Green Thumb

A friend gave us some iris bulbs, so we decided to buy some soil, a few more flowers, and plant one of our empty beds in the backyard. I planned on doing this alone with Maddux, but Eli caught wind of it and was very disappointed. So Maddux and I went and bought the supplies while he was at school and planned to plant as soon as we picked him up. Maddie LOVED Pikes Nursery. She pulled the wagon for me and only fell/landed in flowers once. We bought two varieties of celosia and a big bag of soil. Maddie was so excited.

Once we picked up Eli, the two kids were jumping out of their skin during the drive home. You'd think they'd never played in the dirt before! We got the gloves (I was the only one to wear them), the shovels, the pick, and all of the supplies we bought, and headed to the back yard. I chopped up the beds, added the dirt and let them mix it up and even it out with their tools. Then I planted the bulbs while they worked on the other bed. By this time, Mad Dog had lost interest and was on the swings. But Eli got RELALY into it, asking if he could help me plant the celosia. Of course I let him and he was awesome. He was so gentle and careful with the plants. And when he couldn't reach the hole I'd made for the roots, he 'let' me plant it so that he didn't step on the flowers trying to reach it. Eli was SO concerned about the flowers, and kept asking me really neat, really thoughtful questions about them. "If I plant a leaf, will it grow?" "Is it ok if ants crawl on the leaves?" "Is dirt good for plants?" "Are the roots kind of like bones?" That kid is amazing!!