The Farmstead Birthday Adventure

My birthday was yesterday.  I'm 29 again!  Wahoo!  Ok, I'm 30.  I'm not sure if this is something to be happy about, or if I should start looking for a good hip replacement doctor.  Either way, my birthday was a blast yesterday.  Tralee's preschool group scheduled a field trip to go to The Farmstead, and the field trip day just happened to be on my birthday. I was almost more excited than the kids to go have an adventure at this fall festival type place.  And. . . it WAS quite the adventure!

We started out visiting the farm animals.  This pony got a little curious with Hunter.

Hello goats!

We had a little learning session with the guy in charge.  Tralee answered every question he threw at the group.  Although, I might have to work on the whole raise-your-hand-and-wait-to-be-called-on thing with Tralee.  She's so eager to please and eager to be right, she just shouted out each answer.

We then helped the farmer feed the ponies, goats, and cows.

Pumpkin photo op

Weather wise, our Farmstead adventure wasn't the greatest.  It rained on and off all day.  My kids didn't seem to mind, so I didn't really care.  It made for a great adventure later on in the day (keep reading, and you'll see what I'm talking about).  Tralee's took a ride in the cow train.  It started down pouring right when I got her settled on the ride.

Tralee was a trooper, and smiled all through her rainy cow ride.

I wasn't sure if I should let Hunter take a ride, since any other ride we've tried he wants off after 30 seconds.  However, he assured me that he did, in fact, want a ride.  So, I strapped in my two-year-old, told him he couldn't stand up or try to get out, and watched as the tractor pulled him away. 

 It turns out Hunter loved his cow train ride, and this was what happened when I told him when his ride was over, and he had to get out:

We went through a hay maze.  That was fun.

The kids played in some corn.  The little boy sitting next to Tralee is in her Sunbeams class at church, and in her preschool group.  Tralee talks about him ALL THE TIME!  She even prays about him.  I think she might have some tender little feelings for her friend Alex.

Hunter was so proud to climb to the top of the slide all by himself.

Once at the top of the slide, he wanted nothing with going down the slide.  I went up and went down the slide with him.  I should have got a mommy award, because my bum got all muddy from sliding with him.  A muddy bum doesn't look great, just FYI.

 A lot of the preschool group left earlier in the day.  We stuck it out to the bitter end.  It's a good thing we did, because the sun decided to stay out and play for a while.  Tralee was also excited to go on a hayride with Alex and his sister.

Okay, I don't know why, but the picture below cracks me up every time I look at it.  What are those little brains thinking?  These were the pumpkins they each picked out.  I wanted a picture of them with their pumpkins, and this is what I got.  Silly kids.

 Remember when I told you I think Tralee likes Alex?  Doesn't the picture below say it all?  I also think it's funny because he's probably thinking about tractors, or trucks, or some other boyish stuff, and Tralee's probably thinking how much she likes her friend.

Also, remember when I said we had a bit of an rain-induced adventure later on?  Well, this is the part where that adventure took place.  First, check out the pics of the kids' feet before and after our muddy visit to the pumpkin patch:

I thought the picture above would be about as muddy as we got.  I was wrong.  Our tractor pulled the hayride tralior thing into the ditch and couldn't get out.  Check out the picture below.

 So, we all had to unload off the hayride, and stand in the mud-mud-muddiness while the driver pulled himself out of the ditch.  Everyone had to hike through the deep mucky mud to get back on the trailer.  Some little kids lost their shoes.  It was pretty funny.  I laughed the whole time watching the situation go down.

Check out our little muddy buddies after we got back on the hayride:

I'm glad I put Tralee in her rain boots.  Good thinking!  I ended up taking Hunter's shoes off the rest of our stay.  I just carried him around.  

Below are a few pics of the kids jumping on the big pillow thing.

Look at the stride this girl has!  Future track star?  Maybe!

I love the next few pics of my little darlings.

We had a great day at Farmstead, rain, mud, and all.

After our little field trip, I took my kid-os to TCBY for my favorite frozen yogurt treat.  I ALWAYS get the white chocolate soft serve swirled with the fruity sorbet flavor of the day in a waffle cone.  It's my favorite treat in the WHOLE world!  My mouth waters just thinking about it.  I let each of my bambinos pick their own flavors, and we sat, chatted about our adventures, and ate our treat.

We left TCBY, came home and ate lunch (yes, we had dessert before our meal, you can do that kind of thing on your birthday), relaxed for a bit, and then I took the kids to a friend's house (Thanks again Clair!) to be babysat while I went to a dance class downtown.  It was a free class that taught you the Thriller dance, and since Jim and I are going to perform it with others the end of the month, I thought I better go dance it with my fellow zombies.  Jim WAS going to come with me, and we were going to make a date out of it, but his flight was canceled, so he didn't get home in time.  I just went by myself.  I was reminded that I need to get out of my comfort zone a bit more, because I had a lot of fun grooving like a zombie with some hilarious people.

After zombie-ing it up, I tucked my babes into bed, and fell into dreamland myself.  I woke up when Jim came home at midnight.  He walked over to me in bed, scooped my up in his arms, gave me a kiss, and wished me a happy birthday.  It was the perfect way to cap off my twenties.