A beautiful afternoon outdoors

It is a beautiful day here so we just spent some time in the backyard.
Madeline has been teething and has a tooth that is about to pop, so I gave her a popsicle to help sooth her gums, and we headed outdoors, so as to not make a mess inside!

One of our cats, Red Zeppelin snuck out when we were on our way out the door, so we let him stay out for a bit, playing in the grass and eating it.

and Maddie played with him a little once her popsicle was gone:

please excuse the kitty butt, they wouldn't stay still long enough for me to get a better pic

We had some recently blooming flowers:

I am not sure of the name of this plant

and some wild flowers that sprung up in the middle of the yard, that were rather pretty ;

yes, I know the lawn needs mowed.... 

the same flower from a different perspective, I had to get down on the groud in the grass for this one:

we have a small palm tree of some sort, that we planted not long ago that is doing really well:

Our Passion vine has really taken off and is taking over the pergola that my husband built:

We bought the vine in June, and this is what it looked like then:

and this is now, so you can see, it has really grown!! 

The backside is covered the same as the front!

We have several bees that are enjoying the flowers:

I wish I had a better camera, so you could see the bees more clearly...

 We also had a few butterflies visiting the vine today and I was able to capture one of them, before it flew away:

Thanks for taking a trip with me through my backyard!!