Lady on the Ranch: Spring Happenings

Here's a little spring boquet for you

It has been a busy month out here on the ranch. Spring has officially sprung and of course that means the annual spring cleaning, yard work, and home projects. Our house has been torn apart from top to bottom this past month. After much convincing, I got hubby to agree to new linoleum floors in the kitchen and bathrooms. We had some really worn blue carpet in the house and yes, even in the bathrooms, yuck! Well, on top of that he decided that we needed to replace the carpet in the living room and hallway since there wasn't much carpet left for them to stretch back after putting the linoleum down. So we got into the DIY spirit (it always looks so fast and easy on t.v.) and pulled up the old linoleum and carpet to save some extra $$. It wasn't too bad at all actually, but the amount of dirt that came up from under the carpet blew me away! We got almost a whole grocery bag of dust/dirt from under the carpet. I clean the carpet twice a year and it was still that dirty...eeeewwww!

So now that the flooring is down, I of course couldn't let that be the only project to be done. My mom bought Hazel Peach some flower and butterfly wall decals from Target and I decided that they just couldn't go on the sage green colored walls in Hazel's room while her bedding is pink and red. So I broke down, much to my two and half year old's excitement, and decided that I would paint her room pink. We headed to the local Wal-Mart to pick out a pale pale pale pink, but as we were looking at all the color swatches, the man who worked the counter said he had a gallon of pink paint that was a mistint. The downside, it was a cute pink, but it was quite a bit brighter than I had wanted. On the positive side, it was only $3.50 for the gallon! I know, that's crazy! So I just couldn't pass that up. The pink went on the walls and the stickers the next day. I really wish I had recorded the moment that Hazel saw her room. It was priceless and made it worth it.

Now its on to the outdoors. Its still a little too cold at night for plants but I'm getting really excited about picking out flowers. Onions are in the ground but I can't plant too much else because its been so stinking cold here. I also bought some bushes for around the front of the house, and hopefully if our nasty 40 mph winds die down later this week I can get those planted as well.

I've been able to catch a few photos of some of the critters out around the house

This is Snickers, the newest addition to our family. She's a collie/mini-australian shepherd mix and has mixed with the family very well so far. She's a cutie and loves to lick her new little masters, Hazel and Mary, especially the left over milk on Mary : )

A Bluejay came and made a quick visit to bird bath for a small drink. My husband makes fun of me for having this thing, but its for moments like this. His grandpa was kind enough to pass this on to me and it reminds me of the birdbath my nanny had in her backyard when we were little kids.