Field Trip Fun

Today was the kindergartners field trip to a dairy/pumpkin farm.  The weather wasn't perfect, but it was a whole lot better than the day they were originally going to go (Wednesday).

The owners of the farm split the kids into 3 groups.  Our group got to see the dairy cows first.  Here are some interesting cow facts we learned:  the brown guernsey cow's milk is best used in ice cream, cheese and yogurt.  The holstein cow's milk is best for drinking.  Cow's eat 70lbs of food per day and drink a bath tub full of water (approx. 40-55 gal) per day.

Our next stop was the pumpkin patch.  Since the farm was closing to the public in a couple of days, the kids were allowed to have two big sized pumpkins (meaning no larger than your head) and as many little pumpkins as you wanted.  The only catch was that you had to be able to carry them :o)

After that was the hayride!  And then we were able to walk around their corn maze.

Class picture while waiting for our turn on the hayride.

Our last stop was to pet the new calves.

It was then lunch time and then finally play time!  They had about 7 different areas to play in.  One area they had for the kids was this slide.  It took a bit for the kids to start going to it, but once they noticed it, they flocked to it.

Fortunately Janae wanted to try it out before the big rush :o)

Another area was the big trike race track.  She had to wait for a trike that she could ride, but it was definitely worth the wait for her as she loved it!

The other play areas were swings (which Janae loved - I pushed her and some friends for quite a while), a sand box, a hay bale maze, a big sling shot where you could shoot little pumpkins and gourds into a pond and a duck race track.

It was a great day overall.  I loved seeing Janae interact with her classmates and to get to know the kids instead of just hearing their names.  Another interesting thing I noticed on the way to the farm was that a bus full of kindergartners is a whole lot quieter than a bus load of 2nd graders!  Yes they were noisy, but not near as loud as when I went on a field trip with Allyson last year.  Now that was loud!  When I told Janae's teacher this, her response was "they just don't know any better yet." ;o)

Here are the girls posing with the pumpkins Janae and I brought home.

Kaycie's First Field Trip

This morning was Kaycie's first field trip, and she was definitely excited about going to the apple orchard.  The weather was almost perfect too as you can tell the kids aren't bundled up :o)

Here all the kids are listening to "Mrs. Apple" talk.  An interesting thing she told us was that their orchard lost 97% of all their crop due to the weird spring weather we had this year.  She also stated that every orchard grower from the Mississippi River east lost anywhere from 60 - 100% of their crops!  Once the growers realized that their crops wouldn't happen this year, they started calling around the country to find apples.  A lot of their apples came from Washington State.  She told us that Washington was having an overly abundant year for their apple crop - that is until a hail storm came about 2 weeks before the harvesting time!  Lost quite a bit of apples from that.  What an amazing year for apple growers.  Mrs Apple said this has been their worst season in over 100 years!

Enough of that . . . as I stated earlier, here the kids are listening to Mrs Apple.

Kaycie and I on the hayride - her favorite part!  She even waved to the cars driving past :o)

We drove around the huge field of pumpkins.

At the end of the hayride, all the kids and parents got to pick a gourd.

Nothing in Particular

Here are some pictures from the past month or so.

Kaycie playing computer games.

This is how Kaycie takes her afternoon naps - I have to make a tent for her  :o)

Had to throw in this picture of our cat Punky sleeping  :o)

The Girls

Today the girls wanted to go outside and play.  It didn't take long before Allyson came in and wanted me to rake the leaves in a pile. I told her "I'm not gonna rake no leaves!"  I told her she could do it, and she was able to get the rake and go at it.

While Allyson raked, Janae and Kaycie picked up leaves with their hands and put them on the pile :o)

The coveted result - a pile of leaves to play in!

Kaycie and Preschool

On Monday Kaycie got to bring home the class puppet, Albert the Alligator.  She was totally excited and even read Albert a book soon after she got home.

Today was Silly Day at preschool.  Here is my silly girl with mismatched socks and . . .

. . . silly hair

Last week all the kids at preschool got to paint a shirt they brought to school.  Today (Silly Day) was the first time they got to wear them and bring it home.  Here is Kaycie's painted shirt.

Our Little Artist

Janae drew this picture this afternoon, and I personally think she is doing a great job!  I also think that this is one of her best so far.  She usually likes to draw right after watching her favorite show when she gets home from school.  Do you know who's who?

Me, Kaycie, Allyson, Janae and Rodney

First Day of Preschool

Even though I've been waiting for this day for a while, it doesn't seem possible that it has finally arrived.  My baby girl is now in preschool.  Today was Kaycie's first day, and she was definitely excited and a bit nervous.  She had no qualms when we got there.  She got out of the van and walked right in the building like she's done it a bunch of times.  (It probably didn't hurt that she saw big sister Janae do this all last year.)

When I picked  her up later that morning, she was full of information on what she did at school - play outside, eat fish crackers at snack time, sing the Muffin Man song, play dress up in the toy room, paint, etc.  It's kinda funny but at one point she wanted to know where her friends were.  We've been calling her classmates her friends even though she hadn't met them yet, so now since she finally is in school she still isn't officially friends with everyone yet cuz she still learning to know them.  I told her it will take a little bit before she knows everyone and is comfortable playing with them.

What did I do today you ask?  Well, I first stopped by the drug store to pick up a prescription, then headed to the credit union to do some banking.  I then went home and did some things on the computer and kept watching the clock as I guess I was afraid time would get away from me and I'd be late to leave to pick up Kaycie :o)  Nothing overly exciting, but last night Kaycie told me that I could do laundry when she was at school :o)  I don't think it has totally sunk in that this is going to be a normal routine thing - where I will have time three days a week where it's just me, but I do know that I'm going to enjoy whatever I do or don't do.

Pictures

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks and some from just tonight.

Janae and Kaycie waiting for daddy to come home.  They got a little impatient and left their post about 5 minutes before Rodney actually got home.

When Allyson started kindergarten I took a picture of her getting off of the bus the very first time (actually it was the second day as I was video taping her on the first day and couldn't handle both the video and the camera).   So I wanted to do the same with Janae's first (ok actually second) day of getting home from kindergarten . . .but Allyson kept getting off the bus first.

I told Allyson on the third day of school to let Janae get off first, and she did.  :o)

Love those faces!

Kaycie is now thinking that she needs to sleep on the hallway floor like her sister :o(  !!!!  This is what I get to maneuver through each night and morning.  Like I had said on Facebook - I have a hallway land mine.

I'm done with the cute pictures now, but here are two we are hoping to identify.  Does anyone know what this is?!  I first found it early last week attached to our back door on the mailbox.  I just thought it was something that stuck while floating in the air.  I took a leaf and knocked it down.  That's when I thought I noticed it might have been alive.  Didn't think a whole lot about it since I had knocked it down.  That is until this afternoon.  I once again saw it attached to our mailbox, but this time it was on the side of it.

It kinda looks like a worm is inside, but it doesn't really look like it's trying to get out.  Just sticks it's head out.  The whole cacoon thing moves so you know something(s) is in there.  If you touch the mailbox, the head goes in and the top of the cacoon thing attaches back to the mailbox.  Any ideas?