Wolcott Mill Farm Center

It's been raining a lot, and I was dying to get out, so today we went to the Wolcott Mill Farm Center. It's a metropark, but we didn't have to pay to get in, which was awesome! It was also very clean and well organized. Everyone there was also friendly.

Here is Ava on a tractor.

The baby chickens.

We heard roosters crowing. The girls thought this was funny.

This was the craziest thing. The cows get their hooves "trimmed" once a year. So they put them in this contraption to hold them still and then they shave down their hooves. Ava wanted to look at this forever.

After we saw a lot of cute baby goats, pigs and miniature horses, we walked down to a little pond. A little girl must have left her net, so we borrowed it and left it there for the next person. I scooped up some muck from the side of the pond and first try there were two tadpoles! They were pretty big and well-developed. You can see my stick is touching one of them. I also saw a huge turtle and some fish, but the girls didn't see them. Someday they will! This is the kind of science I really like. As long as I don't have to touch anything slimey I'm ok.

More babies, bread, bikes, and bainbows, no ... rainbows

So another baby girl, Jady was born on Saturday! She is the one I threw the shower for. Megan was already out visiting members of our church with me less than a week later ... wow .. I'm impressed. Sounds like one baby is too easy for her.

In other news ... Tyler made some cinnamon raisin bread and it was a huge recipe! It made four loaves. Here he had to roll it into one huge snake and then cut it. It is quite delicious.

One of the reasons he has time to make cinnamon raisin bread is that he is now working from home. During the past three weeks I could have taken a picture of him napping with the girls, or us taking walks, or him going on stumbleupon.com, but that wouldn't have been exactly fair. He is working on building his networking business, and it has been wonderful. I actually remember why I married my husband, and enjoy being around him. Not that I didn't before, but I didn't remember what it was like to be around him a lot. Between a corporate job and a business, I didn't realize how busy he was and how little time we got to spend together. Welcome home daddy! We love you!

The theme this week is rainbows. Who doesn't like a good rainbow? But first let me talk about last week's theme: lighthouses. Lighthouses are great and all, especially when you live in a state that is full of them. But when it's cold and rainy, and you drive an hour to try to find one, then don't, it's a little disheartening. The location online was in a location called "old channel NE in Lake St. Clair." The GPS couldn't find it. Neither did we. We did find water and a huge barge was passing through. Very pretty. We got hot chocolate on the way home. Violet soaked herself with it, but a good time was had by all.

On to this week's theme. Below are some fun projects we've done:


Ava riding her bike with all the gear. It's funny how unheard it is to have a kid ride a bike without a helmet now. When I was little helmets didn't even exist. And if they did they would have been the size and shape of a basketball.
Pasta rainbows were a bit of a challenge. They lost interest, so mommy had to help a lot. I dyed the pasta really easily, just using rubbing alchohol and food coloring. Soak for an hour and then dry overnight. I got impatient and dried them in the oven, but I think they got a lot of fine cracks in the pasta.

Ohhh pretty colors. I love rainbows!! I also bought a ton of jello to make layered jello. We'll see if I get around to it as we disassemble our house. It's sort of like we don't even live here any more the walls are getting very bare.

Week 1 - Cow field trip

MSU is about an hour and a half away, and since it is an agricultural school (amongst other things), we decided to take a field trip. It was self guided, and you could basically just walk around and see everything. It was great!


The farm.
Lots of cows had a "window in their stomach." I think this is gross, but it is a teaching school. Did you know cows have 4 stomachs?

Pregnant or "dry" cows.
Feeding time.


Hay.

Baby cows!

Six silos.
More baby cows :)

Our first week

This is our first week doing a prepatory curriculum for preschool. It's not the typical time to start, but that's the best part, I can do it whenever I want! It's more fun to go places in the summer ... especially when your theme is COWS! So we will be seeing some cows later this week. There are a couple options, it's just a matter of how far I want to drive. Above you can see Ava learning how to write Violet's name. She can already write her name, so we're on to the next one.

I'm also throwing a baby shower the first friday in April...
Any suggestions for games? It's a baby girl, and the family just moved into the ward a a few months ago.

Preschool and a cool new cloth diaper

OK, first things first. Since I know about 20 pregnant people right now, I wanted to tell everyone about an AWESOME cloth diaper I found. I don't cloth diaper because of the laundry (I hate laundry), and I'm not totally sold on the environmental benefits.

BUT, I've been snooping on a TON of new blogs and found a new cloth diaper that I am completely sold on because the outside only has to be washed once a day. The inside is completely flushable and biodegradable, made from all natural components. So you can flush it, throw it away, or if you're super environmentally friendly, you can compost the urine soaked liners. Check them out at: http://www.gdiapers.com/gdiapers101 I think I might even pick up a few at the local Green Baby store to try. :)

The other news is that I'm going to homeschool Ava for at least preschool. I've been researching a lot, and really want to take advantage of the time that I can teach her. Who is better than your mom to teach you? It's like a whole new world of research, organization, planning, and overall parenting. I guess I have always separated "parenting" and "teaching" when in fact, I want it to be the same thing! You'll indefinitely be exposed to how I am going to teach Ava, the activities we do, and my journey through the overwhelming amount of information out there. In reading other mom's experiences, I sort of feel behind. Some moms are SO amazing at everything. But I am excited to give it a try and expand both Ava and my learning horizons.