Fall Festival at Gaver Farm

In our quest to find fun things to do as a family, we came across this Fall Festival that started this month at Gaver Farm. It was a good 30-40 minute drive away, so we made a day out of it. John somehow ended up with 2 days he could still take off of work before the end of his company’s fiscal year, so he took Wednesday off and we all headed up there for some fall fun.

It ended up being CRAZY HOT (where is my sweater weather?!) but we still had a really fun time. I was really glad we went on a weekday. Not only was the admission price cheaper than the weekend, but there was hardly anyone there! The place was HUGE and there was so much to do!

They had lots of these wooden playground structures, mostly shaped as tractors or trains :)
We all loved the really big slide (despite Spencer’s face in this picture). Nathan even went down all by himself! He never ceases to amaze me, ha!
I think John liked the jumping pillow more than Nathan, but they both got some good jumps in.
There were several sand boxes with toys already there.
And there were lots of animals to see. To Spencer, all animals are “pah-pahs” (Puppies). You could buy a cup of feed to feed the goats, but there were bunnies, chickens, alpacas, sheep and pigs to see too.
We were hard-pressed to get Nathan to do anything else once we found this bicycle track!
At least, until we found the car track ;)

There were some grown-up sized ones on yet another track!
We cooled off for a bit at the rain gutter ducky race station.
By the time we were ready to go, they hadn’t run any hayrides yet, even though they were supposed to start around noon. So we asked them about it and they totally gave us a ride, even though we were the only ones on it! (By that point literally the only people there besides employees were us and one other mom with her two kids) It was really bumpy and Nathan had a hard time deciding while riding whether he liked it or not, but I think by the end he enjoyed it ;)
I don’t know why Spencer never smiles on camera, but I promise he had fun.

There were several other activities that I didn’t get pictures of or that we didn’t do. They had a corn maze (we didn’t do that one), some other fun slides, large lincoln log blocks to build with, sand boxes filled with corn kernels instead of sand, and places to bang on pots and pans to make noise and little trails to follow.

By the time we finished our hayride, we were pooped and ready to go home. But we had such a fun time! It’s been so awesome to find these great things to do as a family :)

14 Months!

*Climbing onto EVERYTHING. Suddenly our house doesn’t seem as baby-proofed as it usually does. And while we (thankfully) don’t have any stairs in our apartment, he’s obsessed with them.

*Total thrill seeker. He’s going to be my kid that ends up in the ER half his life. He likes to climb onto the couch and launch himself over the arms. I just have to be there to catch him before he falls onto his head and breaks his neck! He will also climb onto Nathan’s bed (it’s just the bed and box-spring, so it’s not super high) and just walk off the side, whether someone is there to catch him or not. And he thinks it’s hilarious.

*Getting to the point where he enjoys antagonizing Nathan. This makes my refereeing job very difficult. Spencer will watch and wait until Nathan leaves the toys he’s playing with unattended for a moment and then run up and snatch one and start running away (because of course Nathan is all “Spencer! NO! and starts chasing him) and giggling. Stinker.

*Has officially dropped his morning nap, though every couple of days he needs a 30 minute rest in the morning because he gets up SO EARLY right now and he just can’t handle life some mornings.

*So affectionate. When he sees me first thing in the morning after John has gotten him out of bed, he runs up and grabs me around the legs and gives me a big hug. He is also the one to run up to John for a hug when he gets home from work. It’s seriously adorable.

*Finally cut some more teeth!!! It’s only been 5 months since the last ones. He now has a grand total of…4 teeth.

*Starting to like books other than when we read before bed. We’ve caught him several times sitting on the floor looking through a board book and it’s crazy adorable. He’ll also pick a book, shove it in my face and plop himself down on my lap, ready for me to read it to him. Most of the time we only get through 1 or 2 pages before he’s up and going again, but hey, it’s something.

*Loves music and loves to dance. It’s hilarious when he gets going because he loses his balance and falls over. ;)

*This boy LOVES his Daddy. He says “Dada” (I’m a little jealous) and cries every morning when John leaves for work and is the loudest in his excitement when John comes home.

*Signing a little bit more. We are getting “All done” and “More” mixed up (they are very similar) but he started doing the sign for “Milk” when he’s in his high chair. Otherwise he just goes to the fridge and pulls on the handle and whines at me until I give him his cup. ;)

*Keeps us on our toes and laughing! Love you Little Man!

FHE/Scripture Story Dolls

So I’ve actually had these made for a little while now and we’ve used them in FHE (Family Home Evening) once already, but I hadn’t had a chance to take any pictures.

I got the idea from a friend of mine who told me she wanted to make puppets for her son to act out the scripture stories. Since I tend to go overboard with things like this, I went a step further and made dolls. I plan on making more as we get through other stories, but the ones I have made will get us through a couple of weeks.

So here they are! When I was looking for inspiration I came across this etsy shop and fell in LOVE with her felt doll patterns (I want to make them ALL!). So I bought her Prince pattern and modified it to make the little guys you see here!

From left to right: Lehi, Sariah, Laman, Lemuel, Sam and Nephi (Yes, I realize the Nephi is the only one with shoes…I was getting a little lazy there at the end. I kind of like them better without shoes though, so I might take Nephi’s off at some point…)From left to right: Angel, Laban and Zoram. There was quite a bit of debate on whether or not I should have made Laban’s head detachable. You’d be surprised at the number of arguments there were for a detachable head. I decided not to freak out my children ;) Even if they don’t get it now, they will!

Aren’t they so fun?! I love them. FHE has been quite entertaining with them. We can’t seem to get Nathan to say the right lines. At one point he was Laban and I was Laman and I was asking for the Brass Plates and I told Nathan to say “No! You can’t have them!” and he just goes “Here you go! You can have them!” And Spencer just tries to eat them.

So even with adorable scripture story dolls, FHE is still a work in progress. We get points for trying, right? ;)

Labor Day Picnic Cookies

This is definitely another one of those I-got-a-new-cookie-cutter-I-must-use-it-NOW type situations. ;)

We celebrated our 7th (!!) anniversary last month and we still try to do the ‘traditional’ themes. Year 1 is paper, year 2 is cotton, year 3 is leather (if I remember correctly), etc. Year seven was copper. But we cheated a little. Neither of us really have much use for copper – so we just went with regular ol’ metal instead. And John got me cookie cutters. :)

One of the shapes I picked was a sunflower, and since we just saw some gorgeous sunflowers this weekend AND we had a Labor Day picnic for church, I made some summery/picnic cookies!

I even pulled out my airbrush to do that cool gingham look you can see on some of them. (I’ve been dying to try that forever, so glad I finally had an occasion!!)
The sunflowers are definitely my favorite, though the mason jars or lemonade are a close second. I was going to add in some picnic baskets but I ran out of motivation brown icing time. Oh well, maybe another time ;)

The picnic ended up going really well and the cookies were a hit! Yay!

A Visit to the Sunflower Fields

We have been looking for fun things to do this fall as a family, and John came across this blog post HERE that told us about these amazing sunflower fields to go see. I was really excited about this because sunflowers are one of my most favorite flowers. So we made the drive up there this morning (it was a 35-40min drive) to see them and they did not disappoint!

The fields were huge, and there were so many sunflowers! And they were GORGEOUS!

The boys enjoyed walking around outside and the weather today happened to be beautiful and really makes us want fall to just get here already!

Spencer was not having any of this picture-taking nonsense ;)
We brought lunch/snacks and had a little picnic next to the fields. With the temperature and humidity being lower than usual today, it was a perfect day for a picnic!
Oh this kid. He cracks me up!
“Helping” Daddy get the blanket folded up.
Visitors are asked NOT to pick the sunflowers, as it’s a cash crop for the farmers that grow them, but they have a little tent set up where you can purchase some to take home. So we got to bring some home with us today! :)

It was a great family outing and we highly recommend it! We also learned that next year, since they rotate crops, there will be corn there instead. So go out and see them this year if you can!