Outings

Animal Farm Revisited

Posted on by Amy

My husband is working nights this week.  Ugh.  There are several reasons this is not my favorite work schedule for him, not the least of which being that I feel the need to stay out of the house all the time to let him get some sleep.  Though we can and sometimes do stay home while he’s sleeping, it generally leads to me feeling anxious about the girls being loud, and then crabby because invariably they are loud, and then guilty because of course they’re loud, they’re kids, and I hate fussing at them about it.  So needless to say, when Daddy works nights we try to stay out of the house as much as possible.  Today I decided to make the most of it.  After a little bonding time with Daddy over some archery in the morning, we hit the road to have a bit of fun out and about.

I decided to take the girls back to the dirty weird zoo we visited last summer.  Why did we return to such an odd place, you may be wondering?  Well, if you recall from our visit last year, though the place was kind of strange and dirty, it really was fun and Miss totally enjoyed it.  So I was kind of excited to check it out again now that both of my older girls could appreciate it.

I was happy to see this guy right when we pulled in.  He was one of my favorites last year and was right there to greet us when we got out of the car.

Okay, really he totally ignored us, but it was fun to see him again.  The place still had the long stretch of trail that was full of trash, but happily no bison skulls in varying stages of decay this time.

And of course, they still had tons of fun animals to feed.  This time the animals were all much cleaner as well.  A major improvement.  My favorite thing about this place is that they give each person a bag of bread when you come in and you can feed almost all of the animals there.  This time we were told we could feed any of them except the new wolf and dingos.  No problem there.  The rest of the animals were eager to accept our offerings.  In fact, we had almost the exact same problem this time with the goat assault that we had last time.  As soon as we came in and got our bread those guys were all up in our business wanting to get some.  Lass started screaming (just like she did last year) and Miss started trying to climb my leg (just like she did last year) and I started hip checking goats and hustling my wagon out of their range.  After that, Miss was kind of hesitant to feed any of the animals and Lass wouldn’t get out of the wagon.  But they still loved looking at the animals and watching me feed them.

After a while we saw this goose on the trail and Miss wanted to feed him.  She took a piece of bread and tried to take it to him, but he just waddled away from her.  Finally she threw the bread at him and then ran like hell when he turned around and started coming back towards her to get it yelling, “Momma, I knew I could do it!”

And that was her mantra for the rest of the morning. Once she braved the goose, she was all in.

She really wanted to feed the llama.  She kept calling him “Llama Llama,” like the book character.  I had to distract a few other animals (a zebra, a cow, and a pony) so she could have a clear path to feed Llama Llama.  She was really proud of herself after she did it.

She wanted to make sure each of the animals in this area got a piece of bread, and she kept pointing out animals that hadn’t, “Give one to him, Momma” and “He needs some bread, he looks hungry.”  She was quite concerned that we try to get some bread to the ones who had gotten boxed out by the bigger and more assertive animals.  So we did.

This zebra was new and very beautiful.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to a zebra before.  I know I’d never fed a piece of bread to one before today.

I was a little bit surprised that my typically fearless middle child did not want anything to do with feeding the animals.  She held one piece of bread the whole time.  At the end of our walk through the zoo she kept saying she was going to give it to one of the pigs, but wouldn’t quite pull the trigger and throw it through the fence.

Then the goats came back and she quickly shoved it at me  and ran back to the wagon with more screaming.  Miss was not as fearful this time though, and actually walked up to a goat and petted him on her own.  But due to the screaming of her sister, we headed out pretty quickly at that point.

When we got back to the car I asked each of the girls which animal was her favorite.  Miss said the goats (really?).  Lass said the horses (though both of them had seemed terrified of the huge horses).  In spite of the goat terrorizing, we had a really great time again this year.

And, in a burst of mommy genius and planning, I made our lunches before we left this morning so when we got home we went straight from the car to a picnic in our front yard under our beautiful oak tree.  The girls thought this was so cool.

We had some new elderberry jam on our sandwiches today.  The girls had never had this kind before (or even heard of it) so we pretended it was “Bumbleberry” Jam, which is a favorite of the Care Bears.  It was a big hit.

After lunch we just enjoyed a beautiful day outside.

Sis and I hung out while the older girls ran and chased each other back and forth.

Naturally they found the one remaining puddle from last night’s rain.

It was a great day.

The Iowa State Fair

Posted on by Amy

Someone once wrote a book titled something like “1000 Things to do Before You Die.”  I don’t know who wrote it or what 999 of the things in the book are or whether I’ve done any of those things, but I do know that one of the things this person noted was the Iowa State Fair.  A must do before one dies.  Check.  Yesterday we rocked the fair and it was good.

My husband grew up going to the Iowa State Fair and loves it.  I first went when Miss was about six months old.  It was fun then.  There was lots of cool stuff to do and look at.  It was easy with just one immobile and good-tempered baby.  This time, though it was a little bit more tricky, and at times trying, it was so much more fun.  I loved, I mean loved, watching my girls do the fair.  There were so many fun experiences for them.  They got to see piglets being born.  They watched a lamb chasing and dancing around its mother to grab on to her and nurse.  They saw chicks hatching, and all sorts of other baby animals.  They got to play with butterflies.

Miss was so proud of herself for learning to catch the butterflies all by herself.  Lass had a heavier hand and needed some help to keep from clubbing them, but she eventually got it too.

A little later, Miss was very eager to ride the Big Yellow Slide.  We happened to eat lunch right near it, and she couldn’t even eat she was so anxious to get on that slide.  She was mad that she couldn’t go down by herself.  She went down with her daddy.  And she hated it.  It totally freaked her out.  Lass on the other hand loved it.  She went twice and wanted to keep going.

So true to their personalities.

Of course a day at the fair is not complete without trying various “fair foods.”  The girls have a book in which the characters go to a fair and eat cotton candy, so they were eager to try it.  Cotton candy is not one of my favorite things and I would not normally waste $4 on it, but I was excited to see what they thought of it.  Naturally Lass jumped right in and ate it up.

And Miss was not so sure.  She said, “Why is it dry?”  She didn’t love it so much.

I tried my first fried Snickers bar.  It was tasty, but I think I’d rather just have the Snickers.  Surprisingly, not everything in life is made more delicious by deep fat frying it.

We made up for the disappointing cotton candy with red velvet funnel cake.  Funnel cake is not really my thing (my belief about dessert is that, with very few exceptions, it’s generally not worth the calories if it isn’t chocolate) but the girls enjoyed it.  Again, Lass dug in with vigor.

We spent a lot of time looking at the animals.  They were the big hit of the day, from all the baby animals to the “Big Boar.”  His name was Reggie and he was over 1500 lbs, I think!  Though his size was impressive, the girls actually seemed to prefer the smaller animals, because poor enormous Reggie didn’t do anything but lay in the dirt.  The girls were really intrigued by other animals like bunnies, chickens, ponies, llamas, sheep, horses, normal-sized pigs, and an elk.  Miss’s favorite were the bunnies.

Lass’s favorite were the cows.  She asked to pet a new mama cow who was in the birthing barn with her calf, but there was a staff member posted near her specifically to make sure no one got too close.  That mama cow was very protective.  Gotta respect that.

We had so much fun looking at and talking about all the animals.  It was an amazing learning experience.  We talked about everything we saw, from how the baby chicks peck their way out of the eggs to why a sheep pooped in his water dish.  They’re still talking about that one.

A surprising favorite was the tractors.  My husband loves to look at them, but I wasn’t expecting my girls to get into them as much as they did.  They wanted to climb into every one and Miss got upset when we needed to move on to other things.

We saw as much of the Fair as we could in one too-short morning.  We got back to the Farm after a long drive and one of the first things Miss asked to do was to look at her Papa’s tractors!  She takes after her Daddy I guess.

We’re at the Farm this week, recharging and savoring the last of summer.  The Iowa State Fair was a wonderful addition.


Wednesdays with Lass

Posted on by Amy
At least once per week, on Tuesday or Wednesday or both, I have a special morning with Lass while Miss is at school.  Sometimes we run errands or just go home and play.  Often we go to a local cafe where they have a big play area for little ones.  Sis comes along of course, but mostly she just sleeps or chills in her car seat or wrap, so it is special time for Lass and me to hang out.  Her little personality just seems to blossom during these times.  She is so curious and chatters away about everything she sees.  She loves to look at the mural at the cafe and point out each animal she sees.  She plays in the little house and with the train table.

We have a snack.  She likes to climb up in the chair at one of the other small tables, point to the other chair and say, “Sit?  Mama sit?”  Then we sit at the table, just the two of us and chit chat.

Yesterday she wouldn’t take off this paper bib after her snack.

She is growing and changing so quickly.  She’s 21 months old today.  Her vocabulary seems to grow every day and she now speaks in full sentences.  She has little things she likes to say a lot, like “No yet,” if you ask her to do something or “Okay?,” meaning, “Are you okay?”  She pats or rubs my arm or leg if she can when she asks this one.  She is very interested in taking care of her baby sister and tries to be able to do all the things her big sister can do.  She is now wearing a “big girl pony tail” like her big sis.  She looks so grown up.

I love my mornings with my middle girl. 

Lessons on Bargain Shopping

Posted on by Amy
Yard sale season is upon us.  Oh, how I love yard sales (or rummage sales as they’re called around here).  I used to wake up early nearly every Saturday in graduate school with my sales already marked on my laminated city map and cruise around Louisville finding treasures galore.  I furnished my first apartment almost exclusively with yard sale finds.  It makes me almost giddy just thinking about it.
Since having kids I haven’t gone yard-sale-ing as much.  Mostly because I just don’t relish the idea of driving around town, finding a sale, getting the kids out for a quick look, strapping them back into their car seats, and repeating this over and over. Because of course many yard sales only warrant a quick glance and on to the next.  Not fun when you have to drive to get from one to the next with three small children.  
This weekend there was a big annual neighborhood sale that I have been wanting to go to.  I am all about being able to park the car once and walk to lots of sales in a short distance.  I have heard good things about this particular neighborhood sale.  I have been itching to go to it so much that I actually considered trying to get up extra early and hit the sales before going to our play date yesterday morning, knowing that all the best stuff would probably be gone by today.  I quickly discarded that idea as completely insane, but I couldn’t help but feel all antsy about getting to the sales this morning.  When we did get there late this morning, it was wonderful.  Big girls in the wagon, Baby Sis in my wrap, and we were all set to shop.  

It was awesome.

I love finding bargains.  But I think this time I loved teaching Miss and Lass what a “bargain” is even more than the bargains themselves.  We found one sale where they had lots of Little Mermaid books.  Very nice hardcover books that were like new (Miss is holding one in the photo below) for 50 cents each.  I grabbed up the books, gave each girl a dollar, and told them they could each pick two books.  The lady running the sale said, “They can have three for a dollar.”  Naturally, I said, “What a bargain!” and proceeded to try to explain to Miss why this was so.  She wasn’t really listening, because she was carefully going through each of the books to choose her three (which she has been “reading” nonstop and she is sleeping with tonight, BTW), but I was excited to tell her anyway.  I loved watching her select her books, take them to the lady with her dollar and shyly give her the money with a quiet, “Thank you” and a little sideways grin.

Later on I happened to find myself at a sale being run by two ladies in my book club.  They commented on how quietly and peacefully my girls were riding in their wagon.  Thank you Little Mermaid books.

One of my friends was selling Candy Land and Memory games, in great condition, for 50 cents each.  Score.

Miss and I played a game tonight before bed.  She kicked my butt.

I’m looking forward to many years of bargain shopping with my girls.  Next lesson?  I’m teaching them how to haggle…

Some Random Thoughts and a Tea Party

Posted on by Amy
Sleep has been somewhat elusive the past few nights.  I think I’m starting to get a little bit freaked out about how close the arrival of little Sis is.  Example – Two nights ago, I woke up at 12:53 to go to the bathroom.  Then I realized I was hungry, so I came downstairs to get a snack.  I decided to check my email and look around online a bit while I ate my snack.  I wasn’t down here for more than 10 minutes, but when I went back to bed I was wide awake and sleep was nowhere to be found.  I tossed and turned, but I just could not quiet my mind.  My thoughts bounced back and forth between worrying about the fact that Sis is still breech, just like her big sister Lass was at this point in my pregnancy with her, and stressing out about all the things I have to do before Sis arrives.
I am already trying everything I can to get Sis to flip.  Most of it is the same as what I tried with Lass, I’m just starting earlier.  My idea was that maybe Lass didn’t flip until the last minute because she was so big, so I started earlier while Sis is hopefully small enough that something – contortions, music, moxibustion, chiropractor, whatever – will work before I get to the point of needing to try to have my doctor turn her, like she did Lass.   My crazy, middle-of-the-night thoughts consisted of lots and lots of worrying that it would be pretty hard to be so lucky as to have a version work twice.  There’s no real scientific basis for this fear, I guess, but there it is.  And it was magnified almost to the point of insanity at 2am.  Everyone seems so amazed that the version worked so well with Lass, since it’s not really a high percentage procedure (so maybe there is some basis for my fear…), that I can’t help but worry that I won’t have the same luck a second time, if it comes to that point.  Obviously it doesn’t help to worry about it, but I do anyway.
And then there’s the fact that I have a nursery for Sis that is emptied of guest room furniture and freshly painted, and that’s it.  So after ruminating about my fears of having another c-section for a while, I started thinking, “Crap, I have so much to do to get Sis’s furniture out of Miss’s room and put Miss’s new stuff in her room and get all the new decor done in all three girls’ rooms.  And oh geez, I still need to sew Sis’s crib sheets, but I can’t get to my sewing machine because the old guest room mattress is leaning against it, since we couldn’t fit the box spring down the stairs, and what the heck are we going to do with a queen sized mattress and box spring that won’t fit into our guest room, which now has to be in the basement because we have nowhere else to have it?”  And so on and so on, for a half hour or so, then back to the breech-c-section issue, repeat.  The last time I looked at my clock (after getting up again for a second snack at around 3:00) it was about 3:30.  I suspect I finally fell back to sleep at around 4.
Anyway…  I know there’s not much I can do about Sis being breech (other than what I’m already doing obsessively), so I am trying not to worry about that for now.  I’m not very successful in these attempts to not worry, but I’m trying nonetheless.  And to address my other source of stress, well I just need to get off my rear and start getting some things done.  I have started working on some craft projects I have for all the girls’ rooms (I’ll do some posts soon to show what I’m doing).  I’ve made a good list for myself of things to get done and a Honey-do list for my hubby.  He actually requested this after learning that I’m am losing sleep because of stressing out about this stuff.  He’s awesome.  And he has a week off coming up, during which we will not be traveling.  So, we’ll get it done.  That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.
And never fear.  In between all the worrying, the contorting, and the crafting, we’re having lots of fun.  We went to a birthday party this past weekend at Monkey Joe’s.  Miss was scared of the big bouncy things, but she had fun running around and playing with Lass in this small one.  

It was so great to have my hubby along to help.  On the way home I thanked him for coming to the party with us, and he said, “What, you mean that was optional?”

After a bit Miss got a bit braver and was willing to try some of the slightly bigger slides.

And Lass is just fearless.

They loved these glasses they got in their goody bags.

It was a fun party, but I have to say I’m not a fan of Monkey Joe’s.  Not because there’s anything wrong with that place in particular, I just don’t enjoy trying to keep track of my girls at their current ages in a place where line of sight is so limited.  I much prefer taking them to someplace like the YMCA or open gym at the Gymnastics Center where they both take classes to let them run around and burn some energy.  Speaking of gymnastics, I love that I can now take Lass with me when Miss goes to her gymnastics class and don’t have to get a sitter for her anymore.  She loves watching her “Sissy” too.

And finally, I came down from putting Lass to bed last night to find Miss having a tea party with her Daddy.  She was so excited to have her tea set out and to serve us tea, including adding cream and sugar according to our requests.  It was so cute.

 

Time with my girls is the best possible cure for my stress about the above issues.  But I still really want Sis to flip ASAP.

Membership Has its Privileges

Posted on by Amy
For months now, I have been saying that I want to rejoin the YMCA.  My husband and I were members when we first moved here, because we lived in a rental house and didn’t have a good place to exercise at home.  When we bought our current house, we set up a nice garage gym area and let our Y membership lapse.  Miss was too tiny to do any activities there and we could exercise at home, so we let it go. BUT, now Miss is bigger.  She’s old enough to start getting into some of the little classes they have at the Y and I really need to keep up with swimming lessons for both of the girls. There are so many good activities for families at the Y.  Plus, there isn’t a whole lot else to do indoors in our town during the winter.  So, this week I finally got myself in gear and went to the Y to renew our family membership.  We started taking advantage of it yesterday by going to “Wiggles and Giggles.”  Our Y has an indoor soccer field, and they open it up twice a week in the mornings for little ones to come and play.  They pull out ride-on toys, balls, big mats, and various other things for the kids to enjoy.  Not to mention there’s lots of room to run.  The girls had a blast.
 (Quick snack break)
 
I’m so glad we joined.  The girls ran and danced and got to blow off some steam.  And we met some other moms and kids there, so I got to visit with some grown ups.
And speaking of visiting with grown ups, my husband and I had a great date night last night.  We went to a new sushi place, and it was pretty good.  Of course the best part was just being able to hang out and chat with my hubby.  Before dinner we went to Miss’s school and met with her teachers for our little parent-teacher conference.

It was great to hear all about what she has been doing in school and to see how thorough they are in their assessments of her.  And it was pretty cool to hear someone else describe her spot-on and know how much time and attention she must get there for them to be able to really “get” her so well.  I loved when they told me how much she likes to sing at the top of her lungs and to shake it when they dance.

No one needs to tell me how much my girls love to dance and that they’ve got some moves.

Miss got new ballet shoes yesterday.  The ones I got her for her Halloween costume had cut into her little heels and one shoe had totally split on the side from being worn so much, so I told her she couldn’t wear those anymore.  She was so upset and asked repeatedly for them for several days.  When I pulled out the new shoes yesterday, I was relieved to find that she loves these just as much even though they’re a different style.  She immediately asked, “Momma, can you play some music so I can ballet dance?” So I did. The Cure.

I got a question in a comment about organizing photos, related to my last post about taking at least one photo a day.  Unfortunately, I’m not really great about organizing my photos.  Mostly I just dump them into iPhoto.  I do “flag” my favorites when I’m going through and editing them, which is how I select the pics I’m going to upload to a blog post or use for something else.  Just in the past few days with the start of this new project I have begun putting photos into folders by month, so I will have a little bit better organization of them that way.  I also have set a goal to start deleting photos a little bit more so I won’t have such an overwhelming mass of pictures.  And few years ago I set a goal to make photo books for each of my girls for each year of their lives.  Unfortunately, I’ve only completed Miss’s first year book.  So making the rest of the books needs to become a priority, and I’m hoping to get my photos more organized that way too.  I will make folders for each girl, each year in my iPhoto in addition to making the books.  That’s it.  I don’t have a great system yet.  Anyone else have a good way of organizing digital photos?

Happy Fall

Posted on by Amy
Fall is my favorite season.  I love the crispness of the air, the colors of the leaves and their lazy floating to the ground.  I love pumpkins and apples and squash and chilly morning trips to the farmer’s market where all the season’s bounty can be found.  I love open windows through which cool breezes bring the scent of burning leaves.  Fall makes me feel cozy and productive.  Like I want to snuggle up with my Loveys, but also to get out and go do stuff.
Last year around this time, we went to a local farm where they have pumpkins, apples, animals and a big rustic playground.  We had a lot of fun, though I ended up a bit overwhelmed at the end of the day, struggling back to the truck with a newborn wrapped to me, a toddler and a big bag of apples in one arm, and pulling a wagon completely loaded with pumpkins with my free hand.  Thank goodness for the kindness of a stranger who came to our rescue.  Here we are in a photo from last year. 

We went back to the same farm yesterday.  My how things have changed.  We’ve upgraded our equipment,
and the girls have grown so much.  They were both charged with the task of picking out our pumpkins.
Lass took a relaxed approach to the job.
Miss, on the other hand, was all business.
She searched through all the pumpkins and even hauled the ones she chose toward the wagon.
We met up with some good friends, and had a wonderful day.
Back at home in the afternoon, we took full advantage of the glorious weather and the mass of leaves fallen from our beautiful oak tree.
 

The girls had a blast jumping and rolling in the leaves.  Daddy got down in the leaves with the girls too, and even got buried.

And yes, I got buried too.  I don’t know the last time I played in a big pile of leaves. I was a little shocked by how wonderful the leaves smelled and how the scent transported me instantly back to my childhood.  I had completely forgotten that smell.  It’s a fantastic smell!
Happy fall to you!
 

Finally! Giraffes

Posted on by Amy
Yesterday, I lost my Mommy Mojo.  I was adrift on a sea of preschooler tantrums and disobedience and toddler crabbiness.  I couldn’t seem to do anything right from nap time to bed time. Miss wouldn’t listen to a thing I said.  She didn’t take a nap, so she was cranky and whiney.  My attempts to redirect and/or to discipline her left both of us frustrated and frayed.  I could not seem to find my usual groove with my big girl, and to top it off, my normally sunny, cheerful Lass was a crabby mess.  By the time I took Lass up for her bath, I was in tears.  I managed to rally and get Miss bathed and in bed happily and without struggle, but I ended the day exhausted and unhappy with myself.  I vowed to get it right today.
Today, Mama got her groove back.  Today, we went to the zoo with some friends and had a blast.  Both girls were wonderful.  Lass even sat in her stroller the whole time with minimal protest!

Miss was fantastic.  She listened well, helped with her sister, and was my usual happy, if sometimes slightly mischievous, girl.  She had so much fun.  Of course, there was plenty of goat feeding.

Lots of excitement over the big llamas.  These were thankfully fairly well groomed and free from matted, poo-crusted fur (click hereif you missed the post about matted, poo-crusted fur).

Lass made a new friend.

Miss played chase with her friend all over the zoo.

She was really interested in this tortoise.  The poor thing kept trying in vain to fit through these posts, and Miss was calling to it, “Come here big turtle. Come here so I can hold you.”  It was kind of pitiful.

And then.  After months of asking for them.  Three “zoos” and many animal encounters later, we finally saw the giraffes.

Initially Miss was timid about feeding them.  She wouldn’t do it herself, until she saw Baby Sister do it.  My little fearless girl.

After she saw her Sis do it, Miss gave it a try too.

The tall guys were definitely the highlight of the zoo.  It was a great day with friends.  And to top it off, both girls stayed awake for the entire hour-plus drive home (right at their usual nap time) and took fantastic naps after we got here.  That never happens.  It must have been some cosmic freebie to make up for yesterday.

But really, yesterday probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I had just managed to pick my battles a little more wisely and maybe count to ten a few times.  Yesterday I was not my best Mommy self.  Okay, let’s be honest.  Yesterday I was an ugly mess.  Today, I got myself a little perspective, took a deep breath, and got my Mojo back.

Feeling Crafty

Posted on by Amy
We went to the park on Friday for a play date.
Before I talk about how much fun we had, I must make note of the fact that these pants were the worst possible choice to put on Lass to go to a park where the ground is covered with mulch.

They’re not just fleece pants.  They’re extra fluffy, nubbly, super-fleecy fleece pants.  Watch, and take note.  Don’t put super duper fleecy pants on your kid if there’s mulch at the park.

A little while after I took the photo below, I put Lass in the sling so she could have a little snack.  The whole time I was holding her I was picking mulch off her pants.  I didn’t even make a dent in the matted, embedded mulch stuck in these things.  The big pieces came off, but the smaller fibers seriously got matted into the fabric and will not come off.  I took them off her the minute we got in the door, tried a little while longer to de-mulch them, and then put them in the trash.  They are that far beyond saving.  Who knew?

We did have a wonderful time at the park.  It was a great park.

And we were there with great new friends.  I just have to say how much I enjoy finding a new mom friend with young kids who is easy to talk to and fun to hang out with.

When we first moved here I hated that I didn’t know any other moms for so long.  It’s hard to be a new mom living far away from family and not really having any friends.  Over the years I have gradually met some really cool mom friends.  It helps more than I can explain to have other moms for support and just hanging out.  Friends who understand that when we get together, conversations will necessarily be fragmented, between corralling kids, wiping noses, answering questions from curious two year olds, excusing oneself to change smelly drawers, etc.  Friends who will grab your kid before she falls off the teeter-totter if you’re distracted for a second with another kid running the other way.  It’s an extra special bonus to find a friend with whom I have things in common besides just being moms.  The kind of friend with whom I laugh a lot and can talk about just about anything.  I have a few of these treasured friends.  Sometimes I don’t see them as often as I’d like, but I’m thankful to have them.  Friday’s play date was with a new friend (and her kids!) whom I think is going to be this type of friend.  It was a good day.

On a completely unrelated note, I have been feeling super crafty lately.  The other night, while watching Chopped, I made Miss a new tutu.  This weekend I finally finished a yarn wreath (I totally got this idea from another mom blog, Mrs. Priss) I have been working on for months.  This was the wreath in June.

I really struggled with getting the wreath covered with the yarn.  The straw wreath was not the best choice for this type of project.  I chose it because it was half the price of the foam wreath, and I thought it might be kind of cool and rustic looking.  It turned out looking fine (though not especially cool or rustic), but the extra hassle of getting it covered completely was not worth saving $3.  And I have to say I do not know the trick (is there one??) to working with yarn.  The above pile of tangled mess started out all nice and neat.  It repeatedly got tangled beyond untangling, and I had to cut it and start again more times than I’d like to remember.  Anyway, even after I finally got the wreath covered, I was so fed up with the project that I put it away for two months, until this week, before finally finishing it.  It took some nice crisp fall weather and a desire for a pretty fall-ish wreath for my front door to prompt me to pull it out, along with some great fall-colored felt.

I made a bunch of felt flowers.  Check out Mrs. Priss’s tutorials for these pretty and absurdly easy rosettes here.

Find Mrs. Priss’s pom-pom-looking flower tutorial here, and yarn wreath tutorial here.  I told you I got the ideas from her!!!  I’m totally giving credit where it’s due.

I love how it turned out!  I swore I wouldn’t make another yarn wreath, but I like this one so much, I just might.

Next time I’ll get the foam wreath though…

Animal Farm

Posted on by Amy
Fall will be here soon. It’s my favorite season. In the fall I get all excited about going to new outdoor places and soaking up every possible moment of the beautiful weather, before Winter hits us like a slap in the face…

Yesterday we checked out a local animal farm, where they have all sorts of cool animals to look at and feed. When I paid our admission, we were given three bags of bread and told we could feed any of the animals we wanted, but just to “watch our fingers.” Miss got right to feeding some goats.


We had seen two beautiful peacocks walking around free right after we drove onto the property. As we went further, we saw there were lots of animals roaming around out in the open. I noticed one of the peacocks near where we were standing and tried to get a great photo of it. I was not successful. See that goat behind the peacock?
Shortly after I took this photo, that guy and one of his pals accosted us, trying to steal my bread and completely freaking Lass and Miss out. Lass was in her stroller, doing a great job, and Miss had been feeding the smaller caged goats. These two insane goats practically stood on top of the stroller, trying to get at the stack of bread I had pulled out of the bag and the pieces that had fallen on the ground. There was a cat trying to climb into Lass’s lap too. Needless to say, I forgot all about the peacock as I was frantically trying to strap on my Ergo while Miss was working on climbing up my leg saying, “Hold me Mommy! Hold me Mommy!” and Lass was screaming bloody murder. One of the women working there came over and started trying to pull the goats away just as I was getting Lass into the Ergo, her favorite spot.

I ended up pushing an empty stroller for the rest of our visit. It was a good spot to hold the bread I guess.

Fortunately, Miss quickly forgot about the goat attack and was right back into feeding them.



This guy kind of made her nervous though.

I thought he was really fun to feed. His tongue was super long and funny.

Miss kept getting freaked out though and dropping her bread each time he’d stick his tongue out to grab it. By the way, if you can’t tell from the photos, this guy is a buffalo. I think. They had Bison there too, but they were separate, and I’m pretty sure this guy was a buffalo. There were water buffalo too, which Miss thought was pretty fun, since we recently got the book, “Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?” in which there is a water buffalo.

This is the guy who freaked me out a little bit. Just for a second. With each of the animals we fed, I gave them a piece of bread before letting Miss do it, just to make sure it wasn’t going to take her little arm off or anything. When I held out a piece of bread to this ostrich, he stretched his neck out and grabbed at it so quickly, he startled me so much I jumped back, let out a screech, and dropped my bread.

After a second try though, he really was pretty friendly. Miss had no trouble feeding him.
She love seeing the ostrich eggs and kept asking if she could go get one and were they going to hatch. I thought it odd that they were just lying all around on the ground like that.
There were a few other odd things about the place. Like the fact that a stretch of our tour led us through this area that was full of trash,


and these. There were a bunch of them just in a pile in the trash area. Notice several of them still have fur on them? One was even a bit more fresh, but I didn’t take a photo of that one. Weird.
And many of the animals clearly needed a bit of grooming.

But, Miss didn’t even notice all that stuff. I just looked past it, after taking some photos of course, and we really did have a lot of fun.
There were so many different types of animals to see and being able to feed them was great.
Camels.

Horses. Miss loved the horses. And I loved seeing her run right up near them and then stop and stare, up, up, up at these big guys.

Lass enjoyed the horses too.
I was trying to get a photo showing how she was interested in them. What I got instead was a horse nipping my shoulder. I snapped this photo right as the big black and white one was taking a nibble. It didn’t hurt, but scared the heck out of me for a second.
I thought this pig was so funny, but was bummed that he didn’t want anything to do with us. We had to just drop our piece of bread for him, and he didn’t even sniff at it until we had walked on by.
Miss did get to feed some other pigs later though.
I loved this fawn. It ate out of our hands, and made this funny little squeaking sound asking for more.
The bison.
Eyeore.
This guy was a miniature dwarf pony. He was one of my favorites.

Birds.

Turtles.
I think these were porcupines.
There were a lot more animals too. When I asked Miss what her favorite was though, she said, “The cats.”
She loved this little bunny too.
And so did Lass.

It was a fun day. I’m glad we have something like this place nearby. I still have to take the girls to the bigger zoo soon though. Miss keeps asking to see giraffes, hippos, and rhinoceroses. So we’ll make that trip soon.