A Birthday Backyard Baby Deer

Recently I won a $50 gift card to Home Goods, and with all of that money burning a hole in my pocket, I decided that on my birthday this week, I would go spend it on something for our new house that we completely didn't need. Hey, free money has no rules, right?

So I wandered up and down the aisles of Home Goods for a solid 45 minutes, weighing my options. $50 bucks can either go a long way, or not even cover half of one item in that store, and you just never know what you'll find. And with no real idea of what I wanted, it took looking at everything they had to make my decision. I was just waiting for something (or multiple somethings) to jump out and grab me.

At first I lingered near the entrance, drooling over pretty vases for the many built in shelves in our new house. But when I wandered by the garden section, this little guy definitely jumped out at me.

Introducing Bernard, our new little stone carved baby deer, so we'll always have a deer in our backyard!

Decorating with animals isn't usually my "thing," so don't go getting worried we're going to turn into those people with animal decor all over our yard. But if you've been reading this blog for a while, you do know I'm pretty obsessed with spotting animals in our backyard, and have an especially deep love for deer.

Plus, how close does Bernard look to this baby deer we saw at the Lazy 5 Safari Ranch this past summer? If only this little guy had been sleeping, they could be brothers!

So yeah, that is where half of my free $50 birthday shopping spree went, to a stone carved baby deer. I also swung back by the front and grabbed a couple of the vases I'd been eying. I can't believe they have such adorable, and good sized vases in the $10-$13 range! I haven't unpacked the vases yet though, since we still need to remove the curved and dated trim pieces from our built ins, replace the trim, and paint the shelves. In time!

In the meantime, looking out at our little sleeping deer on our back deck makes me smile. He might not live in the corner of the deck forever (maybe he'll end up in a raised garden bed someday?), but for now he's content to nap on our big empty deck. Perhaps he'll summon the real deer to our yard!

Have you ever wandered around Home Goods until something jumped out and grabbed you, that you just had to have? I swear, I could easily take home half of what is in that store if I had the money!