Gardening With Avery

Now that tax season is over I usually have our 3-year old granddaughter one to two days a week, often an overnight included. The chores and to-do's don't stop when she's around, although they do tend to get put off a bit. Granddaughter time is pretty precious! I've found that if you incorporate age-appropriate tasks into the chores they have fun and things get done. It may take longer, may have to be re-done later but that's ok! It's a good bonding experience and the child learns new tasks and gets a feeling of accomplishment when done.

I'm still trying to catch up on my spring yard cleaning.  I have a wine barrel that had snapdragons in them over the winter.  They were past their prime so we pulled them out and planted vincas in their place. Last night we went to a garden center and bought plants, I pretty much gave Avery the lead on what flowers to get.  She wanted pink & purple so vincas is where I subtly directed her to!

We took out the old plants, added soil, mixed everything up (in our pj's no less!)

Then it was time to plant! She actually did pretty good at this. I had to make the planting hole but she did a great job of getting the plants in there and filling back up with dirt. Kids and dirt is such a natural combination!

Then we did a little crafting; we painted a rock to mark that this was Avery's garden. She was bound and determined that she was going to do the painting, and she doesn't spell yet, so both of us had our hand on one paintbrush when we were doing the detail work.  Our rock won't win the fanciest rock award but she was quite proud of it!

After a shower to wash off our dirt and paint, we were sitting in the rocking chair reading a book.  She reached up, touched my cheek and said "I had fun today, Nana". Yes, we did sweetheart, and Nana's backyard looks pretty good, too!