Mr. Little Guy

Tonight we took Liam to visit Mr. Little Guy--the elf that lives near our house in a hollowed tree at Lake Harriet. We left a note for him, which is a local custom for children.The legend says he responds to every  letter he receives.

I guess we'll see if Mr. Little Guy responds ... how could you not respond to this ADORABLE boy?

Our first harvest!

Our garden is growing and we have TONS of cilantro. We celebrated our first harvest by making guacamole last night. DELICIOUS!

Show and tell

You may have noticed from reading our blog that Don is a crafty man, often having to finish projects for me (see here if you can't remember). Well I'd like to share a craft I did entirely on my own ... with only a tiny bit of help from Don. Check out my centerpiece.... TADA!

I found the ceiling tile at a Good Will ($5) and spraypainted it aqua ($3.95) with a tiny bit of Don's help, but not much. Then I sanded the edges to give a vintage feel. I then found the candle ($2.99), plate ($7) and random decor ($4.95) at Ikea. Total price = $23.89.

FINALLY, I finished a craft!

Yard work, shmard-work

Remember what our house looked like when we bought it back in January 2010? I didn't think so ... here is a little refresher. Notice the massive bushes and lovely chain link fence.

Before - house with fence and bushes

Well after all the snow melted, this is what we found everywhere ... overgrown weeds!

Before side yard with overgrown weeds

More before side yard with overgrown weeds

Well something had to be done about this! So we (aka Don) made some beautiful planter boxes for a garden instead.

Our garden

This is our first garden and kind of an experiment. We are growing cilantro, green onions, basil, carrots, zuchini, cucumbers, summer squash, peas and pumpkins. So far our pumpkins are doing the best and growing like crazy.

Pumpkins!

We also finally added some flowers to our planter boxes under the windows.

Beautiful flowers!

Our yard work seemed to be going smoothly, until we (aka Don) used the wrong weed spray on the rest of the yard and ended up killing our lawn instead. Woops! You win some, you loose some.

Before - dead front lawn April 2011

So we (aka Don) set out to do something about this mess and spent a very long, rainy weekend re-sodding our front lawn.

Before

After - no fence, no bushes, new lawn, planter boxes, flowers and tree!

And to top off all of our planting, we added a delicious apple tree to the yard.

Honeycrisp Apple Tree

I think we are done with yard work for a while!

Question of the week

Some of you have asked "Why is your blog entitled 'The Wortley Pad'?" ... ok, no one has asked me that question. BUT here is the answer anyway:

When we moved into our house, the previous owner (a little old lady) left this for us on our back porch. I thought it was too classic to throw away so we kept it. HENCE, our home and blog's name.

My problem solver

Don watched Liam for a bit this morning while I went to Costco. This is what I found when I came home ...

Too funny! I was telling Don yesterday that I think Liam is outgrowing his swing and we need to watch him carefully so he doesn't jump/fall out. This was Don's solution to my problem :) 

Our Attic

I was going through our pictures this morning and found some that I meant to post a long time ago. Woops! This post is long over due, but better late than never.

Last fall Don finished our attic to give us more space before Liam arrived. It is now our "3rd bedroom" when family/friends come to stay, as well as storage. Here are the before and after pictures:

Before 

Dark, dingy, dusty and disgusting. I wouldn't let anyone stay up here!

After 

Light, clean and a great space!

Don finished the wood floors, painted the ceilings, walls and beds (it took two coats of primer and four coats of paint!), added new lighting and electrical outlets, and inserted shelves for the closets. I think it turned out pretty well!

So... who is ready to visit and stay with us?