Down on the Farm

On the 22nd of October we joined a group of friends to visit the Waller Family Farm.  This is our favorite place to pick strawberries in the spring.

Eliza and Nathan anxiously waiting for the tour to start.

Charisse and Ben in the middle visiting with friends before the tour started.

Farmer Mark gave us the tour.  He started out talking about honey bees and why they are important to farming.  He had some great stories about bees.

The strawberry patch.  It is really big!  They replant the plants each year so that they don't need to use pesticides on the plants.  They sprinkle water on the plants to keep them from freezing.  The strawberry blossoms can survive down to 28 degrees.  When the water freezes it keeps the blossoms right around 30 degrees.

Next we headed down to the chicken coup.

Nathan was super excited to see the chickens.

He really wanted to get out and get a closer look.

The chickens were anxiously waiting for the kids to throw them some corn.

Farmer Mark got one of his hens out to talk to the kids about it and let them pet her.

The last time we were there she laid an egg while he was holding her.  It was pretty amazing.

Eliza petting the hen.  

She really liked Farmer Mark.

After talking about the chickens the kids got to feed them corn.

Eliza really enjoyed that.

Nathan was getting tired of being in the stroller so we had to distract him with a fruit pouch.

Next up was a cow.

Farmer Mark talked to the kids about what we get from cows.  He also showed them how to milk a cow.  The kids all wanted to get closer to pet the cow.

Eliza thought it was funny when Farmer Mark shot milk at the kids.

More friends from the tour.

After seeing the cow we moved on to talk about cotton plants.  The kids were all surprised when they heard they were wearing a plant.   :0)

As a bonus we got to see a ground hog!  Farmer Mark trapped it on his farm earlier in the week.  He was keeping it in the cage to show the kids a that come for tours.  One of the mom's asked when he was going to release it.  I just had to smile.  He said that one way or another it was going to be released.  Apparently ground hogs can do quiet a lot of damage to a field of sweet potatoes or cabbage over night.  They are considered pests.

The last animal we saw was a goat.  This goat loved the sweet potatoes Farmer Mark was feeding her.  She also let the kids pet her.

Eliza was very excited about the whole thing.  She really enjoyed being out and seeing all the animals. After the tour was over the kids got to pick a pumpkin out of the field.

Eliza didn't waste any time finding the perfect pumpkin!

I love some of her poses!  This girl is too funny.

Nathan wasn't happy that I wouldn't let him down to play  in the wet grass.  Notice he has on one shoe and one large sock.  I couldn't find a shoe that would fit over his foot with his toe wrapped.  

Is that pumpkin for me?!

As we were leaving I noticed a stack of straw set out so the kids could play on it and get pictures.

Nathan was super excited to be out of the stroller.  He liked the straw too.

Nathan and Eliza snuggling.  Eliza more so than Nathan.

I love the sequence of pictures.  It shows how quickly Nathan gets irritated with his sister and sitting on the straw.

"Eliza!  Give me some room."

"I want to run around!  Why are we still sitting here?"

"Only one more picture if I smile?"

Finally! Both with some what pleasant looks on their faces!

We really enjoyed our trip to the farm.  It brought back some good memories of my younger days growing up on the farm.  

Oct. 22, 2013

Nathan's Toe

This post isn't for the faint of heart!  The pictures that follow may be disturbing to many.  With that being said I will get to the story behind the pictures.

Saturday morning we got up and started getting breakfast ready.  Andy was home, luckily for my.  As he was reading an email to me we heard a crash followed by crying.  Andy walked around the corner of the counter, by the back door, and saw Nathan on the floor.  He said, "Nathan's toe popped open."  Nathan tipped the bar stool over on his big toe on his left foot.  I popped open along the base of the toe nail and around the inside of the toe.  It was bleeding pretty well and he was in a lot of pain.  We wrapped it with paper towel the best we could to get him to the ER.  (Andy offered to sew it up at home, but I thought it would be more traumatic for everyone if we chose that route.)  We asked our neighbor to come sit with the oldest three while Andy and I took Nathan in.  

We arrived at the ER and were taken straight back to a room.  (No one else was there!)  They gave Nathan something to make him not care about anything! Then they cleaned it really well and pushed the toe nail back into the bed as far as they could.  They said they weren't going to stitch it because that would increase the risk of infection.  After wrapping in we headed home.

Unfortunately the wrap wasn't taped to the foot very well.  After a couple hours of walking around and climbing on it the wrap came off and the toe started bleeding again.  I put a sock on it to keep Nathan from playing with it.  Too bad it was a black sock and I didn't realize it had started bleeding until he started leaving little bloody footprints wherever he went.  I took off the sock and the wrapping was off and saturated with blood.  I called Andy to see if he was done with his lab work.  He was just on his way to the car and hurried home.  By the time he got home the bleeding had stopped and he cleaned it well.  Then he re-wrapped the toe.  He did a much better job.

When Andy cleaned and re-wrapped it Sunday night it was looking better.  The first pictures are after the wrapping fell off the first time.  The last pictures are from Sunday evening.  Nathan is doing really well.  He hasn't slowed down at all!  It has been a little bit of a challenge to keep it dry and clean because he loves to be outside.  We will keep you posted on his progression!  (He is going to loose the nail.)

The original wrap completely saturated.

Nathan's poor little bloody foot.

Another  angle of Nathan's toe before being re-wrapped.

Nathan's toe on Sunday when Andy cleaned it and re-wrapped it a second time.

You can see how it split clear around the side of the toe.

Oct. 19-20, 2013

Dad and the Parade

Eliza has had several doctor appointments recently.  They have been hard on her and there are still more to come.  Aunt Janna and her family sent Eliza a care package with a doll to help her be brave and a story.  (I also received a couple books to help with the wait in the doctors office.)

 Dad reading Eliza's new book to the kids.

 It was really cute to see them all snuggled around listening to Dad.

 These pictures are from conference.  Since it starts at noon here we were able to get out and get some errands taken care of before it started.  It was really sweet to see the kids sitting with Andy watching conference.

Vocabulary Parade

This was the second annual vocabulary parade at the school.  Each kid is suppose to pick a word and then make a poster or dress as that word.  The boys chose their words at school and we made their posters at home.

 Bradley with his poster.  He really wanted to dress like Captain America for the parade because he fought for justice.  I told him he was fine in his school clothes.  There were several other kids dressed up at the parade so I probably should have let him.

 Daniel wanted to do "yard sale," but I didn't want to have to figure that one out so I talked him into just plain old 'Yard.'

 Nathan was just happy to get outside.

The boys were proud of how their posters turned out.

Nathan eating a cracker as we waited for the parade to start.

Last year we missed the parade because it didn't take them as long as they thought it would.  This year we decided to just hang out up front until it started.  

Where's Eliza?

Eliza the butterfly!  She found really big leaves to use as her wings.

The parade started with kindergarten first.  

Our friend Claudia, the girl Clyde, is in pink.  She was Bejeweled.

Daniel proudly showing off his poster.

Daniel saying hi to Cheryl, Clyde's mom.

This is our friend Chelsea.

Bradley's class finally came.  Clyde was dressed like a dragon flying around a castle.

Dave and Cheryl, Clyde and Claudia's parents.  

Bradley

Bradley's teacher Mrs. Sanders

The parade turned out really well and the boys were excited to have the opportunity to walk around and wave to everyone.

Oct. 5-17, 2013