Oh, I am so s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g for it today.

My parents are coming this weekend, so instead of crafting and doing crafty stuff…I’m trying to get our household in order. (Please, you know how that is…I’m not the only one who cleans like a maniac before family comes, right?)

So my cute dresses are still pinned together, but not sewn up. However…I did do some painting yesterday.

Of course it was spray paint,  on my patio set.  Surely not very artistic, but it sure does make a difference on the patio furniture. Instead of white, dirty and a bit rusty…it is sleek, polished and black! I think it looks really nice against our wrought iron gates.

And we have been doing a little more gardening, but I did not get pics of that. Plus, until our plants grow…there isn’t much excitement there.

We are however growing some other fun stuff that I do have photos of…

We’ve got bugs! Addie got a caterpillar and a ladybug habitat for Emma for her birthday. And the eggs/larvae came this week. So we are babysitting the baby bugs and watching them grow until we can release them into our garden.

I told you it was a stretch today…how about all of you? Any good stuff to show?

Just barely squeaking a CT in today.

I have not had a lot of time to craft fun stuff this week…again. I did put together some thank you notes for Em, but they look very similar to the invites and the other party stuff.

Maybe you sent Em something for her birthday, but you haven’t received one of these little thank yous? Aye…it is coming. I am trying to instill the importance of writing thoughtful thank you notes into Em. So she is writing all of her notes herself, under some guidance from me. And remember even though she is a superstar, she has an incredibly short attention span. So we have been doing a few thank yous each night. By summer break we should have everyone done! Ha.

And when not trying to do thank you notes, we have moved our craftiness outside since the weather is getting so nice. We had a flower bed next to the courtyard that has always aggravated me. It had three big, nearly dead, plants that I think must have been in the allium family since they were so very stinky. And they were clearly old and needed to be divided – probably 5 or 6 years ago.

So we ripped them out last weekend. And instead, finally got some new citrus trees. J. has been wanting an orange tree for awhile, and I’ve been wanting a lime tree. So we got one of each and another tree that is a cross between a tangerine and lime too. We got dwarf trees – so we can keep them in pots for awhile and then Addie and I went looking for some pretty plants to put around them.

This is so not a very good photo since I ran out at the very last minute last night to take it…and our avocado tree is shedding all of its’ flowers right now, so the bed looks messy. But once all of our plants fill in a bit, we’ll take some better photos to share. All I know is that it smells heavenly in our courtyard right now. All citrus-y and orange blossom-y. Mmmmm….

We also finished planting our herb garden, and just one tomato plant this year and strawberries. We still have our cucumbers and Em’s bean plant from school to find a spots for. I have a feeling that will be our task for later in the week when it cools down a little bit.

What about all of you? Any goodies to share this week?