Pretty Pretty Mailbox

I have found the most amazing plant nursery in Raleigh! To be fair it's one of the only nursery's I've been to so maybe they are all this cool, but it's huge and awesome! My Dad helped draw up a plan for our yard and I implemented phase 1 last week. We started with this. 

The plan was to create a bed around the mailbox for a couple of reasons. One, it would be pretty. Two, mowing around the mailbox is a pain the butt and we didn't want to do that anymore. So,  I used the hose to lay out the size and shape of the bed. When I was at the nursery I picked up some manure, soil conditioner, and my plants!

I went off the grid a little bit. My dad had suggested a juniper plant to be a low lying ever green but when I saw them at the nursery I didn't love them. I found these little green rosette looking guys and totally fell in love with them. We'll see how they fill out and end up looking but for now, I think they are adorable. 

Digging up the grass was the worst part! It was so hard and took so long! At least I had a Crosby to keep me company. This was also all while Derrick was at work so don't think he sent me out to work while he was chilling inside. He would have helped out if I had waited for him.

Naive me thought I could just neatly lay the grass in this box to dispose of. Crosby thought it would work too. She packed it down for me nice and tight. 

This is about the time I decided this looked good enough and almost called it a day. Looks good right?

Finally, here's what it looked like after I cleared the rest of the grass and planted my new plants. See how well I kept that grass in the box top? 

Later that week I went back to the nursery for a mandavilla. It's this climbing plant with big pink flowers that is going to be gorgeous behind the mailbox! I had to wait to get it later in the week because someone had claimed all the pink ones earlier in the week. I bought this trelis at Lowes and cut it down to the height of the mailbox. 

Gigantic rain storms have washed some of my dirt away but I think it looks pretty good! Lowes is having a sale on mulch right now so we're going to swing by and pick some up this evening and then the mailbox should be done!

Phase 1 complete! Phase bajillion million to go. 

Easter Birthday Day

This year Derrick's birthday fell on the same day as Easter. He turned the big 28 and rang it in with style. I decided to fully embrace the holiday overlap and celebrate Derrick in full Easter fashion. His whole family came into town also so we got to enjoy Ellie's first Easter as well as a rowdy egg hunt with the older kids.

The night before I whipped up this super easy and cute egg banner out of paint chips. I can't take credit for the idea. You can get a full tutorial here. I really love how it turned out and it's still hanging up. I'll probably leave it for a while.

When Ellie arrived we let her open her Easter basket from us which included these super adorable Easter bunny ear hair clips. I got almost her entire basket from the Target dollar spot. Gotta love that place! The only splurge was on her bunny which we had monogrammed with her initials on the ear. It's adorable and super soft. I hope she keeps it for a long time.

How cute is this??!

The rest of the gang showed up shortly afterwards and we enjoyed a delicious Easter lunch and prepared for the egg hunt! In true Marcey fashion Derrick and I can't do anything simple so we prepared an egg hunt of 72 eggs. Each egg had a point value inside and those points had to be added up at the end and could be redeemed for candy prizes. 

Explaining the boundaries.

We split it up so that half the eggs were inside and half were outside. Ellie had her own pink eggs that the other kids weren't allowed to find.

I think the point system for prizes was a big hit. The kids were asking to do it again this way next year.

I secretly hid 9 Derrick eggs around the house and right before the hunt started I showed the kids an example and told them they weren't allowed to find these eggs if they saw them.

There were scrabble tiles in each egg that he had to solve a puzzle with the find his gifts.

He solved the clue and headed to the yellow room. This is where my vision got a little blurry. In my head he would find these magnificent paper mache eggs that had been gorgeously painted and hid the gifts seamlessly. In reality I only did one layer of paper mache so they were extremely droopy and I never got around to painting them so they were also ugly newspaper. What can you do :) He did have to crack them open for his gifts though!

After presents it was cake time! Our friend Meredith has a bunny cake pan that she let me borrow and I am really happy with out it turned out! Piping is hard though! I have a new respect for cake decorators. My hand started hurting and I had to take a break halfway through!

To top it all off, Derrick's mom got him a hammock for his birthday and it's awesome!

Cros didn't know what to think about us hanging 2 feet off the ground.

So we gave her a taste.

Unfortunately bad weather and busy schedules have kept us out the hammock since Sunday but we can't wait for the next chance to hang it up and relax for a while!

Quick Hickory Run

Derrick and I hopped down to Hickory on Thursday night for a quick visit. We hadn't been since Christmas and Derrick was able to take Friday off so we decided to take a quick pre-Easter and pre-Derrick's birthday visit. Jack came in on Friday night also so we got to spend some good time with him too. We checked out my parents new dock, threw Crosby into the lake, fit in a round of disc golf, visited with Nikki and Justin, and celebrated Derrick's birthday a couple days early.

Jay face timed in for Derrick's birthday dinner :)

The door was wide open and Crosby was just staring at us from the inside out.

It was windy! Dad and Derrick had to move quick to keep the candle lit for long enough for Derrick to blow it out!

Cros was pooped on the way home Saturday. She's currently passed out on the couch next to me  because Easter Sunday/Derrick's birthday was another jam packed day. Post to come!

There is a Wasp in my house!

       ---------------------------UPDATE-----------------------------

4 hrs later and I've freed the wasp!

In a brief yet completely justified moment of panic I have trapped a wasp between the screen and the glass of one of our kitchen windows. My attempts to release the screen without opening the window into the house have been futile. Any tips?