Garden Progress & Christmas Photos

During the first week of July through July5th (yep, even July 4th!), we were working in the backyard, again! My husband and babies built the beautiful wood fence around the garden and it's just waiting to be painted! It's treated lumber but I think it will look even better (and last longer) painted. That empty spot over to the right is for the future hen house.

Another view -- didn't they do such a wonderful job?!?! Those maple trees in front of the fence, we bought at Home Depot - they were originally $40 each but we got them for only $10! I love maple trees!!!! They're one of my favorites....

Then hubby used the tiller to mix in the compost and manure so that I could re-plant the butter beans and some more collards (in what was the potato plot).

After about 10 days, a few popped up! I guess that manure really works!
Then he and little man built these wood "things" for me. Baby girl and I laced up these geometric pattern from poly string for the purple hull peas to climb. So I planted more of those and planted green beans (bush) in front of them.

A little over a week later, they popped up, too!!! Yay!

I pulled up the corn (that was infested with fire ants) and the carrots (they were cute but TINY) and planted some strawberry popcorn and more butter beans in their places.

Then hubby and little man built me this trellis for the mini pumpkins to climb.

I planted Baby Boo's and Jack Be Little's. These are the "Jack O'Lantern" variety.

These are the Jaarhdale (Australian Blue) and Sugar Babies. There are 2 rows of these. The only thing is.... these 2 varieties of seeds came in the same package and the seeds looked identical, so I'm not sure how much of either we'll get?!?! Also, we've had alot of rain the past few days and I'm not sure how they're going to take all this water -- the leaves are yellowing.

Now... for the Christmas pictures. I've decided to do something I've never done before - take the pictures early!!! I still have to photoshop them - there are close to 400 - yes, 400! I've got to delete and change some to black & white, etc. I'm wanting to do a 1940's themed Christmas card this year... We popped the corn and strung it ourselves! I know that's no biggie, but we were so tickled, having NEVER done it before. I've always wanted to, but it took me nearly 40 years to actually DO it **hanging my head in shame** Then our "Franny" got out her Christmas tree and her bubble lights (thanks Sweetie!) and I pulled out some vintage Christmas balls bought at the antique store and some beads and the children decorated the tree! We tried to make it old-fashioned looking? I hope it worked?

Anyway, we won't be using these on our cards but I still like them and wanted to share them with you. Franny did her hair herself!!!I did Baby Girl's -- her hair is frizzy, curly like mine (sorry, baby) and it took us a long time. Doing Little Man's hair took the least amount of time -- Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Do our little one's look old-fashioned? Like maybe from the 40's? Or more the 50's? I studied old pictures, but I looked at so many, I may have gotten my decades mixed?!?!?

Thank you, as always, for visiting.

Many Blessings ~ Julie