OUR LAST WEEK

Girls with the girls, boys with the boys

Last Friday we took the kids out on "dates".
Daddy and Andrew had a special morning and the girls and I had a special morning...since I had the camera, there are no pics of the boys' time -but I can tell you they had a FABULOUS time together. John took Andrew out to breakfast, then to do go-karts and air hockey, and then home to play the Wii.

The girls and I started our day out getting our hands and feet done, then out to a "girly" lunch, then to the local mall's pet store to look at the puppies and kittens (Becca is SUCH an animal lover!).

I think all 5 of us really enjoyed our time!!


Here are a few pics from our girly day.

above -the girls showing off their fingernails, and below -their precious piggy toes

on Saturday, after Andrew's soccer game, we released our butterflies.
For Andrew's b-day, my mom gave him a gift certificate for caterpillars from InsectLore (all you moms -go check it out!). We had little caterpillars delivered about 3 weeks ago...each day they were visibly bigger and bigger...then a week later they made their way to the top of their jar and formed chrysalids -it was SO cool to watch.

About a week later, our 5 chrysalids turned out 5 beautiful butterflies!
We kept them for 2 days in the little habitat above...and then released them on Saturday.

As each one would fly out, the kids would yell out "good bye butterfly! we love you!"

and this was my little missy last night. I've posted her crazy sleep positions before -this girl wiggles around!

Yesterday was our 2nd "skip nap day" in a row so she was awfully tired.

I put the kids to bed and about 7 minutes after walking out of the room I heard a thump or thud -thinking the girls were up playing I hustled to the room to find Elizabeth like this.....just minutes afer I had put her down. I have no idea how she got there SO quickly.

~after snapping the pic I did turn her the "right" way in bed so she could be more comfortable!~

AFTERNOON AT THE DAIRY

there is a local dairy that has a "free" day every year...this year's free day was today. :)

it's really not much...a few games like toss a ball in a tractor tire, a hay maze, etc...but the kids LOVED it.

you can take a little hay ride and they take you around the dairy -point out where the milking house is, who is in what pen (the dry pen with cows 7-8.5 mo. pregnant, the "about to deliver" pen w/cows in the last 2 wks of pregnancy, etc), a basis synopsis of how the dairy operates, etc.

it was a great way to spend a 2 hours of our afternoon-and really educational for the kids

above and below are the cows in the milking area -above, I believe they've already been milked and are waiting to head back to their pen.

Below-cows being milked as we watched. :)

we spent ALOT of time at the "cows about to deliver" pen. :)

these were all mama cows that were to deliver in the next 2 weeks.
this dairy has 4-6 calves born a day right now.

we saw 4 brand new babies today and 1-2 cows in labor.

we were told this one was in labor. she got up not long after I took this shot so it's not like she was writhing in pain. :) but the kids did keep asking me "mama -is she dead?!"

can you see the little one just above the 2nd yellow bar?

this one HAD TO have been brand new. it's hair was still kinda fuzzy and it's legs were SOOOO wobbly.
poor baby just stood there trembling for the longest time. it was clearly afraid to move lest it just collapse -it was just precious!

I don't know if you can see it in the above pic -you may need to click on it to enlarge it -but you can still see the umbilical cord hanging down on the calf above

this calf is, I believe, the same one as a few pics above -the one we saw that was just trembling as it stood for the first time.....when we walked by this 2nd time, you could hear it moo-ing just a bit...then it walked a few steps, collapsed, and just laid on the ground resting....hard work for a newborn!

mamas licking their newborns

and just as we were leaving, my sister and her kids were coming in. the kids got a big kick out of seeing their cousins so we had to take a group shot.

SURVIVING THE 100 DEGREE TEMPS

it's official..our summer is here.

That means windows and doors will remain closed up for about 6 months.
It looks like we live in a dungeon cuz I keep all the blinds tightly shut and as many lights off as we can.
and the AC is now kicking on in the afternoon...6 months of higher electric bills :)

BUT -the one great thing about summer now is our pool! I'm actually looking forward to our hot summers (can't believe I'm writing that!) so we can use our pool all day long!

here is what we did yesterday for our first 100 degree day.

Andrew found my swim cap :)

later on I found him sticking his foot in it, stretching it, and then letting it fly across the room. :)

AND
when John got home from work he checked the pool and it was 78 degrees. A tad cool for here, but warm enough he thought he'd let the kids try it out.

It was pretty chilly and Andrew was the only really brave one -he even jumped in and swam a bit!

and just cuz this was so sweet. :)
The other night I was getting things ready for school time the next morning. Becca wanted to see the books she'd be reading...Andrew sat down with her and helped her sound out words.

what a sweet sweet big brother. :)