Flowers

The farther we get into Spring the more flowers I have blooming. It makes the yard look so much better.

This is the bed to the left of the steps. All the annuals I planted last year came back and I planted more coleus and two more elephant ears this year. The old elephant ears and the banana plant even multiplied. Now there are three of the big elephant ears, several of the red stemmed ones, and four banana plants.



Another plant I transplanted from my mom's graden last year was this gladiolus. It bloomed for the first time this week. I have some more glads that I planted this year that should be up in the next few weeks, but I don't know if they'll bloom this year.



My lilies have started blooming. We've had these since the summer before we got married. I had them in planters and transplanted them to the beds last summer. This is a blackbird lily.



This is a tiger lily. If blooms in a very nice orange. They have both multiplied tons since I've had them. I even gave two small ones to my mom last year.



In addition to the lilies we also had gerbera daisies in planters from our old house. We finally transplanted them this year. One is pink and the other is a light orange. They went in the bed on the side of the house.



We also have three tomatoes, two squash, and two cucumber plants. They have each grown a lot since we planted them. There are even tiny tomatoes already. We should have squash soon and maybe even cucumbers.

In other news, I am having to do without my allergy medicine because my doctor wants to retest me to see what new things I am allergic to. It has made for a miserable week. I look forward to being able to take my Zyrtec again. I've also had to stop my pills for preventing headaches because it somehow changes the way your body reacts to the tests. But it is good practice for when I have to stop them to try to get pregnant.

Speaking of which, my doctor's appointment had been changed and now I don't go for a few more weeks. It is frustrating because I want to start trying to get pregnant, but I also know my doctor wanted to know before we started trying (due to all the meds I will have to stop). On the plus side I haven't had as many headaches as I expected since stopping my meds. That is always a good thing.

So, our niece graduated from high school last weekend. It made me feel old. It was a bittersweet day for her because on the one hand she was graduating, but then on the other hand her mom wasn't here to see her graduate. I know that Sandy would have been so proud of her. Her grandmother from Walterboro came for the graduation and it was the first time she got to see Mercedez's baby. It was so cute.

Remodel job

Shawn and I (mainly Shawn) have been working on my mom's bathroom for a little over a month now. My parents have lived in the same house for almost 32 years and some things just need redoing. The bathroom had sustained water damage about 7 or 8 years ago and the work was only halfway done because the insurance company didn't want to actually pay what needed to be spent. So, a year and a half ago we had given my mom the new towel bars and flooring for Christmas, but had never gotten around to installing any of it because we were trying to figure out what to do with the sink and cabinet. To get an equivalent cabinet would cost a lot more money than anyone was willing to part with, so we decided to fix up the existing cabinet and my mom bought a new sink and faucet. We painted the cabinet, put in a new bottom to the cabinet (it had rotted away due to water damage), and put on new hardware. While installing the sink and faucet, Shawn added shut-off valves for the water because they had never been installed before (bad plumber way back when).

This is the sink once installed.



This is what the cabinet looked like with new paint and hardware.



We installed new wallboard to make the bath tub area look better. We also put in a new soap dish. In addition we re-caulked around the tub.



Then we put in the new towel bars, tp holder, and shower curtain rod. This is the double towel bar next to the tub. There is also a towel bar over the toilet.



My mom decided the lovely 70's era light was not making things look good anymore and bought a new light fixture. We discovered bad electricians work (the light box was barely attached to anything so we put in a new one, not fun) and installed the new light after lots of trial and error.



Then after the new paint job and all other work was done we put in the new flooring and shoe molding. Then the new shoe molding got painted.



This is a shot of most of the work from the doorway.



This is a straight on shot from the door.



We also painted the door and door casing to make them look like the rest of the room. Then we painted the frame for the mirrored medicine cabinet. All in all, it looks like a completely different room that doesn't look anything like the rest of the house.

More Spring Things

The Gunter farm has had lots of babies born this year. For the first time, we have had lots of incidents with the new babies. The new calf poked his eye on a tree branch and needed eye drops to fight away infection. We are pretty sure it will be blind in that eye, but he is doing much better.

Then a baby goat that was about 3 months old was eating some food when the oldest billy goat came up and swung his head around to shoo the baby away. Unfortunately, his long horns caught the baby goat's leg and the baby ended up being picked up and swung around. He ended up with a broken leg and limped around for a few weeks. Now you can hardly tell him from the other baby goats.

So, the baby goat that was born on Easter had an injury as well. My dad has tin laying around that he uses to cover the wood piles for the fire place. The goats like to walk around on the tin and we think the baby walked on part that had a hole and scraped his back leg. At any rate, he had the top layer of skin taken off from right above his hoof. So he was doctored on a lot and now is doing better and will walk on that leg.




While all this doctoring was going on with that baby, another goat had a baby. This makes the third black baby we've had, which is cool, we just don't know where that color is coming from. The majority of the other goats have had cream colored babies that either turned white, or a dark tan color. So the black babies have made things interesting.



In other news, our rose bush has gone crazy. This is after a storm that made lots of petals fly away. The funny thing about this rose bush is that the blooms are so many different colors. Some are dark pink with yellow centers. Some are light pink with white centers. Some look almost red at first and fade to pink. Some have a center that starts out orange and turns yellow.



Then finally, my yellow irises have bloomed. They have much bolder color than the purple ones.



Most of the irises have finished blooming, so this will probably be the last picture that will feature them.



We've planted out veggies so when they start growing bigger I'll post pictures of them. I've also planted more flowers in the front and have more stuff to put out. Pictures of that will follow soon as well.

Spring Time

Spring is here, and with it comes all sorts of new things. Those of you that haven't already heard, I was given a bunch of irises last year that used to belong to my grandmother. My mom was never able to actually get them to bloom so she wanted to see if I could get them to bloom. So last year they didn't do anything, but they multiplied like crazy. This year they started shooting up buds. I've taken lots of pictures over the last few days.

This is the first two irises that started to put out buds.



This was after two had opened up. They turned out to be purple. Most of the others are going to be purple, but there are two that look like they are going to be yellow. I'm very excited.



This is my rose bush my dad gave me not that long after we moved in. It was the first plant we actually planted. I haven't really taken care of it the way you are supposed to take care of roses (they are famous for being picky and hard to care for), but the thing just keeps growing and getting bigger and putting on more and more blooms. This is one bloom that had just opened up a little and was very pretty.



Then on Easter day there was a birth on the Gunter farm. One more baby goat was born. It is a very cute little goat too. Here it is trying to find milk, which I definitely don't have.



A few weeks ago another calf was born. It is very mellow and will let us walk up to it and pet it. So half the time he lays around looking like it is dead, which is alarming until you start petting him and he obviously loves being petted. This is his mom and his "babysitter" checking him out after we petted him.



This is the baby before we started petting him. See, he really does look dead.



On the sadder side of things, he seems to have somehow stumbled around and poked his eye with a branch or something. So it seems that he will be blind in one eye, but he is getting around ok with the one good eye and is growing and seems healthy otherwise. And he is so soft and cute! Spring babies are the best part of Spring.

FYI

Both my parents and Shawn's parents should by now be aware of this decision. The great wide internet is not the first to know.

Most people that know me well know that I have been desperately wanting to have a baby for a while now, but due to life circumstances we just haven't tried yet. We always said that after we were married for two years we would try, but then Shawn was unemployed for almost 6 months and we became very strapped financially. There have been times, as recent as Feb, that we have only gotten by because family members gave us money for gas, groceries, and even prescription medications. Now that we've gotten our tax refund we are not as bad off, but knowing our income is not going to increase, and will likely get smaller due to furloughs at both our jobs and budget cuts at Shawn's job I know things will continue to be stressful. However, we also know that if we wait much longer it will just be physically harder for us to not only get pregnant, but to actually deal with birth and parenting. The point in which we will be out of debt for the most part is 4 years away. That would make Shawn 40 by the time we would be more financially able to have babies. So, because I know family will be there to help out, we are taking the plunge.

Due to me getting weepy any time I see a baby and the fact that we aren't getting any younger, we will probably start trying to get pregnant in the next couple of months. I am waiting to go back to my doctor because one, I'll get a check up and see if I am healthy and stuff, and two, because I have several medications I take that I will have to stop taking once I start trying to get pregnant. My next appointment is for May, so that is only about a month and a half away.

Stay tuned for probably some very emotional posts in what is sure to be a long year.

PS - Hopefully all those well-meaning people out there that ask me when we will have a baby will stop asking (because for one thing I get so emotional just when they ask that I can barely speak to get my answer out - I embarrass myself).

More baby stuff

This is Junior on his baby blanket his grandmother in Mexico made him with his very first outfit on. This is before we went to buy him clothes that fit him rather than the premie outfits Mercedez brought to the hospital.




This is the Pooh hat that I picked out when I bought some outfits for him to wear at the hospital.



This is more pictures of waiting on the baby to come. There is no explanation for the looks on Shawn and his dad's faces. It was late.



This is at home in his crib, crying. Because he was hungry.



So, because Mercedez went out to smoke, I fed the baby. Then I put him back in his crib. It was my birthday and my mom was taking me shopping, so we left and she got to take care of him all alone for the first time. Now Kort is staying with her to help out. And he cried his entire first night home because he was used to being held the entire time he was in the hospital.

He's here!

Mercedez finally had her baby...at about 3:00 in the morning. We got to the hospital around 9:00 last night and Shawn had to come home because he had to work today, so we left at 11:20 so he could try to get some sleep. Then I went back and we all waited around together.

This is Whitney and Kort waiting in the hallway for Antonio to go across the hall to the surgery suit.



This is Joe and Loretta waiting. We all did a lot of that.



This is great-grandma with little Antonio Jr. How cute!!! He was 18 inches long and 6lbs and 1oz. He only cried when when he came out. He was just laying around stretching constantly.



This is father and son right after they brought him out for us to see.



This is before they unwrapped him to start measuring him. He just was looking all around him to see what was going on.



More pictures to come (with clothing on this time). I'm a great-aunt now. That's crazy.