farm day

the guys (papa, daddy and uncle derek) went golfing again so nana and i took the kids to a local 'kids' farm'.  we have been before and were looking forward to another visit.  the 'farm' is county owned/operated and i think it is for educational purposes.  best part?  free to the public during the week!

while we were still in the parking lot there was an announcement about something starting shortly.  i missed it, but nana said she caught that it was in the school house, so we headed there first.  they were giving a spelling lesson.  mason wanted no part of it so we left after a few minutes - he really wanted to get back to the chickens we had passed on our way to the school house.  (the school house was icy cold air conditioned and would have felt great later in the day!)

nana showing mason and maddux where the chickens lay their eggs

the kids were also pretty excited about the dairy barn.  they had some calves inside and they started to "moo" when their 'lunch' bottles were brought in the room.  maddux really thought that it was neat to hear them.  i think it actually scared him at first.

grinding corn in the native american encampment

taking a little rest



getting a better look at the goats

it had been raining just before we got there, but things weren't too wet.  the pedal-tractors were pretty popular.  madelyn could get around the track, maddux couldn't get anywhere and mason was too sleep deprived from the week that he could only make it about halfway before getting stuck in some mulch and giving up.

after all the hard work pedaling, everyone took a break for a few minutes. since mason looks naughty in the picture where everyone was smiling, i posted the first one where he was smiling and waiting for everyone else to get ready.

madelyn peeking at me before going down the 'barn slide'

manning was screaming his head off while the kids were sliding so i thought it might be best to find somewhere cool and try to nurse him.  it was really starting to get warm.  the kids fed some kids (get it? baby goats.) while i tried to take care of manning.

and then they played in a garden. nana said that the were posing really "cute" before i came over.  here are the pictures i snapped before deciding that we had to get out of there.

they were all fighting over the littlest flower (for whatever reason), but i managed to get all three in one shot.

i think that the heat, manning's crying (from not wanting to nurse under the cover-up because it gets so hot), hunger, tired kids and trying to keep everyone together started to wear on me and i could not get out of there fast enough! we had a nice time but it was really time to go.

we had a nice lunch out (with ice cream) and then headed back to papa and nana's to wait for the golfers.  when they got back and cleaned up it was time to say good-bye to uncle derek because he was flying home.  it was really nice that he was able (and willing) to spend his birthday in kansas so we could see him too.  love.