Monday, October 5, 2009

A Day of Mums

As I type, Katie is finishing a rather late afternoon nap. I hear the waterfall outside, the breeze is blowing gently through the house, the windchimes sing, and out every window I look I see the fruits of our afternoon work: flowers everywhere, little pops of color in a yard that feels evermore like a wonderland where Katie and I love to play.

We began the day, though, with some Starbucks and her Toddler Time class.


Here Katie is playing with a pegboard and pegs.

The theme today was "Do you know the Muffin Man?" and we entered the class to the scent of freshly baking blueberry muffins. It smelled heavenly. We sang and danced to the Muffin Man song, and Katie really got into the dancing this time and was doing many of the steps Mrs. Russo was asking her to do. Here, she is sharing her muffin project.


Katie takes her empty sippy toward the line for apple juice. She also tried the blueberry muffin and seemed to enjoy it!

Katie builds blocks in her class.


After class, we went to Home Depot to pick out our mums (and some other flowers). We are in love with our mums. Katie helped me to pick out everything, and I let her choose most of the mum colors. She was very drawn to the purple mums especially.


Katie wanted some snapdragons. I lined them all around her in the cart, surrounding her with beauty.

Katie gets one of her watering buckets and is ready to start our afternoon of gardening---yay for dirt and mud and air and sunshine and the scent of autumn!

Katie looks around for some of the places she wants to put the pots of flowers.


We break open the potting soil and begin our first of many pots. She is such a little helper. I love her desire to do everything. She loves to learn and to help.

Katie helps to shovel dirt into the first pot.


I love her look of determination here. She is working so hard.


Katie brings a bigger mum to me to put in our big pot. I love planting mums---they are part of my fall tradition. The planting of the mums is one of my favorite days each year, made even better by sharing it now with my beautiful daughter.
We worked for a couple of hours and then got quite wet and covered with potting soil. We took a break to change clothes and for lunch and to visit with Amie and Uncle David. I finished a couple more pots as we all played outside.
What a magical, wonderful day! I am so grateful that I am lucky enough to have such a truly happy life.