Hi friends!

We know it's been awhile, too long, and we are jumping into blogging with both feet this week - we have a long backlog of shoots and photos we can't wait to share with you.

We'll start with the last few days (which Layne spent in Atlanta.)

So yes, while Jonathan has been here in Ontario shooting real estate, family sessions, events, etc for the last week and a half, Layne has been off in Texas and Atlanta visiting her friend Anne and sister Catherine in that order.

It was an incredible trip and you may hear more about Texas later, but I'll start with Atlanta. Even though I didn't take many photos, you'll get the gist.

We spent the last few sister days playing cards, hanging out with her puppy Major, visiting the dog park, walking dogs, watching shows, talking, cooking, eating yummy food.

I've always been extremely close to Catherine, and I'm grateful for every chance I get to see her.

So enjoy a few snaps from the trip and we promise many more photos cometh.

xo.

(Because Saturdays are for the backyard)

Hi friends!

We talk a lot about our home in this space because it's such a happy place for us. Also because we all have home projects on the go, so we figure it's common ground for you as well.

When we set out to overhaul our backyard earlier this spring, we must confess it was rather stressful.

It was a mess (random rocks and bushes everywhere). We failed to properly document the wreckage of our backyard, but hopefully some of you remember.

It looked a little like this:

We didn't no where to begin- we had little vision and no capacity to find a common vision (other than "we want it to be nice!")

We had tense marriage moments trying to even start the first day as we have different ways of tackling overwhelming projects. (i.e. Jonathan wants to DO; Layne wants to TALK then DO.)

And then there was yet another challenge - we had very limited funds.

But start we did, and we've re-purposed as much as we could.

We found most of the bricks in the little patio space around the yard, and a few on kijiji for free.

We found and dug, these patio stepping stones out of the ground.

We re-planted these little bush/plant things from where they were in other parts of the yard.

Our raised garden beds were a kind gift from our neighbours.

All these white rocks in the semi-circles were scattered around our yard at random.

So in total, our budget was $200.

$50 for the mulch/soil.

$80 for a used patio set. (Our thought process is that even if we can't re-sell it by the time we're done, it's worth $80 to have something to use for the summer.)

$25 for some sweet new plants

$20 for garden seeds

$25 for more rocks to fill in space where we "stole" bricks for the patio.

And now it's 'done' (minus the ten hours of weeding I still need to do. Those weeds are persistent!) We love it SO MUCH: