Down on the farm

Yesterday I had the great joy of being able to take the day off just have a day to do something completely fun with Miss A. D and I trade off on who stays home on days when our daycare provider takes time off and this time around it was my turn.

At first I started thinking about literally staying home with Miss A and using the time to get household chores taken care of but then I realized how silly it would be to not take better advantage of the bonus time. I quickly got to brainstorming of where and what we could do that would be out of the ordinary and really fun. That's how I was able to come up with going to a local area farm, petting zoo, and "Enchanted Forest." The place where we went was Clark's Elioak Farm. What a ball that place was for us!

Miss A was honestly a little overwhelmed when we first got there. There are three parts of the farm and it was a lot to take in! There were giant sculptures and statues of classic storybooks (that's the Enchanted Forest part of it), tiny little playhouses scattered all about to play pretend, animals to pet, cuddle up to, and ride on, and a maze to scamper around in. To help Miss A ease into it all a little easier, we started out in a play area with toys that she was familiar enough with...

It helped tremendously and she began to feel right at home with it all. (Please note Miss A's sandals that show her freshly pedicured piggies done earlier that day! She's finally at the age where she enjoys such a thing much more and spent a good part of the day just looking down at her feet when she walked around.)

Since I couldn't wait to get her to the petting zoo that was our next stop. I thought she would be thrilled to see and touch all of the animals but surprisingly it wasn't "all that" to her.

We started out with the miniature goats that were so tiny they didn't even look real. Since Miss A has had limited exposure to live animals other than dogs, cats, and most recently rabbits, she was confused about the goats. She kept calling them dogs and puppies and barely took a moment to get to know them better. I encouraged her to sit down next to them because they really were that nice and gentle to be able to get closer to but she just wasn't impressed. I mean, it was a DOG just like her dog at home wasn't it? Why should she even care about seeing another dog?!!

After a lot of encouragement from me (and I think just to get me to be quiet already) she obliged my requests and did a "one-finger touch" like what she was taught at daycare. Eh. I'll take what I can get.


After being forced to touch the goat, she jumped up and ran away and straight for the wooden cut out cow and she had no issue walking right up to it and petting it like it was an old friend who she hadn't seen in years. Go figure.

Thankfully, the experience with the wooden cow seemed to be the gateway to her feeling much more confident with interacting with the rest of the animals by her own initiation.

She still wasn't inclined to touch them but at least she walked around and said "Hi" to all of them. Her favorite (by far) was the bunnies but I think it was only because of her recent introduction to the bunny at Grammy and Grandpap's house over Easter. She enjoyed the bunny so much (in fact) that she spent most of the time rattling the lock on the cage to try and open it and set it free.

After the petting zoo we stopped off at the handwashing stations and (not surprisingly) this was one of the highlights of the whole day. She just LOVES playing in water and never lets an opportunity pass her by to play, splash, and drench herself. It's a good thing it was close to 90 degrees otherwise I wouldn't have been able to let her get as wet as she did. Oh the joy of being almost two when your mama says it's OK to make a mess...

So that was the first half of our time on the farm. The rest (in the Enchanted Forest) is going to have to wait for the next time because I gotta get back to work now finishing up grades for third marking period. *Wooo!* I can hardly believe I've got only nine weeks of the school year left. Where did the time go?!!

Sneak Peek: Farmer girl

It's been an extraordinarily long day for me and I am exhausted. Amazingly I wasn't at work today during the day but all this evening instead!

I would love to post all of the pictures of the adventures had with Miss A today but it's going to have to wait until next time. In the meanwhile? Here's a snippet of what's in store for you if you keep coming back for more...

I don't know what you're talking about

What do you mean I have chocolate on my face?!!

The Lost Pictures of Spring Break - part 2 of 2

I bring you the last installment of the lost pictures of Spring break!!!! Can you hear me cheering about from where you are? I'm surprised if you can't because, as I stated previously, I was devastated by the thought that these pictures had been accidentally deleted forever.

Anyway, where we last left off, we were on the western side of PA starting out our Spring break. For these pictures we trucked it all the way across the state to the eastern side where my family is in the process of building a vacation lake house.

In the five years (so far) of the building process, the house really has come a long way! But despite this, the walls are still waiting to be completely finished and the claw footed bath tub that my mom got for "a steal" is still sitting up in the kids' loft area waiting to be moved and installed. *shrug* Until then we all just pay no mind to the patchy looking walls and we bathe all of the little people (read: Miss A) in the deep country kitchen sink instead of showering them in the "big people" shower. To say that Miss A is deathly afraid of the whole experience of stand-up-showering would be the understatement of the year. Good thing she's such a tiny thing and looks so cute bathing in the kitchen sink to begin with because it makes the whole process far from painful - and also provides lots more fun (and funny!) photo ops!

I just love this picture below. She looks like she's doing a shampoo commercial or something...

And the next picture is so classically Miss A with that expression! She's all about the big gaping open mouth smile when she gets REALLY happy about things. Looking at the picture I can almost hear her squeal of pure delight that was likely emitting from her mouth at that moment.


And then right before bedtime, D decided he needed a snack and because popcorn is one of Miss A's favorite snacks, I couldn't bring myself to keep her from it. She likes it so much that every time we go to Target she asks for some to eat while we shop!!! I just love how serious D and Miss A look about eating the popcorn. And also note that they both have the exact same expression on their faces. Like father, like daughter for sure.


And then (just because we are all about doing things purely for the sake of a good picture) we handed the whole popcorn bowl over to Miss A to indulge herself to her heart's delight.

And did she EVER take advantage of such an opportunity!!! Look at her go!!! In our house we call this "piggy hands" and "piggy mouth"!


And now for what might be one of my top favorite pictures of Miss A of all time. Technically it's a picture of only part of Miss A but it's something that captures a memory of a lifetime for the way that I will always remember her at this stage...


This is Miss A's hand holding her precious security blanket! She attached herself to it when she wasn't even six months old and despite the fact that I'm sure that it harbors all kinds of germs and carries more grime with it than probably the dog himself, I can't bring myself to try and break her of the habit of carrying it around all the time.

The way it works, wherever Miss A is, the blanket is sure to be somewhere close. The most recent development is documented above with her lacing her fingers with it in a very specific way. She will hold it (with both hands) just as pictured above. She goes through this process of fluffing it so that it created these nice folds and then she will stick her pointer finger into a fold and then take the rest of her fingers and wrap the fabric around her pointer finger. I just noticed that she has started doing this during this very trip and in the time that I noticed it to the end of the trip, she's become so quick with lacing it through her fingers that it's hard to even watch her go through the steps/motions to do it right because she's just that fast!!! It's a small thing but I think it's so sweet and I love it and it will surely be one of those things that we will tell her about when her blanket gets so old that she can't do this anymore.

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed these lost pictures. I'm off to bed now for hopefully a much better night's sleep than last night.

The Lost Pictures of Spring Break - part 1 of 2

I know that I shouldn't measure my life in what I have but when I thought I lost these pictures I was pretty crushed. I'm naturally a visual person and though I have a great memory because of that, I really like having the tangible images created from a camera. (Funny how what is tangible now is digital and is actually not really all that tangible in the physical sense but that's another blog post right?)

Anyway, what once was lost has finally been found. OH amazing grace how you work in wonderful ways when my ability to multi-task fails to coordinate with my memory of what I'm doing when and where! I apologize if they aren't in the correct chronological order - I'm all out of sorts now that I feel like I completed the Spring break series. Without further adieu... I present to you the lost pictures...

PapPap is legendary for his love for all of the little ones. I can't tell you how many times I was told (during pregnancy) that "PapPap LOVES babies!" Woo! People were NOT kiddin' about that! Here he is with both V and Miss A. I only wish that I had a picture of them all dancing with the side-stepping frog as well...

And what Easter celebration would be complete without a visit with a bunny! Thankfully, Grandpap and Grammy have a REAL bunny and nobody was walking through the door in one of those creepy Easter bunny costumes with the weird giant heads. (Seriously? They are creepier than some of the mall Santa Clauses out there!) Miss A was all about the "bunny Bunny BUNNY?" during the whole stay and frequently asked if she could go downstairs to see it and tell it "Hi Bunny!" Too bad her enthusiasm wasn't a little more on point when Grammy brought it up to sit with her and Little V for a traditional Easter portrait. *shrug* Oh well. Can't win 'em all...

And, finally, my favorite series of pictures of all that I was most heartbroken over possibly losing.

Miss A is a very demonstrative little lady when it comes to showing her affections. She rarely dislikes anyone but when she loves you, she is completely forthright in showing you just how much love that is! I can't remember what happened exactly but I think Little V took a little bit of a tumble in his "new walker" ways and he was very upset. His mother (Aunt H) scooped him up right away to comfort him but something about it all prompted Miss A to step in and try and take over for Aunt H. Why? Well because (OF COURSE!) NOBODY can be a little love and comfort like Miss A can, right? I was lucky enough to have my camera in hand to be able to catch the beautiful and tender moment as it unfolded...





I took some serious artistic license to digitally manipulate the colors, contrasts, lighting, and focus of the above but that was only to enhance what was already there to begin with and emphasize how my heart saw it as much as my camera. I tell you... there is nothing quite so heartbreaking (in a GOOD way) as seeing the above take place. It's like it's pure validation as a parent of what you're teaching and doing and showing your child in how to be towards other. If this is how Miss A does unto others for the rest of her life, I'm thinking that D and I will have few problems at all. What a little heart of gold she has.

And there is one more round of lost pictures but I'm going to have to save that for another time because I'm late as it is leaving work and I gotta get to the store to buy diapers and food!