A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

When we found the house that we bought in October the first thing I noticed was the lack of backyard. Although many of my friends wish they could have acres to live on I would rather live on a smaller piece of property...yep, I confess that I am a city gal through and through. The lack of backyard space was such a relief to me after three years of trying to manage our quarter of an acre at our previous house. Now you can really laugh! Yes, it was only a quarter of an acre and it was laboriously hard to manage...of course, we had a huge pool that took a lot of time and money to keep clean.

Anyway, the people who lived here before us had added a trellis and quite a bit of stone patio area. Due to months of neglect the grass became weeds. So, Phil took out the side yard of weeds and with our tax rebate he built us big, cedar garden bags.

So far Phil has planted over 66 plants including:

strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, melons, green beans, and cucumbers. We also have quite a few herbs and an orange, grapefruit, fig, plum, peach, and pomegranate trees.

Now I am not the gardening type but I am truly going to try to make this work. We are all going to work at this together. Here's to hoping that I succeed!

Here is one of the stone patio areas. This is the view from the backdoor slider. Ah...such a wonderful retreat...and the trees from the neighbors yard keep the evening summer sun from beating down on our backyard.

We moved into our home in October. Just about everything has a place in our new home. Pretty much everything is unpacked and put away. All I had were a few decorating details. One of them was the vinyls that my friend, Tonya made me. Her business is

Fruitful Vine Creations. I have added a link to her business in my sidebar.

The above applique was a saying that I remember hearing in a Tim McGraw song that was popular the year Eric passed away.

It was definitely how Eric lived and I wanted a daily reminder to do the same.

This is in our bathroom.

We have a little den upstairs that we have all our games, schoolbooks, and videos stored. When you reach the top of the stairs you can't miss this wonderful verse. Always a timely reminder when you have a house full of different personalities!

This one is in the kitchen. Foley was memorizing this verse when I realized how perfect it was for our kitchen/dining room.

TASTE and SEE that the LORD is GOOD!!!

This one is hanging up in Tonya's home...I loved it and was incredibly happy when Tonya sent this to me as a gift!

This is my picture wall. I had a huge blank wall in the downstairs hallway and so I decided to fill it with pictures of my family. The middle big frame is filled with pictures of life. The other frames are filled with a portrait of each child. The blank one frame is waiting for a picture from Nate and Carrie's wedding.

Psalm 100:5 says

For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;

His faithfulness continues through all generations.

What better verse to place with my family photos!

And, below you see the vinyl that we placed in the stairway.

Great peace have those who love your law!

Psalm 119:165

What a wonderful reminder every time I walk up those stairs.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Deut. 6:4-8

~Heather