continued flower bed talk

I probably should have combined all these posts into one, but it's easier to do them this way.
My mom had the following comment about the flower bed:
"Looks good. One question -- what happened to the rose bush?"

The rose bush was unceremoniously hacked up and stuffed into the trampoline boxes and hauled to the curb. I'm just the messenger, remember.
We were done with that bush, it was too big for that spot and our new plan for those beds, so it needed to go. If you're scoring at home, we've removed 2 old roses, but put in 3, so we're +1 for roses.

We keep all the little info spikes that come with the plant and write the date on them. I stuck them in a little album to make it easier to sort through:

Beautiful ballerina mommy

Have I posted this picture already? This is how we start our day most days. Putting on our heels, our dress up stuff, and caring for the babies. On this day, she informed me, "I'm a beautiful ballerina mommy". This is a buggy she got for her birthday. She can fit all the baby dolls in it at once, and has solved the stroller overcrowding problem:

(There are 5 or 6 dolls packed on this stroller and in the 3 purses hanging off. I just didn't feel right about making Big Baby ride around in a purse)

Singing

Parker has been attending a Mother's Day Out at the Baptist church this summer. I think their influence is starting to show:


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(the word she says at the end is "bible")

New flower bed pictures

Before

During

Bob, during

After

I forgot to mention that there's a "Gold Dust Aucuba" (varagated japonica) in the back corner that will get about 4'x6' hopefully.

Worms

We had another busy weekend. On Sunday morning, I woke up to find that Landscaping Obsessed Guy had posessed Bob overnight. While I snoozed, Bob had decided that his project for the day, other than mowing the entire yard (!), would be to finally redo one of the back flower beds. In the before picture (coming soon!), you can see that there's a gigantic rose bush blob, our new Japanese Yew, and not much else. Bob elected to removed the rose bush and replace it w/ Encore azaleas. I had thought we'd leave the rose bush, but I wasn't really in a position to argue with someone motivated to dig in the dirt in the hot sun all day, so out it went. We had a couple family outings to select plants, soil and mulch and came up with 3 azaleas, some perienniel blue salvia stuff, coriopsis and lambs ear. It looks a million times better and will really look nice once it all gets established in a couple more seasons.
And Parker had a nice time digging up worms.

Cold Water

Another beach picture. The water in the bay is FREEZING cold. This is the first year I've been in it past my ankles.
Parker spent most of her time running from the sand into the water. Then turning around and running all the way back. Over and over again, until she was exhausted and then we'd take her back to the condo for an afternoon nap. It's rare these days that she consistently takes a nap, but in San Diego, she konked out every day, and then again at night.