26w

We're continuing to try to beautify the exterior of our home, and here are a few quick pics I took with my phone to try to capture what we've done...and here is the original photo just to give an idea of the changes made:

original photo (note the weeds to the left of the door & the overgrown bush to the right...)

the weeds have now been replaced with white river rock (with an underlayment of round-up & black cloth to keep those pesky weeds away for a long time)

neatly trimmed bushes (thanks to my dad) and you can see faintly in between the bushes are tall stalks of what-will-be-pink flowers, but the buds won't appear again til next year (thanks to my mom for providing & planting those)


and our mums!!! we now have two pots just like this one, one on each side of our front door on our porch. these are yellow and marroon and oh so happy!

so, aside from keeping up with the mowing, our next big venture for the outside of our home is to build a backyard fence & stairs so our pup can have room to run and run and run (and NOT bounce all crazily like in our living room...).

and regarding our sweet little Ava, she's 26 weeks today and quickly growing! 9 inches from crown to rump -- that doesn't even include the length of her legs!! I am starting to feel her more and more crouching up under my ribs...so as cool as it is to feel her, she can be mighty uncomfortable sometimes!

She should be opening her eyes any day now, and her blood vessels are starting to form in her lungs to prepare her for the outside world--which only happens to be about 14 weeks away!!