead of the Kermit the frog walls.

In addition to painting the nursery, my mom helped me revamp the flower beds lining the walkway in the front yard!  She and James did a lot of digging because we have clay here in Maryland which is not conducive to growing flowers, so we had to dig out the clay and replace with garden soil.  I definitely could not have done that by myself and I am so thankful for their help!  Here's the before and after shots.

This was taken before we moved in, and the flower pots up at the front did not stay with the house.

And here it is now.  

We removed the ugly bushes by the front door and planted knock-out roses instead.  They should look great when they grow bigger.  And don't you just love the cheery marigolds and begonias?

Speaking of plants, my veggie garden in the back has taken off! One of my strawberry plants has given me about 5 little strawberries so far, and I just found two little green tomatoes that are starting to grow.  So exciting! It's a lot of work to garden, but I love the payoff.  A lot of beauty and some homegrown veggies are worth it.  I'm loving having my own house so that I can do these projects that I couldn't do in an apartment.  So fun.

Tomatoes and basil right after planting

Tomatoes now.  The basil quickly got eclipsed by the tomatoes and never grew.

It's Spring!

Spring has finally arrived!  Just a few weeks ago it was snowing, so we are all very excited for the warmer weather!  No more coats and gloves.  Around here, forsythia, Bradford pear trees and cherry trees are everywhere, so we're seeing all kinds of beautiful blossoms.  Flowering trees are something that I didn't see much in Houston, so I soak it all in.  

Forsythia

Bradford pear

Some kind of cherry tree

This weekend I planted a veggie garden in pots on my patio!  I'm so excited; hopefully my first foray into edible gardening won't be a total bust.  I now have two tomato plants, two bell pepper plants, two strawberry plants, a zucchini, a cucumber, and a basil.  I also planted some Dahlia bulbs on a whim.  My patio looks nicer now.  It's fun having a backyard!

James and I also went up to Babies R Us to get some stuff for the baby.  We ordered a dresser and we bought the crib mattress. I was hoping to find a dresser I could refinish on Craigslist, or one from Ikea, but both of those options didn't work out.  The dresser that I liked online from Ikea turned out to look different and plastic-y in the store, and nothing was showing up on Craigslist for months due to our strict specifications.  The nursery is very small, so in order to maximize space, I need a dresser that is not too wide, but wide enough (and short enough) that I can use it as a changing table.  I just couldn't find anything so we splurged with some money we were given from James' grandma and just bought a dresser.  Then we went over to the mall and James made a build-a-bear for him!  It was really fun and I am super excited to be working on the nursery.

At 23 weeks, I am feeling pretty good, but definitely slowing down.  Things like gardening and running errands make me sore and tired now.  I have to sit down and rest more frequently and I'm having issues with my lower back, which was a trouble spot for me before being pregnant, and now it is flaring up again.  It's getting harder to get comfortable at night too, as well as doing things that require bending over. My belly gets in the way. I know it's all par for the course, and really it's not that bad in the scheme of things.  I just have to remember that I can't do as much now and not overwork myself. 

One fun thing that happened this week is that James felt Xander kick for the first time!  James poked my stomach where Xander had been kicking, and he kicked back!  It was really neat.  I'm so glad to have had a nice, productive weekend in the beautiful weather!