Halloween- version 2.0

Friday was a busy day for us, including our second dose of Halloween.

To avoid Halloween candy and such at school (or at least, I think), the 2 pre-primary classes took a field trip on Friday to Tate Farms. This is one of those pumpkin patches with animals, hay mazes and hay rides, etc. You all have one in your town, I'm sure. It's the way that farmers actually make money these days. It's $7/ head for us city folks to find out how they had fun in the good ole days (and the second one we've been to this year). Harris was here, too and was in the stroller or with Connie most of the time. Thank goodness she came to help out!

Here is Owen with his gal pals Merritt and Olivia, again: Petting a goat with his teacher, Ms. Rosanna:

Riding the horse swing:

Playing in the corn crib:And picking his pumpkin:Then we went out to Connie and Irv's to nap and get ready for Trunk or Treat at their church.

Harris was a giraffe this time:Owen was Thomas the Tank Engine (and really learned exactly what the whole candy business was about). Three generations of Dunhams being goofy (as the Dunhams are known to do- these in particular):And a quasi-decent picture of the 4 of us! Wow! (Thanks, Irv!! Good job!)

We got home somewhat early and decided to actually go door to door trick or treating on our street! This was the first time that Owen had done it, so we had to keep pulling him OUT of people's houses since he kept walking in after they opened the door. I guess if people give you candy at the door, it can only get better if you go inside, right?

Then my scruffy Bob Ross husband shaved his beard (hoorah!) and we crashed.

2 more parties today and then we are done. I think we should rename this holiday Hallo-week!

Oh the Places we will go...

So sorry for being out of the blogging loop lately. I had a work trip to Birmingham this week (only for a day), but that has thrown me off of my normal schedule. And we've been busy!

Ollie is in the pre-primary class at his school now which means he is a big boy. The class is with 3-5 year olds and he is the youngest this year. The neat thing is that he will have a turn being in the middle and then being the oldest. I'm more excited about the last 2, but he is learning a lot this year being with the older kiddos. So, a perk to being in the big boy class is that you get to go on FIELD TRIPS!! Isn't that exciting! So, our first field trip (you KNOW I was there) was on Wednesday and was to the Botanical Gardens to see the scarecrows.

Ollie got to pet a turtle:

And the whole class posed by the school's FIRST PLACE winning scarecrow entry (in the school division)- The Cat and the Hat: (Ollie is 3rd from the left there)They learned all about herbs in the herb garden and got to hang out with the guys: (What kind of mommy doesn't bring sunglasses or a hat?? ME and that kid's mom on the end...)And they each picked a leaf and made a class leaf collage. Our leader (and the Director of Education at the gardens) was none other than my former roommate and co-worker Shelly. It's been about a year since I've seen her, so that was a nice surprise! And here are some of Ollie's new friends, M and O. They are both 4, both new to our school and are so stinking cute. And I love their moms- we were all eating together. This picture is funny because M (in the middle) told both of them to come pose for it... and they DID! They were eating lunch and then it became picture time. I wish my child would listen to me like that!!

There were so many cute scarecrows out there, but this was my favorite! I think it was entitled: College- Friday morning.

So, Thursday was busy like normal, but then I HAD to devote 3 hours of my time to TV that night, so nothing else got done. Who can give up a season premier (better yet, two)?? Friday I went to B'ham for the day.

Saturday, we went with Connie and Irv to Lyon Farms in Tennessee. It only took us about 40 minutes to get there and Connie found this place because we thought Tate Farms- our usual fall farm destination- was closed. Apparently there was a typo in their opening date, but we were glad we went to this place! They had a beautiful little setting when you walked in for pictures. Too bad my kids don't care about such things. Ollie looks like he his thinking, "Are you kidding me? How many pictures could you possibly have of us??"

There was a great petting zoo with sheep, ducks, pigs, bunnies and goats. Henry liked hanging out with his Nana.Then it was off to the corn wagon. This is a fun place for the kids and I have taken some of my favorite pictures in these little places. Maybe it's something with the reflection of the corn- I don't know- but I always love these pictures!Then there is a walk through area to see/ pet big animals. There was a horse, a cow, a donkey (Ollie- "Shrek, mommy!") and chickens. But the neatest were the hogs because the farmer threw them whole pumpkins to eat while we were standing there. They went to town on them, too! Ollie said all day, "I saw a pig eat a pumpkin!". Then we went out to the pumpkin patch to pick a pumkin. There was many a family picture that we tried to take all day and sadly, this is probably the best. There were many other things to do there. We ate a great lunch, went down a huge fun slide, rode the cow train (pulled by a lawn mower), Henry swang for a while and the kids got their scarecrow pictures taken:

This was such a nice place. We went for Connie's birthday celebration (her birthday is on Tuesday), but we all had so much fun! I would highly recommend this place if you live around Huntsville. Tate Farms is nice, too, but this wasn't crowded at all, so it made for a nice, calm experience. Oh, and the weather was absolutely perfect- that helped.

Hope you've had a nice week. Glad the blog is up to date! Whew! Check! Off to get ready for youth tonight. Have a great Sunday afternoon. Hope you're napping!

Is this Jurassic Park?

We have had an adventurous day today! Both of the kids are home with me for the next 1 1/2- 2 weeks because their pre-schools/ mothers morning out programs are closed for the break between summer and fall. {What, you don't get that break off of work? Well, me either! Why can't we learn and schedule our vacations accordingly?}

So, I've got all kinds of fun activities lined up because mommy becomes a bit boring and I'm determined not to let Owen quote every line from any Thomas video. He knows so many now and just throws them out { e.g. "Slow down and puff with care!"} whenever and I have to explain to people that he's quoting a Thomas movie... and I'm sure they're thinking he's seen it 100 times... but he just quotes anything!

Anyway, today we ventured out with Cate and her daughter Ellie to Harmony Safari Park. You've never heard of it? Apparently no one has! It's a free range zoo that you drive through. It's about a 25 minute drive from downtown, but not too terribly bad to get there. Free range zoo means that the animals just roam around and are not in cages. "Roam around" means that they come up to your car and eat out of your hand. How can this be? Take a look at these pictures:

This is one of many ostriches. They were our least favorite because of their attacking nature and weird googly eyes. Sorry if you're an ostrich lover.

I honestly can't remember what this was, but this shows you how close they all were. This is Cate petting whatever the animal is. Cate, do you remember? Looks horse-ish, but I know there weren't any horses.And this is Tattoo the zebra. I think he was Owen's favorite. And I was his favorite. We had a big bucket of feed and apparently the animals know this. Is this crazy, or what?Cate said, "Oh look, get the camel over here", so I threw out food and he came running. Then he snuck around to her side! She screamed because of the lovely surprise, but that didn't scare him away. He wouldn't leave and had his WHOLE CAMEL HEAD in the car for a while. This is Cate trying to get him out!

There were turkey, deer, llama, monkeys (in cages), turtles, big ole snakes (appropriately caged), deer with fuzzy antlers (are those just deer? we were calling them reindeer because of the kiddos, but I'm honestly not sure if they are deer or what), bison, buffalo, aligators- the list goes on. And I could post a ton of pictures, but here are the rest of my favorites:

Owen was in awe of the whole experience. I kept hyping up the "zoo" and I know he thought that Barney was going to be there (one of his other favorite videos- I highly recommend), so I hope this met his expectations. He seemed pretty happy! (The cup is full of feed that he never threw out.)

How often do you get to see this?Here's precious little Ellie waving to some animal. Cooper (our babysitter) is in the "way" back with Harris. I'm so glad she came along because she could maintain the whole back 2 rows. She is great!A ram, I think.And a cool buffalo (or bison). Whatever you think it is- I'll go with that.
A llama- which Ellie kept calling "Mama". Some good jokes there.And here's where the title of this post comes from: Baby ostrich eggs waiting to hatch... or is it?Needless to say, we had a really cool time at the safari park. I would recommend it, for sure! Thanks to Cate for telling us about it!