As a follow-up post to one I made a few years ago, I just wanted to quickly post the picture of the board Dave made on our wall. I believe it was his first board, and he says it’s a little heavy and not super surfable. He has since perfected the art, you should click here to check them out, or hit up their Facebook page!
So the tank is now done being setup for the time being. Maybe a few more plants in the future, but I am definitely looking for some new fish and color!
Here is a closeup of a few of the plants… not sure what the grass stuff is called, but the annubia on the right only had two leaves when I got it. 
So thanks to Brandon we were able to get a lot more work done on the yard yesterday and after reading a lot about concrete bag retaining walls we decided to give it a try… We had some good and some bad come of it so far.
What we were told to do:
- Look up city guidelines to see if a permit is required.
- Level the area for the retaining wall roughly making sure it is wide enough for one cement bag a 3″ drain and gravel.
- Lay out the concrete bags end to end tamping down to make them even.
- Backfill with drain pipe and then gravel for each level of the wall.
- Layer in a brickwork pattern and wet down the bags every two rows (we only built a 2′tall wall so it wasn’t difficult.)
- The top 4inches behind the new wall should be soil compacted down to make sure water rolls off the wall and doesn’t pool behind it.
- Water the bags until the paper is completely soaked and continue soaking for 20min (as a tip we also are keeping the bags wet for the next few days)
What you are not told:
- If you use the bags that are “water resistant” from a big box store you can cut slashes in the tops of the bags to allow more moisture in, but MAKE SURE YOU DO IT BEFORE ADDING WATER!!! Cutting into a semi wet bag of cement will cause the cement to stay in the grooved cut.
- Do not put ANY pressure on the top of the bags for some time and do not try to adjust the bags once wet. This will cause the front rounded section to separate from the rest of the block being created…. I do not know the actual result as we are going to wait for the bags to wilt away, but I will post pictures when I do.
Yesterday was a great day of baking. Great Grandma Helen, Nana, Me and Carleigh made all sorts of sweets: Snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, peanut butter with Hershey kisses, funfetti, oatmeal craisin, ornament shaped rice krispie treats, stained glass windows, snowballs and new this year we added mini red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frostung and pumpkin butterscotch mini muffins! Carleigh had a ton of fun decorating all of the sugar cookies and by the end of the day everyone was exhausted.
The pumpkin butterscotch muffins were by far my favorite and will be included every year. I have written the recipe below for anyone interested.
So this is quite delayed, but Luke is now 1! He is quite the opposite of his big sister… He is walking across the room by himself now and even tried his hand at running today. He is definitely the typical boy – he loves cars, balls, blocks and puzzles. He is a whopping 31 3/4″ tall now and weighs 22lbs. His only word is Hi, but it is hilarious to hear him say it when he waves. He continues to amaze me every day and I love spending time with my kiddos.
