deanna rose children's farmstead

when matt and i lived in kansas we heard about deanna rose often, but having no children we never went. while talking with my boss about taking madelyn to the zoo after she had turned one, she recommended that the next time we came down we take her to deanna rose. we finally followed through on the recommendation.

not only did we take papa and nana (in the swing with madelyn) with us but we met two friends from our first bible study and their six boys (two families). i highly recommend the deanna rose children's farmstead if you ever find yourself in overland park, kansas. and it is free monday through thursday! (they charge $2 on weekends, so still very reasonable.) i have never seen a public place so clean or animals so healthy - beautiful.

there is a lot to see and do. after petting some calves, madelyn got to try her hand at milking a cow (pretend), bottle fed a goat, rode a play tractor, rode a pony, pumped water into a bucket, heard an native american story about the creation of night and day told in a traditional structure, fed goats and sheep, and saw lots of farm equipment. and those are just the things she did. you can also fish with provided poles, mine, and go into a traditional school house, bank, and barn.

here are some pictures of madelyn from our outing:

mason was there too, but he had to spend the trip in the stroller. poor guy doesn't get to do a lot of exploring yet. i keep telling him that if he would just start walking he wouldn't have to be strapped in all the time! he did have a lot of fun seeing all the animals and other sights. he is actually pointing at a goat in this picture.

the advantage to the stroller ride is that he can eat as much as he wants without slowing us down too much.

we use an alcohol-free hand sanitizer spray, and have been for over a year, but madelyn has recently become our dispensing expert. she sprayed any hand she could get close enough to turn over and find a palm. she would go up to people and ask, "do you want some spray?" i told her that she needed to also tell them that it was hand sanitizer. let's just say that we were all pretty germ free.

another great day in our kansas visit! love.