little green ones

Look at this!

Whoa, I have little baby tomatoes! I went outside to water my plants tonight and saw these cute little guys hiding.  I gasped so loud that I'm sure the neighbors are calling the police.  I am so excited! Number 1- I am excited that I haven't killed them yet and Number 2- I am excited to actually have little tomatoes starting to bloom!

I will try not to get too obsessive with these tomatoes, but they are kind of the highlight of my day right now :)

life lately

What's been going down at the Dunn household lately?

-Matt is loving his new supervisor position at UPS (and I am loving his new hours).  He has moved into a different department than he was in and is learning a lot.  Like usual, he has worked in this position for a week or two and then his partner is out of town this week so he has to man the ship alone.  He has done this two other times in other departments.  I guess they trust the guy :).

-I am still madly deeply in love with my new car.  She is great.  I get so excited when I get to drive her somewhere.  It's still so new to me and I get excited to show her off.  I hope that new car/new leather smell never goes away!

-Our trees and shrubs get delivered this week!  We went back to the nursery last week and made our final decision...

1. A "Brandywine" Maple tree for the front left of the house

2. An "Ace of Hearts" Redbud tree for the front right of the house- I didn't realize how much I loved redbud trees until this Spring when almost every house in our neighborhood had one in full bloom. They are beautiful!

3. A "Limelight" Hydrangea plant for the back corner- I love hydrangeas.  We weren't planning on getting one, but when we changed our mind on putting a tree up by the entrance we had a little left over in the budget and I ran straight for the hydrangeas.  This one will get pretty big (5-7 ft tall and 4 ft wide) so we are putting her in the back yard in a corner where Matt ripped out some old weedy trees a couple months ago.  We are going to let her grow wild (well while still-looking good of course).  The flowers' blooms will start out green and then fade to a light pink at the end of summer.  I am so excited for this one!

4. 5 Boxwoods for the outline of our walkway to the house.  We ended up getting the 2 gallon tubs so they'd be a bit more mature since they grow slowly.

We are planning on having a landscape party this weekend.  I am calling it a party because to be honest, I am not that excited about digging really big holes all day. It makes me feel better if it's a "party".  

-I am almost to the end of the 12 weeks I have been orienting a new RN on the floor. She is wonderful.  It is SO cool to precept someone.  I am the one shaping her.  Yes, she will go and do as her own style is once she's on her own, but I took a lot of my ways of doing things from my preceptor and I have noticed my orientee doing the same.  It can be exhausting, but I know it is all for her and for our unit.  I feel good about teaching her the basics, the right way to do things (follow the policy), and ways to get on people's good side as far as being helpful in your downtime etc.  She is getting so much better at talking to docs and catching little things (which usually turn out to be the most important thing) on assessment.  Everything she needed to work on in the beginning is now coming full-circle and she is great.  Other RN's have been coming up to me saying how my orientee reminds them of me and how awesome of a job she is doing and will do.  Warms my heart :).

-I planted some tomato plants last week.  My favorite thing ever is a fresh garden tomato.  This is my first time ever planting my own tomato plants.  Cross your green thumbs they survive!

-We went to visit my Dad's side of the family a couple weekends ago.  We went to see my Nana Sue and to spend time with the family. I was finally able to meet my baby twins cousins! They are 8 months old and the sweetest babies ever.  I can't imagine having twins, but my cousins make it look easy.  I love those babies!

And just because he's cute...

curb appeal

Matt and I stopped by a nursery by our house last weekend to search through their stock of trees and shrubs.  We talked about doing some landscaping this Winter and then the mixture of a super-mild Winter and the beautiful March we had really sparked our interest in doing some landscaping.  Our current landscaping setup is plain and boring. We are the only house in the neighborhood without a big mature tree in the front.  I really think it will jazz up the "curb appeal" and really just make me more excited about our house if we add a little green out there.

The guy at the nursery was so helpful and knowledgeable. We ended up spending at least 2 hours there (it was supposed to be a motorcycle ride up there, look real quick, and leave) and got a really good idea of what we wanted.  After talking with Toby (guy at the nursery), we decided we needed to do the "big" things first.  We knew we couldn't do everything we had planned on this year, some will have to wait until next year.  He encouraged us to pick out our largest items and get those planted this year so they'd have the most time to grow and mature. Great idea Toby!

We have narrowed it down pretty close to what our 2012 plan will be...

1. Medium/Large sized tree for the front of the house off to the side a little (hopefully will add some pizzazz, color, and shade to the front)

      -Brandywine Maple-nice green leaves throughout the Spring/Summer, bright red leaves in fall, perfect size, moderate-fast growing

2. Shrubs for in front of our walkway 

      -Boxwoods (cute little green shrubs that will spruce up our front yard...I'll eventually plant some colorful flowers near them to add some color)

3. Small/Medium sized tree to go to the left of the front door entrance

      -Evergreen (I am not a fan of evergreens, but I have started considering it more because of how easy and low-maintainence they are)

      -Buckthorn (I just remember this name, I actually forget what it actually looks like)

      -Althea (Pretty flowers. Downside? We might have to trim this guy down every year)

4. MAYBE a nice little Redbud tree on the right side front of the house.  I love redbuds, but it may not be in the budget for this year.

That's all for this year.  We eventually want to add some Spring bulbs, Fall mums, hydrangea bushes, pavers and mulching. I also want to do a little island with some perennials (hopefully some zinnias!) in the front side yard. We need to spruce up around our mailbox too, but that may wait until next year.  

The plan is to get everything delivered next weekend so we can get to work! Wish us luck :)