A Visit to a Barn...

Even though we farm and now live "in the country", (I use that term loosely as it feels almost in town since we are so close to a highway and about a mile only from town) our kids are such City Slickers! If I am honest, I probably am too!! :)

We had a little extra time a couple of Friday nights ago, so we went over to visit some Bucket Calves at our "neighbor's house" ( I use this term loosely too as it is hard for me a town girl to get used to saying someone is my neighbor when they live up to 3 miles away...:))
So, if you know about bucket calves, you know they like to suck...these pictures perfectly show how my kids reacted!!

(BTW: I think this picture of the calf sucking the bar should be an entry in the State Fair Photography Contest don't you think?)

Emily was afraid...What if they have teeth?

Funny story, this barn and the calves reminded me of a time when Al and I were dating and he took me over to his cousin's dairy operation one evening in the summer before we headed out to The Fair. I don't remember if I wanted to see the cows or if he was just enlightening me, but dairy cows are big and they were in the parlor eating or getting milk or whatever (city girl here) and anyway I walked down the center aisle trying not to get too close in my white pants no less! And all of sudden one of the cows poops on me!!! Of course I screamed and Al and his cousin laughed. They probably still laugh about it today!! :0 Oh how far I've come...

Here's the true farmboy going for the "big" cows instead of the baby bucket calves....All for a picture for his wife :) and of course shock value for his kids...

Casey wouldn't even try it! We had to go back in the barn before we left so he could get brave enough to try...

Then there's little W. who has each hand in a different calf's mouth holding on!!! You can tell he lives here and does this, unlike our kids...

We had a lot of fun visiting our neighbors and their calves!!

My Other Baby...Carter Ryan

Carter's birthday fell in the middle of the week and it happened to be a busy day. They got out of school a bit early and their cousins were visiting on their spring break, so after homework was finished, we went and played at the park!

Always fun to bury our biggest cousin in the rocks!!!

The cousins actually spent the whole evening with us...Carter opened presents and...

we had his favorite meal PIZZA!!!!

And what birthday would be complete without the traditional birthday hunt?? :)

This gift was a new pair of cowboy boots and could possibly be his favorite...Who knew...So glad we went to all the extra work to find his size...apparently sz 7 is never stocked. Like Anywhere!!!! But, the Silver Spur  and 2-day air later and we had the perfect gift! Which by the way, are already much loved!!! :)

We actually celebrated with friends the Friday after his birthday because they didn't have school.  They had some hang out time playing wii and Ds...

while Emily decorated his Goldfish cake. We thought it would be perfect because Goldfish are his favorite snack.

Not pictured is the awesome squirt gun, water balloon, slip and slide battle they all had in the middle of March no less!!What an awesome birthday present!!

So opening presents again; this time from friends and grandparents.

He's a happy boy!! Later that night we all went to John Carter 3-D. One of Carter's favorite pasttimes is watching movies so we hit the big screen. We ran out of time for cake and ice cream, so we had cake for breakfast!!!

What an amazing birthday week! I can't believe my other baby is into double digits now! 10!! It just can't be! I remember when you followed your sister around everywhere and answered "I don't know either" to everything!! We love you buddy and hope you found your birthday as fun and special as we find you!! Here's to many more Amazing birthdays!

Yep. I'm that kind of Mom...

The other day when we had no school, I was baking and the boys wanted to know what it was like to drop an egg on the floor...It was an experiment....yep, that's it. We were learning what would happen....

Not just playing....Learning. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Random shots of Fall 2011

I don't know what all of the great bloggers out there do to make sure they have time to blog, but for whatever reason, I struggle. I decided it was because I only have time for one hobby, and I've been reading a lot lately...Excuses, excuses, so, I'll do some quick and random updates so I don't forget what was going on in our lives in the Fall of 2011. I am going to quite "old" this year you know....

This llama has nothing to do with anything, other than I thought he was cool and he was at a pumpkin patch that the kids and I and our old neighbors went to this year...

I didn't get near the opportunities to photograph fall farming this year that I wanted. There was always something else that I needed to be doing. On this particular day I took a half an hour and just shot pictures the whole time while Emily was sitting in the van saying, "Come on Mom. We have to go sell magazines. I'm bored. I'm hungry. Mom!!" You get the picture. Anyway, I just think that the beeswings are sorta magical.

Emily is in Middle school and they have a Fall concert. This year they dressed in the time period of the songs they were singing. Emily's group was Ragtime Era, so we made a Flapper girl costume!! It was a hit!

Not to be left out, Casey wanted to be a "Flapper Guy"!

I don't know what Carter was portraying, but he was willing to pose, so I got a picutre!

Last weekend, a good friend of mine came to visit and we of course went to the field for some fun rides in the semi and combine! What else would you do if you came to visit us in Fall??? I actually got to ride along for a little while too, cuz Casey begged Mommy to come along.

One evening Carter was outside on our deck doing his homework noticed these clouds. He thought they looked blue and asked me to take a picture.

Here are my friends and family from the visit. Casey and his corn phone?!

Here's a leaf on our front porch....

We came home one night and Emily said, "Look Mom! We have a leaf on our porch!! Our own leaf!!" It was a memorable moment I must say...

It is just soo sweet to see our dog and kitties cuddling up together. I hope they keep each other warm this winter. I managed this shot through the window in the door because the minute I open  anything to take a picture they all get up!

There's always more to tell...and I'll try to catch up better. Life is full and life is good!

Purple Potatoes??!!

This is Al's favorite thing about a garden: Harvest! I didn't plant much (some of which that I did plant got washed away since I put the garden in the middle of a waterway!! Al told me it was a waterway, but I didn't listen very well...). The other thing I didn't do much of was weed! UGH!
     One thing we did plant was purple potatoes! Only because they were purple and that was intriguing to me! The other night I looked out my deck door and saw Al and Carter digging my purple potatoes without me!! So Emily, Casey and I headed out to take part in digging potatoes!

Since I have a funny quirk that I don't like to touch dry dirt, Carter did all of the "digging" around for the potatoes and I took pictures!

They weren't very big and there weren't very many, but this was our first year in this spot, so we'll see what next year brings!! They are fun anyway!

Emily is getting quite creative when she takes my camera...maybe we'll have 3 photographers in the family yet!! Now if I could just get them to love reading as much as I do, I'd have a book club right at home!!

They actually are purple through and through...

They turn a little bit gray when cooked, but still fun and intriguing and tasty!

A pic of everyone taking a bite of purple potatoes! Except me; they were all hungry so I just snapped these quick and sat down to eat with them!

Try something new today! It's kinda fun!