Green Meadows Petting Zoo

A little over two weeks ago, Evan had an all-day political event on Saturday, so my sister came up to help me with the kids (and she babysat for us that night so we could have a date night - thanks again for that, Carrie!). I made plans for us to meet my friend Kelly and her three kids at a petting zoo/farm about mid-way between us (outside of Frederick MD): Green Meadows Farm. They claim to have over 200 animals, all of which can be touched (except the zebras, as apparently they don't have good manners). We all agreed it was well worth the price of admission - the kids had a blast, we got to pet some pretty cool animals, and go on a relaxing hayride. Not bad!

Sydney and Natalie

Henry

The first place we went upon starting was the animal barn. This AWESOME steer was in there. I was unable to get a photo of him standing, but trust me - he's well over 6 feet tall when standing. Huge! and so peaceful looking here.

Natalie had a really good time petting the bunnies. There was also a Flemish rabbit, which is about the same size as Calla - huge bunny! The kids also had fun petting the baby pigs, and the baby chicks that the adults were allowed to hold. I of course got pooped on by my baby chick - but it was still fun to hold!

Then we went outside to feed some animals. Here's Carrie feeding this huge cow. Her hand was completely slobbered after this!

Natalie feeding two donkeys.

We kept walking down the path to see the other pens. The kids are looking at the emu on the left - I just thought it was pretty great that we got a photo of all 5 of them together! The pen directly in front of them has a kangaroo (you can see a little bit of him in the crook of Natalie's arm), but unfortunately he didn't get too close to us.

We then went into a small petting area where the kids could pet some baby animals. I forgot to mention above that Henry had yet to touch any animals. He enjoyed looking at them, but did not want to touch. He was a good sport and came into this enclosed area where the animals could go right up to you, but he did not want them to actually touch him. I'm proud for going that far despite his little bit of fear!

 Above photo courtesy of Kelly.

Our next-to-last stop was the dairy barn. Included with every admission is the chance to milk a cow. I of course was very excited to try this. The udder feels kind of strange - almost reptilian skin, but the actual milking is pretty easy! Evan got this shot of me giving it a try.

 Above photo courtesy of Kelly - she got a far better shot of Natalie milking the cow than I did.

I LOVE this photo! It came out really well, and they all look so nice. Even the calf looks like she's smiling!

Kelly snagged this photo of us on my camera.

And I returned the favor for her! Unfortunately trying to wrangle the 2 year old twins to get a good photo of everyone is difficult - this was the best shot I was able to get!

We then headed to the other side of the barn to learn a little bit about cows and horses and watch a pig race. Those little guys were just itching to go, as they had a nice reward waiting for them on the other side!

We then took our hayride on a path through the fields and woods. It had gotten pretty warm out there, so it was nice to sit in the covered wagon and relax for a big. When finished, there was a VERY big John Deere tractor that the kids were interested in investigating. They weren't allowed to climb on it, but the wheels made for very nice photos.

LOVE this shot of the girls!

We then headed past the horses to pet them for a bit. This is a Belgian draft horse (I think) - one of the largest horses that exist. She was close to 6 feet at the shoulders, and had her baby with her (see below), so was pretty protective of him! Luckily she was nice enough to let us pet her some as well.

Before heading out we were able to snag a photo of the kids all together. Again, with many shots, this was the best one we could get! The kids were just about done; it was a great day but definitely time to go! I'm looking forward to hopefully going back in the fall when they do some fall activities (such as pumpkin picking, hay rides, etc). It's a bit too warm now for me to want to spend the day there, but it should be really nice in October! Can't wait to take the kids again

Our day of science

About 3 weeks ago Natalie's preschool class had their second field trip of the year, this time to Curiosity Zone in Ashburn. It's really cool - they do all kinds of science classes and camps there for kids of all ages. We had the place to ourselves for Natalie's class for about 45 minutes, and I think the kids had a blast!

Natalie and her friend Madison playing before class started.

 The kids all lined up to go through the big garage door into the lab.

 Once inside the kids donned lab coats and sat down to listen to instructions regarding that day's lesson: Balancing.

 The first experiment to try was to try balancing these weighted popsicle sticks on their fingers. I was very proud of Natalie for finding the fulcrum (balance point) of hers very quickly!

 ...and of course 4 year olds are going to enjoy balancing them on their noses as well. Come to think of it, my friends and I probably still would!

 The kids were then split into 4 groups of 4. Natalie's group went over to the table of building blocks first and practiced balancing blocks to make larger and larger towers.

 The second station used the scale below to practice making it balance. In actuality, this resulted in them just weighing down one side then dumping it out to put it all on the other side.

 The third station was balancing themselves on these short balance beams. I believe this was the favorite station for all of the kids.

 And lastly was a station for the kids to decorate their own take-home balances. They were made of a styrofoam plate (cut in half) and stapled around a small dixie cup on either end to act as the holders.

As part of the take-home gift, there were instructions for making a volcano (which we knew we could do with baking soda and vinegar). We had this wine decanter (right, below) that was stained and thought this would make a nice place to make our "volcano". You can see on the right the bubbles that formed. Natalie and Henry were quite taken by this!

The other part of Natalie's take home gift were a plastic beaker, pipetter, and test tube. I showed her how to use the pipetter and she had a great time transferring water back and forth between different containers. Definitely looking forward to more science fun!

Great Country Farms

Three weeks ago I took the kids out to Bluemont, VA (about 25 minutes west of Leesburg) to go to Great Country Farms. We had been there previously, last October, for Natalie's school field trip, and I thought Henry was now old enough to really appreciate the farm. I was right - the kids both had a fantastic time! And since the weather wasn't that great (it was threatening to rain most of the time), we had the farm mostly to ourselves while there!

We started out the farm with this photo - compare it with this one, and you'll see how Natalie has grown!

 We headed over to the petting zoo area first. I have quite a few photos of the sheep, goats, cows,etc, but I'll wait and post my favorites on the photography blog. However, I had to include this very sweet one here of Natalie petting the pony.

I also had to include this photo here. This peacock was in a cage with a peahen, and I guess it was mating season, because he kept presenting his feathers to her and rattling them, which I'm guessing means "Hey, baby!" in peacock.

 In the play area we encountered this child-sized chess set (it's too small to really call it "life sized!"). The kids had a blast moving the pieces around!

 Natalie again thoroughly enjoyed the giant jumping pillow. Henry, on the other hand, wanted no part of it.

 While Natalie was jumping, Henry and I were feeding the geese. Henry thought it was really cool how they would eat right out of the cup. And man they were greedy little things!

 The kids spotted this swing set in the play area and we had to take a break to swing for a while. I'm so proud of Natalie that she can now pump her legs to keep herself going! And Henry can hold onto the non-baby swings now too - they're both so big!

 To one side of the swings, and a little up the hill, is a water wheel and "maze" that water flows through.

 Henry in particular loved watching the water flow!

 Down the hill from the barn (seen above behind Henry, and in the far background in the picture below) there was a "cow train". Natalie of course hopped right in - Henry took about 5 full minutes to convince, but once I climbed into one of the larger cars, he was willing to go in it with me and sit on my lap. Of course, once we started moving, he absolutely LOVED it!

 In our train ride around the farm, I saw a couple of things we had missed the first time, so we wandered back through the petting zoo area to see a few more animals and to go play in the corn bin. Natalie loved being in there

 ...while Henry refused to step into the corn. He did sit on a chair that was in bin, and eventually poured some corn with a cup, but definitely would not put his feet in.

Once an hour there was a "hay ride" (really a 3-car wood truck) that took us out to the pick-your-own strawberries field. The kids each had a container and had a blast filling them!

 We took the hayride back to the main part of the farm to pay for our strawberries (both of those containers above cost us $2 total! I wish I'd bought 3 times as much). At that point I realized we'd been there over 3.5 hours, we'd eaten all of our snacks, and it was definitely time to get home. When walking back to the car we noticed a pond near the parking lot, and wanted to go look at the geese swimming in the pond. I was able to get this shot below of the kids (along with a few others, but this is my favorite). Man I love these kids.

May fun from our phones

I've taken a pretty decent number of photos with my phone this month, and I think they tell a pretty good story of what we've done!
May 3 - getting ready to leave the house and looking super cute in their Jumping Beans outfits from Kohl's!

 May 6: Henry vacuums the deck. That was ok - less so when he tried to mow the living room (photo courtesy of Evan)

At the same time Natalie and I were off getting our toes done!

Later that afternoon, Natalie takes a nap on the couch. Look how sweetly she is sleeping!

Finally, two tired kids after a fun weekend.

 May 9: I took Natalie to a pediatric dentist. They get to watch TV during the visit - where's my Netflix during my cleaning? It would go a lot easier if I could have Friends on in the background!

 She did great and was given a bag of dental goodies (floss, tooth paste, etc), a balloon, a sticker and two small toys. Yes it was a lot of free stuff, but if it gets her to sit so well through a dental checkup I'll take it.

 May 11: taking the kids for a bike ride as it was so beautiful after work!

 May 19: I took the kids out for smoothies after being in Canada for 3 days. They very much enjoyed them!

 May 20: Henry's hair was INSANE when he woke up, so I took some gel and spiked it up even more. It was actually a bit too long to faux-hawk, so this was the end result.

I do like my skater-punk kid, but the hair was getting a little bit nuts, so we took him for a professional haircut. Voila! A short new summer hairdo. He was so good - didn't fuss or cry at all, just kept his head down and let the woman cut. I think we'll be going back to her again next time!