Gardening with Brynnlee

I have had a lot of frustration with housing this summer over our yard.... a lot of little things adding up, but the long and short of it is they keep doing crazy things! They are trying to be helpful but just aren't very organized, etc. While we were in VA they 'weeded' our flower beds which apparently involved pulling up all of our plants that Nana spent so much time planting last Fall!!!!.... and then last week they began our morning with workers in the back yard, a mulcher parked next to my bedroom and a guy hanging from a cherry-picker thing cutting huge limbs off a dead tree along our fence that started bouncing off our roof. It was the last straw for me after a series of nearly comedic events and last week.... oh boy.... if you talked with me you know we were NOT sleeping last week b/c of a new tooth one of us was getting (not me and not Eric....) so I had finally gotten B down for a rest that morning and I had actually gotten in bed (which rarely happens during the day) and here starts the cutting, banging, mulching and BARKING. Abe was not keen on people in his yard! I must say, as a side note, I nearly cried laughing when Abe ran into the back yard and I witnessed two or three grown men jump the fence in a single bound to get away from him. They screamed like girls. It made up for the terrible racket a LITTLE BIT.
Anyway, my whole point is (I know, I know, GET TO THE POINT!!) housing and the yard people have been driving me crazy. However, this morning, I heard a little noise on the front step and when I looked out there I found a nice note and an entire flat of flowers for our yard. The people that housing pays to fix trees and do some yard maintenance had dropped them off to "apologize for the situation last week and replace the ones they pulled out". It was a refreshing surprise and are absolutely beautiful flowers. (I have a feeling they did not knock b/c my "please do not knock, baby Brynnlee is sleeping" sign was up this morning!) : )
After Brynnlee's afternoon nap we headed outside to work in the garden. She had her own little shovel to play with and was enamored with the hose - though not with the water part... just lifting it up a lot. She was pretty happy playing on her sheet with toys until I started really digging to plant the flowers.... it was all down-hill from there! I had to take off her dress that was caked in mud and for the next 30 minutes she kept sticking her hands in the mud and attempting to taste the mud - though most times I was too quick and was able to stop her. She sat pretty well from time to time if I made the chimes play. She would just stare up at them in wonder. The chimes on the front porch are a beautiful set that were a wedding gift from Aunt Judi and Uncle Bernard in New Mexico. When we stopped at their beautiful home on our way across country they gave them to us and we had just enough room in the car to slip them in and continue our journey. They now hang on our front porch and are a really beautiful set - like none I have ever seen! The sound they make is beautiful and melodic and apparently music to Brynnlee's ears!
I am happy to report that our only casualties of the day were the sheet she played on, her dress and a doll's outfit - but otherwise we successfully survived the experience. All three of our 'casualties' are already in the dryer and are stain free!
I hope you enjoy the pictures. I have other stuff to share but will have to hop online again another time. Super tired and ready for bed!
Have a wonderful week!
Love you all - Jennie xoxo