Curb Appeal

We kept ourselves pretty busy this weekend with our latest project. I guess we are just in that phase of life, but we have never done this many house projects before. A few weeks ago, we stopped in at Coulter Gardens here in Amarillo to ask how we should go about putting in flower beds. The owner was amazing and sat down with us for about 45 minutes and drew out a sketch of what we should do with plants/shrubs, etc., etc. Eric and I were so excited about this. I can't believe how helpful the owner was (side note: his dad and my dad's dad (my grandpa Red), Red White, were best friends and both started their nursery businesses at the same time. I thought that was a really neat story too). I decided this was what I wanted for my birthday. So anyway, we were excited to get started and finally started this weekend.
But before we could start, Mali had a princess party to go to. It was amazingly princessy. I was a little overwhelmed when we left, but Mali loved it! Mali got to dress up in princess clothes, have her fingernails painted, makeup, have a princess parade, meet the Birthday princess, eat pink cupcakes, and celebrate her friend's birthday.

So to balance out the princess, we came home and worked on the flower beds. My dad came down and helped Eric and I too. Mali was a great help. We got the first stage accomplished; digging out 2" of soil/grass, adding 3" of stinky top soil and installing steel edging. It has turned out really great and we were so proud. We are so thankful for my dad's help and his gift of the steel edging. We also got 2 shrubs/trees put in. We put in an Alberta spruce up next to our porch and a Washington Hawthorne (it has red berries in summer, blossoms in spring, and red leaves in fall) at the north end of the flower bed.

After we finished this part of the process we still made it to church on time (Saturday night at 6pm) and the sermon was entitled "Curb Appeal". Eric and I both just laughed. The pastor spoke about what our curb appeal as Christians should be. It really was a great word picture for me after just working so hard and diligently at the curb appeal for our house. As much effort as I put into digging out sod, wheelbarrowing and dumping dirt (I did not like that job), dumping in and racking out stinky top soil, and pretty much just immersing myself in this project, I need to do the same as Christian. I need to work hard on my appearance as a Christian, and start with my heart, through putting God's word in my mind and allowing it to permeate my being (just like the gypsum, fertilizer and top soil we put in will make our expensive tress/shrubs grow beautifully and not waste away and die and be a waste of money and time.) There is just so much I can apply between my life and what we did with our flower beds. Who wouldn't have thought that we would have been able to apply this lesson? It is not every day that you hear a sermon on yard work the day you do yard work!:) Only God!