Back to the Farm

Late Saturday Morning we made a trip back to the Farm. The kids love being at this fun hands on Historic Farm. In Owen's eyes this farm could not run with out him! It's a good thing really nice people with lots of patience work at this farm. Papa John and Grandma Ruth came with us and seemed to really enjoy it too!

Our first job of the day was to check for eggs. Ava really enjoyed this job and thought it was pretty comical when she would lift a flap and see a chicken instead of an empty nest!

After looking for eggs we headed into the house to make some coffee!

Owen and Ava took turns with helping to grind the coffee beans. They put the beans through the grinder twice so that the beans were ground real fine.

Then Owen filled the coffee pot with water so that it could be placed on the wood burning cook stove!

After making coffee we went back outside to check on some of the animals.

While Ava played with the kittens Owen was talking to one of the farmers. Their conversation consisted of some of the tools in the barn and whether or not the Israelites from the Bible used some of those same items as weapons a long time ago! I would be willing to bet that farmer had never been asked that kind of question from a child in the past!

Ava decided to be a bit stubborn for a short while and plopped herself on the ground and wouldn't move. So I decided just to leave her sit there and moved on. I made sure that I could still see her even though she couldn't see me. The stinker didn't care one bit about being left and then eventually joined us as if nothing ever happened! She can be quite a little stinker at times. It scares me that she doesn't care even a little bit if I would leave her. Owen on the other hand would have freaked out in this same situation had I started walking away from him. He would have been up and running to me after me taking about twenty steps. Any way back to the farm!

We helped to make prairie sugar also known as sorghum molasses.

The first step was to strip the leaves off of the sorghum canes and then put them in the wagon.

The next step was to cut the tassels off the top of each sorghum cane

After that we had to stick the canes through the press to extract the juice. The press was operated by a harnessed horse walking in a big circle around the press. A full bucket of sorghum juice would then be put in a big pot to boil down to make molasses.

Ezra enjoyed watching Owen, Ava, and Daddy stick the sorghum canes into the horse powered press.

We went back into the house to make some molasses candy.

Our job in this process was to pull. We had to pull the ingredients apart and stick it back together and repeat these steps over and over.

This is what the end product looked like. But, as we were warned don't eat to much because it is like a natural laxative!

A few shots of Ezra in the cute little wagon!

We ended our visit with a picnic lunch. Owen and Ava did some exploring while we talked and packed up our stuff to head home!

Owen's Big News

Owen was all smiles when I picked him up from school today. His first words to me in a very excited voice were "I have a book bag!" as he lifted it up high to show me the white canvas book bag.

At Owen's school bringing home a white canvas book bag means that you can read. In Owen's eyes this is huge! He has wanted to bring home a white canvas book bag in the worst way since about April. Then he had summer break and it was on his mind when he started school again at the beginning of September. So, yes my overly excited four and half year old boy is now a reader and a proud carrier of a white canvas book bag!

In his bag today there are two flip books. One is "at" words, and the other is "h" words. After I put Ava and Ezra down for a nap Owen and I got comfy on the couch and practiced his reading! He did great. He gets so excited though that when he is sounding out the word he gets ahead of himself and skips to the second or last letter first. A few times I had to tell him to slow down and relax! I love seeing this excitement in him.

After flipping through them both a few times we put them away and moved onto reading one of the "Magic Tree House" books. He is loving this series, and I would be lying if I said I didn't like them too. If you are not familiar with these books they are really neat. Each book has a topic and then after you read the book you read a study book that goes more in depth about the subject. For instance the first book in the series is called "Dinosaurs Before Dark" In this book the little boy and girl go back in time to when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and they have to use a book to figure out which dinosaurs they are seeing as they are on a little adventure. Eventually they end up back at home in the tree house. Then when we finished that story we read a study book called "Dinosaurs" written by the same author but this book is full of facts. It is really neat! Owen and I are both learning a lot. We finished the second book called "The knight at Dawn" and are now reading the study book for it called Ancient Rome and Pompeii.

All I have to say is THANK GOODNESS for Libraries! If we had to buy all the books that Owen and I devour we would be broke. I think Owen is even more of a book worm than I am!

Friday

Luke used a vacation day on Friday and we had a family fun day! We left our house at 8:12am arriving at our first destination at 9:15am. We spent many hours climbing, sliding, bouncing, riding, running and exploring at a giant indoor park! I wasn't sure on how user friendly this place would be for all three of the kids, but it was a huge success; all 5 of us had a blast! (Thanks Amy for the referral!) After eating the lunch I had packed and meeting a 7 day old baby named Ezra we left the indoor park to head to our next adventure.

A stop at Lego land was a must do! Why? Well, because Owen filled up his good behavior chart and earned a trip there! After picking out the perfect Lego set Owen went on 1 ride to use up some old tickets that we had left over from a past trip. Ava and I spent some time in the butterfly garden looking at all the beautiful colorful butterflies! Ava also got to pick out a new toy. Her purchase for the day was a princess toy camera! I love it. When she pushes the button it says things like "you're as pretty as a princess"!

Then it was back to the van for us. All three of the kids slept all the way home so Luke and I could enjoy some uninterrupted conversation! Later that evening I left to meet my Mom to go watch my cousin Tony play football while Luke was more than happy to stay home with the kids and not go to the game (you know the non football fan of a husband I have)! Well I guess I shouldn't say that he was overly happy about me going because he did try making me feel guilty about leaving him on his "birthday weekend".

Luke

Happy Birthday Daddy, we love you!

You teach us how to do things, and let us help you with your projects!

You always make us feel extra special!

You do lots of fun stuff with us!

Thursday

Ezra had his very first day of school on Thursday morning! His class meets for an hour every three weeks. He seemed to enjoy himself. He only has two girls in his class and he pulled one of the little girl's hair and kept trying to grab at the other little girl's face. He didn't even pay attention to the 4 boys in his class. Can you believe it, already picking on the girls at 10months old.