here they are...

the sole flowers that popped up at our new house this spring.  4 pink tulips.  that's all the previous owners left for us.  that & weeds.

at least these pinkies are pretty!

this past weekend we tons of fun.  i can't wait to share it with you in it's entirety but first i wanted to voice some very interesting news.  i did yard work.  yes, it is true.  i know your jaw is on the floor but i do not lie.  ben was at work on saturday afternoon, it was gorgeous out & we had just had a huge storm the night before.  i knew that all that rain would have softened up the ground, making my job much easier.  i set out with my limited amount of gardening tools {and gloves of course}.  i weeded...and weeded....and weeded.  our house was a jungle.  i should have taken a before and after picture.  i didn't landscape anything, i basically just preformed emergency over-growth surgery.

we have so many things we'd like to do to the outside of our house but i'm not sure how long it will be before we get to it.  our neighbors from both sides congregated in our front yard to talk shrubs, give support to our first de-jungle-ing efforts and gossip.  i felt just like i was on a tv show.

to our left we have the nicest, most helpful neighbor in the world.  yes, he is more helpful than your neighbors.  he kindly told me that i had trees growing in our gutter and promptly brought over his extension ladder to remove them for us.  who knows how large i would have let these maples get before i spotted them!  i'm not the most observant apparently.

this was the view:

{this isn't our house but it looked just like it}

i felt so relieved that our nice neighborly neighbor had been so helpful & that our gutters weren't going to break and fall off the house!

i was relieved until i walked around the back of the house on sunday to find that the entire length of our house was surrounded by a flourishing, floating, mini-hedge.  fortunately, i have the sweetest husband who climbed right up on top of the roof to remove the forest that was attempting to consume our home.  thanks benny!!

i feel like i should give benny a second shout out for mowing our foot tall grass and mowing over the giant patch of weeds that i think was once referred to as a flower bed.  most of the weeds came up to at least my knees and some even my waist.  but benny had no fear and trampled them all.  i hope they suffered a terrible death.  i feel pretty confident that we will shortly be writing a revenge of the weeds post.

all gardening & landscaping tips are welcome here at {with grace & lace}.  do share.  oh oh oh, and if you just LOVE to do yard work and just don't have enough to do at your place...swing on by.  i'll let you garden your little heart out.