Pumpkin Picking

We went pumpkin picking on Saturday out at GreenBluff farms.  It was a really cold day, but it didn't rain on us like the weatherman was predicting, so we were very grateful for that.

The donkeys were very patient and let lots of little children come up and pet it.  I made sure the girls only pet their backs and not too close to their mouths.

Even Rachel seemed to think petting the donkey was okay.  Its skin is rougher than I imagined.

There were a lot of fun little tractors and pretend wagons and places for kids to sit and pretend to drive.  Whitney loves pretending to drive.

Sorry that we didn't get a closer picture, but this is the famous punkin' chunkin' machine.  You put a little pumpkin inside this cannon like machine and it shoots out thousands of feet.  You have to keep your eye on it or you will totally miss it in the sky.

Of course, you have to stick your head into the funny board.  Whitney got to be the cannon and Rachel was the pumpkin.  I didn't do a good job of placing Rachel's head into the whole, so it is a little hard to see her.

Rachel did not like this bale of hay, so we sat on it just long enough for this picture.

There was a little hay maze for kids.  Whitney and Will went into it.  They actually came out the same way they entered, but Whitney didn't seem to notice.

I love, love this picture.  There was a spot by the hay maze for throwing hay.  Will and Whitney had a hayball fight.  But I love that I was able to capture both of them mid-throw with hay all over the air.

Whitney told me that she was looking for a happy pumpkin.  I let her pick her own pumpkin - she picked a huge one that was like 25 pounds.  We had to pass by all the sad pumpkins in the patch to find this perfect one.

We went to another farm and got to pick apples.  We were pretty late in the apple season, so there weren't many kinds left.  But we did get some romes and some golden delicious.  Whitney was very helpful at finding apples for our bucket.

There was a lot of playing done at the apple orchard.

Whitney loved this horse swing, plus all the slides and bikes.  So we had a really fun Saturday.  Now we just need to think of what to carve into our two pumpkins.

Preparing for Halloween

We have done a couple of Halloween craft things over the last couple of days.  Mostly it is because the weather has been chilly so we have needed ideas of things to be done indoors.  Whitney is pretty artsy and likes coloring and painting and anything like that.  Rachel was just there because I made her.

Will and I made sugar cookies for Relief Society Enrichment.  We had a couple of leftover pumpkins, so the girls got to do some decorating.  Whitney was very good at frosting her pumpkin.

And she loved putting on marshmallows and chocolate chips covering the entire surface area.

Then she only ate one bite because it was too sweet for her and Whitney doesn't really like frosting.  Like my parents would always say -  'she must have been adopted'.  I had a hard time not just scarfing down all the cookies before taking them to enrichment.

Rachel had lots of help frosting.  She got to taste a little bit and she made kind of a funny face.  So I am not sure what she thought of it.

There was a little unhappiness with putting the chocolate chips onto the cookie.  Rachel really loves chocolate chips and would have preferred eating them.  But she did get a couple of them onto her cookie.  Good job girls!

Whitney is coloring a picture of a pumpkin.  We found this little pen that does four colors depending on which side you push down and it is Whitney's favorite thing now.

It is hard to tell, but Rachel really did color this pumpkin.  I think no crayons were consumed during the process, success!

We also painted with some halloween colors.  It is suppose to be a spider.  Whitney loved loved painting and kept wanting to do it some more.  I bought a couple of paintbrushes and paints a little while ago, so I guess we will be painting this winter.

And look at how happy Rachel is to be painting.  She did a pretty good job.

All of us smiling for a Happy Halloween.  It only took us like five shots to get this picture - a pretty good job if I do say so myself.

C is for Cookie

So I was in charge of alphabet days last Wednesday and we did the letter 'C'.  Of course, everyone knows that C is for Cookies - just ask the cookie monster.  So I based my alphabet days on cookies.  We started off with dancing to the C is for Cookie song.  The kids all really love dancing.

Then we worked on making chefs hats.  They are just made of folded paper (which I spent like an hour doing the day before) and the kids got to decorate their hats.  They got to use cotton balls and markers and glitter.  Whitney especially loved this colorful pen that can do four different colors.  We had quite a fun glittery mess to clean up afterwards.

I wanted a picture of all the kids in their hats.  They aren't all looking at the camera, but they wouldn't hold still for very long after the hats were made, so I have to be happy with what I can get.

Then we made the cookies - chocolate chip cookies.  The kids took turns dumping in ingredients and then everybody got to stir.  I think that was their second favorite part, after eating the cookie dough.  Whitney would have been happy to just eat cookie dough all day long.

We colored with crayons while the cookies baked.  Whitney is getting much better at coloring.  I love these 'C' pictures with the cookie monster on them.

After the kids left, I made the rest of the cookies with all that extra dough.  I made some huge cookies for our date night that we had on Friday.  We made cookie ice cream sandwiches.  They were really rich and delicious; I could only eat half of one.  It was a yummy treat.

Anyway, the kids had a blast with the letter 'C'.  Now I don't have to worry about anything for a couple of weeks.  But I would appreciate if anyone had any ideas for the letter 'F'. I was thinking of maybe basing it on farm things, but I am not sure what that would entail.

The Pacific Science Center

We went to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle on Tuesday.  There was a King Tut exhibit that was awesome, but we were not allowed to take pictures.  We did get to take some pictures of the girls playing throughout the rest of the museum. 

The museum is right by the space needle.  It was tempting to ride up to the top, but we didn't have the time before our turn to enter the museum.  The lighting made it impossible to tell, but that really is the four of us standing in front of the needle.

We waited outside the museum for a little bit until it opened.  There were several school groups that were also going on a field trip to see the King Tut exhibit.  We got to see statues and jewelry and a gold face mask and lots of figurines of the many Egyptian gods. I thought it was all fascinating.  Whitney had a hard time not being able to touch anything.  We were all amused by the ancient "toilet seat" and the coffin for the cat.  We also got to watch an IMAX movie about mummies that was really interesting and makes me want to study more about that time period.

The rest of the museum was also really cool.  Whitney wasn't too sure about pushing this heavy ball which proves how much easier it is to push things with water all around.

She was sure, though, that she loved this slinky and wanted it.  It was like the largest slinky I have ever seen and full of bright colors.  Maybe we will find a colorful slinky for Whitney for her birthday.

Rachel liked anything where she could push buttons.  There were lots of cool machines throughout the childrens museum where you could see how fast your reflex was or how strong you were or how good at balancing you were.  It was fun to explore.

                                   

This machine lets you see your face from a different perspective - like how other people see you or what your face would look like if you had two left sides or two right sides. 

One of the museums had a water exploration part.  Whitney was brave enough to touch the star fish; I thought she wasn't going to like it because the water was cold and it was very new for her, but she liked it.

This water table was just for little kids (and their parents).  Rachel could just barely reach the water if she stood on her tiptoes and stretched out her arms.  But that didn't stop her from splashing with the toys.  Whitney has reached the age where she doesn't just splash anymore; she likes to watch the water go through the contraptions and see how everything works.

Rachel in a rocket ship.  You could push the buttons and it makes noises and lights but I had enough of a hard time trying to just take this picture before Rachel fell out of the chair.  The chairs were a little slanted and Rachel doesn't like holding still (a dangerous combination for a nine-month-old).

There was a dinosaur room that was pretty cool.  The dinosaurs would move around a bit.

Rachel liked touching the dinosaur footprint.  She looks so little compared to that huge print.

 

There also was a bug section of the museum.  It had bees and hissing cockroaches (bytheway, Michael, mine was still harder) and there was a butterfly garden. There were hundreds of butterflies all around this room.  One came really close to landing right on my shirt, which only made me flinch a little bit.  Whitney seemed to like the butterflies. 

 

Anyway, the museum was awesome.  I wish we had been able to stay longer because there was more to see, but I knew that we still had a long drive home.  We made it back to Cheney pretty late, but very happy.  It was an awesome mini-vacation.  Thank you everybody for putting up with us for a few days.  Whitney already wants to go back to visit everyone again.

Going to the zoo (Part two)

We had such a fun time at the Portland Zoo on Saturday.  It is hard to pick just a few pictures for the blog, so you might be stuck seeing more animal pictures than you really want.  Sorry about that. 

Starting out at the beginning.  Dana worked at the zoo for awhile, so he knew the best way to go see all the animals and how to avoid getting lost.  That was nice.  Whitney was so excited to be going to the zoo; she talked about it for many days before we actually went.

The great big sea lion was quite impressive.  The kids are all trying to touch it through the glass.  It was very friendly and would press itself right against the glass, almost like it was trying to reach the kids as well.

I have always loved penguins; we couldn't get very close to them, but they were still fun to watch.

This great male baboon was just crouching right by the glass for everyone to see.  I learned that the male baboons are much bigger and more colorful than the females (I think that holds true for many animals in the animal kingdom).

There were a couple of elephants at the zoo.  One of the elephants was big and very pregnant.  Elephants are pregnant for a long time, but this one is due in like December.  She was kept apart from the other ones, but I don't know if that is what always happens, or maybe just that day. 

The hippo poked his head out to us.

Once an hour they have a big "storm" for the alligators.  They make it feel like the alligators are home in some kind of rain forest area by having it rain.  The alligator didn't like the rain, so it very slowly meandered to the water and remained in the tank. 

I like this picture - two dads with their kids looking at the monkeys.  Magnus and Whitney were quite interested in what the monkeys were doing and what they like to eat.  That is the question Whitney likes to ask about animals these days.

They have a little farm area where you can go inside and pet the goats.  We had to stand in bit of a line because it was quite the popular place.  Whitney and Magnus both went in and had a fun time petting the goats.  Thankfully, these goats are quite use to kids and were very docile.  Whitney had to go around and touch each one.

For some reason, Whitney loved sitting on this wooden horse.  I think it was her favorite spot in the whole zoo.  When other kids came for a turn, she would share, and then when they left she wanted to get right back on.  Forget all these real animals everywhere, wooden ones are much cooler I guess.

Here we stand outside of the monkey house.  Everyone is even looking in the camera, props to Ruth for getting a good picture.

 

Thank you Ruth and Dana and Magnus for letting us come play with you and crash in your house.  We had such a fun visit.  Whitney already misses being with Magnus.