I'll admit this started as an idealist dream. My grandmother always had a flower garden that attracted a lot of butterflies and I have fond memories of catching butterflies . I thought it would be great to plant a little garden with Julianna, one that we could water all summer and watch the butterflies and birds visit. So off we went to the local home improvement warehouse for a bird bath, kid sized garden tools, and pretty flowers. We also got a little fence, mainly so the lawnmower doesn't get the flowers. We set up the bird bath and marked out the area and started digging.
Unfortunately, about right now, Julianna got bored with the whole process. The dirt was hard to dig and mommy was using big tools. No place for little kid tools at this point. My solution, turn on the hose and let her clean out the bird bath, partly because water will keep her entertained for hours and partly because she had made a mud pie in the bird bath.
When I finally got to the point of planting, Julianna decided that digging in the dirt was not all that much fun and proceeded to pull the flowers off the plants. My disillusionment set in. She did finally decided that scooping dirt out and putting it on the garden buddy was fun. It was drenching wet and made a nice, muddy mess.

In the end, the flowers were planted and the bird bath filled with clean water. I'm sure we will enjoy watering it all summer and the birds will probably enjoy the water, but next time I'm going to have someone with large garden equipment come and prepare the garden spot. Applications are now being accepted, as I had also planned to grow tomatoes for our little veggie lover.