Saturday, October 24, 2009

Family Harvest Party!

Family Harvest Party!
Today was so much fun! We raked leaves, jumped in the piles....took a bath! We carved pumpkins, and made caramel apples. Mommy and Quinn's is the maple leaf, Daddy and Gabe carved a Goofy pumpkin. Tomorrow we will probably roast our leftover pumpkin seeds!
Below: Lapacek's Orchard in Poynette, WI

Gabe quickly made friends with the animals. He especially liked "Martini," a little grey cat who followed him around.

Gabe daringly rides the big-wheel down the hill!


Quinn enjoys a chilly swing ride.


Pumpkin hunting!

Mommy and her boys!






Preschool Weeks 5, 6, and 7: cows, goats, and sheep!

Rhyme Hunt: we took our laundry basket around the house, looking for objects that rhymed with "ball." Quinn's' favorite was "call;" he would not put the phone back into the basket...

Gabe's sheep, named "Little Lamb."

Our updated farm mural! Each week our art book gives us a step-by-step process on how to draw a particular farm animal. After we draw it, we cut it out and add it to the mural we created during week one. Yes--most of the animals on the mural happen to be mommy's creations...Gabe does such CUTE drawings but still REFUSES to put them on the dining room mural! So I took photos of his animals (below), which are currently hanging in his bedroom, safe from Quinn tearing them.


Gabe's "cow" drawing.


Another one of Gabe's cow drawings.
Circle painting!
During week 5 we learned about COWS, and our kitchen experiment was making homemade ice cream! Yum!




















Sunday, October 4, 2009

Quinn's FIRST haircut!

Age 14 months.
Quinn does not look too thrilled about his new-do.

Hinchley Dairy Farm Tour, October 1st, 2009

Gabe milking a cow!



Gabe is thinking: "there is NO WAY that I'm letting this calf suck on MY finger! Mom--YOU do it! (I did, it was awesome)




Gabe holding a baby chick; the two became close friends. I was amazed watching how gentle my rough-and-tumble boy was!




Is that a rooster on your head??



Mrs. Hinchley gave each of the children a corn cob to feed to the chickens, ducks, goats, and whoever else was roaming the barnyard! Gabe took the corn off one kernel at a time. AND--We got to see BLUE chicken eggs in the hen house!


City kids!
The Hinchley Farm Tour (through FISH, our homeschool group) was such a blast. We got poop on our shoes, smelled crazy smells, got rained on while we picked pumpkins...it was a great experience (REALLY!) We will love to go back again someday. I have great admiration for farmers. The highlight of my day was when we entered the milking barn, about to milk a cow for the first time ever--Gabe buried his head in my sweater and said, "I want to get out of here, Mom! It smells awful!" What a NEAT, NEAT tour--a very good glimpse of farm life, left me wishing I could raise a few chickens in our backyard. Thank you, Hinchleys, for the opportunity to show my kids where their food comes from, and to pretend--at least for a few hours--that we were farmers, too.

Gabe READ HIS FIRST WORD! Age four, October 3, 2009.

"Big"
That is Gabe's first official read-it-all-by-himself word!
He was working on his letter Bb book this week, when he began to sound out one of the words all by himself. I wasn't watching--I just remember hearing him sound out B-i-G--and then yell, "BIG! IT SAYS 'BIG!'" I turned around and started to scream--he DID it, he sounded out a word all by himself:) How appropriate, the word BIG. My Gabe is getting so...BIG!

Preschool Week Four: Who Lives On a Farm?

Gabe rides his horse, "Assy."
What we are learning: this week we focused on the letter Bb.
We also learned a little bit about horses. Our art project finale was making a horse to ride around the house (see top photo). Gabe named his horse: Assy (I did not stop laughing). Later he changed it to: Sassy Cow Creamery. Ahhh...so Assy was short for "Sassy." Now it is making sense! We also made stick puppets this week (bottom photo). I made one, and so did Gabe. His was Charlie, and mine was Lola! But Quinn peeled the eyes off of Lola by the end of the day, so Lola is currently blind. Our field trip this week was visiting Hinchley's Dairy Farm, I will attempt to post that seperately!