Green Meadows Petting Farm

This weekend we went to visit the Green Meadows Petting Farm in Kissimmee and had a great time!  I didn't realize HOW MUCH there is to see!  The tour took 3 hours, but there was plenty to see along the way and fortunately we brought food with us.  If you're in the Orlando area and you have kids, I highly recommend it!

Riding a pony

Eleanor really enjoyed this!

Feeding a pig

Eleanor and I rode the train

(Arthur was napping)

Arthur woke up in time to see the bunnies and guinea pigs!  I wish you could see his huge smile when he looked at the rabbits!  He really enjoyed some cows later too.

Is he a cutie or what?

Eleanor got to milk a real cow and did a great job

Asian water buffalo

Have you ever seen a zorse before?

Petting the sheep

Holding a baby chick

Less than a week old!  We also saw brand new baby goats later.

Holding a duckling

She took off running when she saw the hayride!

Not the greatest picture, but she enjoyed the hayride.

This sign is way off.  It also said that I'm 5'3".

One of the many peacocks we saw

She really wanted to climb this tree

This is what I get when I say, "Smile!"  :)

 

My little animal lover

I realize there aren't many pictures of Arthur from the day, or at least pictures that I can post.  As a little Arthur bonus, here he is stuck under a piece of furniture.  He started out by that play mat but so far he can only go in reverse.

May happenings

I officially have a finger sucker.  He usually just does this when he's in his crib with his lovey, but occasionally I catch him in the act elsewhere.  Too cute.

Ponytail!
Also, those are Arthur's shorts.  Size 12 months.

Blowing bubbles

We did a little nature walk in our yard during Arthur's nap one day.  I colored lots of different colors in an egg carton and we tried to find something for each color.

Black dirt

We found everything but both shades of blue.  Eleanor said she needed a ladder to climb up and pick the sky.

I had fun taking some pictures of my new flowers

Drawing in shaving cream

Arthur wasn't really supposed to get involved...

This didn't last long.  Eleanor filled the pool with leaves and it was all I could do to keep Arthur from eating them.

Shucking corn - she actually did an entire ear by herself.  She has also learned how to put away things that go on the bottom shelf in the pantry, how to put stuff out in the recycling bins in the garage, and how to water the plants on the porch.  I love that she can REALLY help with some stuff now!

Arthur pretty much refuses to be fed with a spoon, so I have to find things he can feed himself.  He can't really get tiny things to his mouth yet, but I've learned that soft food cut in a french fry shape works well.  Here he has pear slices, avocado slices, and pita bread with hummus.  He used to gag on food a lot but now he does a GREAT job feeding himself...except for making a huge mess.  :)  Other favorites are strawberries, papaya (MAJOR favorite!), steamed carrots, baked sweet potato fries, squash, ground beef, scrambled eggs (sometimes), and banana.

Mmmm, hummus!

One of Eleanor's friends invited us to go to this place that has skating, video games, laser tag, etc.  Eleanor was a little overwhelmed, but she enjoyed the bowling.

First time in "skates"!  She loved it!

She has gotten really into dinosaurs lately.  Here the dinosaurs are singing Ring Around the Rosie...but they don't like to fall down.  (She gets pretty upset if they do.)

Here's the second part of that video.  The dinosaurs are singing her current favorite song from our music class.  It doesn't really have words, but she makes up some new ones.  When we sing it at class we play bells with it, and I think she's pretending that the dinosaurs are playing bells.

My Mother's Day Flowers

For Mother's Day, Hunter got me an awesome gift - my own flowerbed!  I have always wanted to have  flowers in our yard, but I am *not* the one in this family with a green thumb.  It's just not the kind of thing I would ever take the time to do.  So, Hunter surprised me and started on it yesterday while I took the kids to a birthday party.  He spent several hours digging out grass and roots and then added garden soil and fertilizer (50 lbs of composted cow manure, 25 lb of peat moss, 50 lbs of garden soil, and 1 lb of some fertilizer).  Today we went to pick out flowers and then Eleanor and I planted them.  He also says he'll help me keep it alive, so there is hope that this flowerbed will survive!  :)  I look forward to there being enough flowers that I can cut a few off and have fresh flowers in the house.

Hunter said he thought this was a good gift because it's something that I can work on with the kids.  We both agreed that it's probably a better choice than a Kindle or device of some kind that will just take my attention away from them.  :)

What makes this flowerbed even mores special is its location.  When we got Ada's ashes from the funeral home, they were in a plastic bag.  (Fancy, huh?)  We scattered her ashes at the beach, but we rinsed out the bag in this spot in the backyard.  It wasn't much at all, but it's special to me that there's a little bit of Ada in my Mother's Day flowerbed.  I also made sure to get several kinds of flowers that attract butterflies, which always remind me of her.  I love all 3 of my children!

Flowers waiting to be planted

Eleanor helping Hunter with some final preparations before the planting began

Arthur helped too!

Look at that face!

I think I got a little distracted from the flower planting...

Planting some bulbs

(That is very stained dress, by the way, in case you were wondering why I let my kid dig in the dirt in a white dress.)

 

Eleanor enjoyed planting the bulbs.

Somebody's going through a refusing-to-look-at-the-camera stage

Final product

There are lots of bulbs planted in there - I'll have to do an update at the end of the summer!

Pictures

The boy loves his food!  And yes, he is wearing a pink bib.  Hey, at least it's not that one that says, "Thank heaven for this baby girl."

She was hiding behind the curtain playing with her flannel board and thought it was very funny!

We did a little finger painting, and here's what Eleanor wanted me to write about this picture:

"This is the house that I painted that the caterpillars live in.  The mama caterpillar and the daddy caterpillar and the little baby caterpillars.  This is a strong house.  The wolf can't blow the house over."

She told me how to label this. 

Helping me plant some herbs

Well, they look pretty.  Now let's see if they actually grow.  I don't exactly have the greatest track record...

Making cookies for her teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week

Finally, I will leave you with one of the best sights of all - sleeping children.

(Yes, I know you're not supposed to have bumpers anymore.  We tried going without it but he kept getting his legs stuck between the rails multiple times/night and would wake up screaming.  We do have an Angelcare monitor though.)

7 months!

The many faces of Arthur:

This is TOTALLY his personality!

That sign didn't stand a chance

Arthur is turning into quite the ham!  He LOVES people and I think he is going to be my little extrovert.  He is always on the move (well, or at least trying to move) and loves bouncing in his Jumperoo.  His other loves are attention from his sister (or anybody, for that matter); books; strawberries, mangoes, avocado, or anything else he can feed himself; blocks; and bathtime.  He cries every night when I take him out of the bath.  He's a little more vocal about what he doesn't like than Eleanor was, and I can already imagine him having tantrums more than she ever did.

Here's a cute video of him laughing at Eleanor.  She kept going up to him and saying "boo!" and he thought it was HILARIOUS.