Grandma & Me: Discovering Grandma's Garden

I am so excited to share this month's "Grandma & Me" fashion post with you because it's the first time I was really able to show Alethea my perennial garden.  It's a dream of mine, to share my garden with Alethea.  I want her to remember coming over to Grandma & Grandpa's house every summer and see all the flower gardens and have fond memories of those visits.  I want her to have "special flowers" that she loves because she remembers seeing them in my garden:  like purple coneflowers, black-eyed-Susan's, and iris.  Someday I hope to plant a "Fairy Garden" with her.  I hope she will be as enthusiastic about my garden as I am in sharing it with her.

Even though it was a warm August day when these photos were taken, we dressed up for fall since I knew they would be posted in September.  It was a good thing we had on all these layers because the mosquitoes were awful.  Poor Alethea got some bites on her face, and my daughter, the photographer really got bit up because she was wearing summer clothing.

For Alethea's fall outfit, she wore a denim dress, chambray sneakers, and a blue hair bow.  An over-sized mustard yellow cardigan completed the outfit.  If you can only buy one knew item this year for your fall wardrobe, I highly recommend something in mustard yellow.  It is this season's "it" color.  Every store I've shopped is spilling over in mustard yellow.

For my outfit, I actually wore a mustard yellow skirt I showed you before in THIS POST.  When I bought this skirt, I knew it would work great in the fall as well as the summer.  Here I paired it with a long sleeve white embroidered shirt (Stitch Fix, old), a denim vest (Target, old), a straw hat (H&M, bought this spring), and a new pair of open-toed booties from DSW.

Alethea's first visit to my garden was fascinating to me.  On the one hand, she seemed so excited to see all the flowers, trees, and shrubs.  On the other hand, she seemed very apprehensive.  She is so little, that everything is so HUGE to her.  I'm sure she felt like she was in some strange new world, or how I would feel if I were in the Amazon forest.   She also just learned to walk, and found walking on wood chips a bit unsteady for her.

She just loved peeking around every corner wondering what was around every bend.

I tried to point out certain flowers I knew she loved, liked Purple Coneflowers.  She always likes to touch their centers and feel the unique texture.

This picture really shows how tiny Alethea is and how this "garden world" must have seemed to big to her.  This is a Viburnum bush.  I have to literally get down on my hands and knees when weeding under this bush, but Alethea can stand underneath it!

Alethea loves to pick things off the ground (most of the time it's something she shouldn't be picking up!).  She found a pine cone and was so fascinated with it she couldn't let it out of her grasp for the rest of the photo shoot.  And of course she got sticky sap all over her hands!  haha!

Isn't this chambray head bow with white polka dots just the cutest?   Normally, she rips head bows right off her head, but on this day she was so distracted by everything around her, she had no idea it was even on her head.

Even though Alethea's first experience in my garden was for a fashion photo shoot, I sure enjoyed showing her around.  I can't wait till she's a little older, and we can start planting things together.

Oh, I just love her to pieces!  What a little treasure she is!

All these flower pictures remind me of how tiny she is.  Most of the flowers are around two to three feet tall, and yet they tower over her.  No wonder she was a bit apprehensive!

Here we are looking at the pine cones in the pine trees that haven't dropped yet.  Gardens are such great places to teach children about life and it's all stages.

Still so fascinated with that pine cone! 😊

For jewelry, I chose a multi-colored, multi-strand, stone beaded bracelet.

My bag is new this season.  I spied it earlier in the season, but I waited till the end of the season to buy it on clearance, and with coupon.  So I ended up getting it for around $10.00 from DSW.  I was more patient about waiting for this bag than I usually am because I already owned a straw bag and really didn't need another one.  I was just drawn to this one for the round handle and I liked that it had a liner that zipped close.  My other straw bag doesn't have that feature.  This one is also beige and blue and my other one is brown and beige.  It's still available HERE and on sale, but not as inexpensively as I paid for it.

For a necklace, I chose this brown, white, gold beaded one from my collection.

And I'm so excited to show you my new shoes, which you will be seeing in many fall fashion posts to come.  I absolutely love open booties for the summer-to-fall transitional season.  You get the look of fall without the heat of a traditional bootie.  I bought these on clearance for less than $30 at DSW.  I can't find this exact pair on their website anymore, but THIS ONE is almost identical.

Look how big this daylily is compared to Alethea!  Oh my goodness, that bloom is almost as big as her face!

I hope you enjoyed discovering my garden with Alethea today!  And I also hope I've inspired you to transition some of your summer skirts and dresses for fall by adding winter elements like cardigans, vests, jackets, and booties.

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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