Jared Landscaping Co.

Last Friday Jared and I both had the day off of work…so we went together to a big nursery to pick out some shade plants for the left side of our backyard. Jared was so sweet and patient… knowing full-well that every plant I set on the cart meant more work for him. He came right home and dug holes in our clay-like soil through the tangled mess of aspen roots and planted these beautiful plants for me.

On Saturday Jared cut down some dead tree limbs in the top of one our aspen trees (actually, he basically cut off the top of one 20+ft tree). We knew the top of the tree was dead, but we had no idea why until he cut it down.

We found that an old vine had wrapped itself around our tree and was strangling the life out of it. Joel, I was thinking you could use this analogy in one of your DL talks/trainings. Hahah...
But really...I do actually think it's a good analogy...a strong 20+ft tree was killed by what started out as one tiny vine that was allowed to overtake the tree and suck the life out it.

Jared (who I now call Ax-Man) took care of that vine!
It seemed as though a whole section of our backyard was full of dead branches and dead vine by the time he was done.
We still haven't killed those darn squirrels yet. I'm hoping that the squirrels will learn of Jared's reputation as Ax-Man and get scared away.

We're Having a Girl!

Jared and I found out today that we're having a little girl! We're super excited!! It looks like she has 10 fingers and 10 toes...so, we think she must be perfect! Her size measures right on and she seems very healthy. She has a large brain, two kidneys, a stomach, and a 4-chamber heart.

I'm feeling pretty big...I got some new pajama pants the other night and Jared said "Are those maternity pants?" And I said, "No, they're just a bigger size." And he said, "Oh, so they're like double large?" I was like, "No, MEDIUM!" Apparently I look double large. :-)

As Mama is getting bigger....


So is baby....
Isn't she cute?!! She was really active for the second half of the ultra sound and it was so amazing to feel her kick and see the movement at the same time!She likes to kick my stomach! :-)

Memorial Day Weekend......

just chillin' at the lake!

pretending there are candles

Janessa made a cake for Kasey but he didn't want icing on it---he later changed his mind

lush and green

some rain this weekend

the beautician

getting color back in the hair....don't ask how long it took but if you guess 6 hours, you would be close!

.........wish you all were here! And Happy Birthday Kasey!!!!

Business in Rifle and Meeker

These were taken a couple of weeks ago when we went to Colorado on business. Tyson is a very good car traveler. He had no problem being stuck in his car seat for so many hours!

This picture kills me! Here's our lil' guy with his backpack on his back (filled with toys and food) and then his lil' suitcase. He knew exactly what to do. He had to get his pack on his back and then pull his suitcase up to his room. He loved every minute of it! (click on the picture to read his shirt he got from his daddy LOL!)

Our hotel room one evening in Rifle.

Emily, Tyson and I had a day to play so we headed to Grand Junction to look around. Tyson loved playing with this wheel at the mall. In fact, he loved it so much, he didn't want to have pictures taken with any of the other cute toys the mall had in the play area. I really had to coax him to play with anything else so I could get the pics.

Playground at the Grand Junction Mall

Do you know what today is?

Today is the day that my life starts again...

I finished all my work and made it to the May 15th deadline. I'm so glad that the 60 hr weeks have come to an end. So, Jared and I spent Saturday working in our yard together and I had such a great time! I don't know how much fun Jared had, but I thought it was wonderful to be working together. My back was somewhat sore from bending over pulling weeds, but I sure loved being outside, smelling the bark, and hearing the birds sing.

Here are so of the pictures of our handiwork:


I've always loved the smell of lilacs. I really want to have a lilac bush for our kids to walk past and smell and pick the flowers. So, we got one this Saturday and Jared planted it for me. He did a great job...he kept telling me that he and his brother used to have their own landscaping business. I think they just mowed lawns...but he kept telling me that landscaping was HIS thing.


Jared also helped me pull all the weeds around our trees and lay down some fresh mulching. Both trees look excellent! Underneath this tree, we also laid down compost and grass seed that grows well in shade. Hopefully the seeds will grow and cover all the bare spots from before we moved in last year. I planted my vegetable seeds and herb gardens and my container garden. I only got a few starter plants...the rest I'll be trying to grow from seed. We'll see if they make it.

We also pulled all the weeds from our left planter area where I hope to start our shade garden. I can't even describe how many weeds there used to be here.

But maybe this will give you some idea...the entire garbage can is full of weeds.

What We've Been Doing Lately (Blog Post for the last 3 weeks)

When the rest of the tax world takes a sigh of relief after April 15th…I’m still going hard. I do non-profit tax and our deadline is May 15th. Luckily this year I’ve been able to work from home about 1 day per week. It’s really been nice…well, as nice as working from home can be. Believe me…there are other things I’d rather be doing at home. And this last week I was sick. Yuck. I had a sore throat and nasal congestion and I even went to the doc to make sure I didn’t have strep throat. Nope, it was just a viral infection that had to run its course. Lovely! This is what my workspace looks like at home, seriously…I really used all these Kleenexes in one day. Jay and Jana came to visit us this weekend and we enjoyed seeing them! Unfortunately I had to work some of the time and we had really nasty weather. But we still had time to go to a movie and out to dinner a couple times. Also, Jana brought me this sewing machine! I’ve been wanting to get an inexpensive, used sewing machine just to practice on and make simple things. But I haven’t had a lot of luck finding a good deal…so I thought it was really thoughtful when Jana brought me this nice surprise. Now, I just need to see if I can get it tuned and start sewing some things.
I have always slept on my back, and sleeping on your back when your pregnant is not very good for the baby and it’s also not comfortable. No matter how hard I tried and how many pillows I propped around me, I always woke up on my back. So, I looked on Amazon…and I found a great pillow!
It was one of the more inexpensive full-body pillows and it had very high ratings. I read some of the reviews and I thought it was cute how pregnant couples came up with nicknames for the pillow like “my new boyfriend Bob” or “love nest.” I wondered if Jared would come up with a nickname for my pillow. Sure enough…the first night I pulled it out to sleep with Jared said, “What the heck is that? Are you sleeping with an inner tube?” So now we affectionately call my body pillow my inner tube.
There are several other projects that I really want to get done before I have the baby. One of those is getting our food storage in place. The first step is SHELVES. I found some simple, yet heavy duty shelves at Lowes. My wonderful husband went there today and bought two of them and set them up for me. He’s so great! Now we have a place to store the wheat and oats Jana gave us.

We don’t have a whole lot of food yet…but we’re getting there and that feels really nice!

Here's Jared in his other BOGO (Buy-one-Get-one Free) suit...pinstripes. I think he looks great!

I'm working 60 hour weeks right now...I'm sure I sound like a baby but it's really difficult especially because I'm pregnant. Just 1 more week of this and then I'll be done with busy tax season. But let me just say that my Sundays are a welcome day of rest for me. It's a day when I can actually do things I enjoy and take naps and I get to spend time with Jared. He has really helped me and taken care of me during this busy time!

Jared built some boxes for me and I'm hoping to put together a square foot garden. We have big trees in our backyard, so I'm hoping that I can find some sunlight somewhere. Maybe I can trim a few branches of our tree. This little planter bench area is where I'm hoping to plant my herb garden...but as you can see, it's shaded most of the day.
And I got our 14 day water supply. Wal-Mart had exactly 7 containers…just the right amount for me, Jared, and the baby! It wasn't too hard filling these things up with water. The hardest part was sterilizing them. We got bleach everywhere! That was a mess and a pain…I’m so glad that Jared helped me. Okay, he really did it…I just sat in for the picture. :-)

I'm 20 weeks pregnant now. I'm half-way there..and I already feel huge. We'll find out if we're having a boy or girl the day after Memorial Day.
I have a couple maternity dresses that I really like.
The Little Black Dress:


I think I look a lot bigger than this one: