Colby vs. The Vacuum Cleaner

There is a constant battle at my house between Colby and the vacuum cleaner.













And the vacuum cleaner wins every time.

I Changed Diapers Back Then, Too

Apparently, I found my calling at an early age.



That is four-year-old me changing my cousin Mark's diaper. For someone who was just four, it looks like I was doing a pretty stellar job at changing that diaper. I guess all of the diaper changing practice I got back then made me the expert diaper changer I am today.

Yesterday, we threw a surprise birthday party for my grandmother, Mimi (more on that later). As part of the surprise, we put together a scrapbook for her. Each of Mimi's children and grandchildren made a page for the scrapbook. When I was looking through some of my mom's old photo albums for this project, I came across a lot of pictures of me holding and caring for baby Mark. I asked my mom about it, and she said she remembers me always being obsessed with Mark. She said I always wanted to take care of him.

Here is me holding Mark on Christmas of 1987 (I was three and Mark was just a few months old):



Here is another picture of me holding Mark (what a chunk!!) in 1988. I was four and he was close to a year old.



I've never been able to pinpoint at what time in my life I heard my calling to become a neonatal nurse, but I guess these pictures tell the story.

And just because it's cute...I also found this picture of me and my brother from 1988, and I just love it. But don't ask me to explain my brother's outfit...

Backyard Update

I was looking at the "Flower Power" blog post I made a few months ago, and I realized how much the plants in my backyard have grown and blossomed since then. Although I would like to take all of the credit for this (I mean, I do water the plants every once in a while...), my mom has played a big part in it. I like to call her my landscaper. Whenever my yard is looking rough, I call her up and she drives up from Mobile to landscape it. She can take my yard from bleak to chic in the matter of just a few hours. Most recently, she came up here to landscape my backyard (and dog-sit) while I enjoyed a weekend at the beach. It was a great deal for me!

If you remember correctly, this is what my backyard looked like a couple of months ago:





Here are some more recent pictures of my backyard:











There are some plants in my backyard that I am quite proud of. One is the mandevilla I have growing on a trellis:





Another is the lantana that my mom just planted:





I'm also proud of this crinum lily that just bloomed a few days ago. When my mom planted a bunch of crinum lilies in my backyard back in the spring, she said that it would probably take 4-5 years before I would see any of them bloom. Surprisingly, one of my crinum lilies bloomed a few days ago!



I also have some Mexican petunias blooming along my fence. When my mom planted the Mexican petunias back in the spring, they were tiny little plants. They have grown a lot since then! I love their pretty purple flowers.





I think I am most proud of the vinca growing along my fence. Here is a picture of the vinca from a few months ago:



Here are some pictures of the vinca now:











My landscaper-mom does good work, doesn't she?!