farm day!

Our children's museum is awesome.  We try to get to all of their events and recently, we got to participate in the annual Farm Day.  They had pony rides, a "hair" sheep (his fleece simply falls out on it's own.  It cannot be spun into wool because of the amount of hairs actually in it.), some 3 week old babies - a goat and some chicks, and a 4 day old piggy who was smaller than a bunny rabbit!  We couldnt' hold the piggy - too stressful for her.  But, the kids were able to interact with the other animals.

There was also a planting station where they could plant a basil plant to take home.  Both kids did this and we re-potted them here at home.  the plants are growing very well and we are incorporating basil into some of our meals.  The kids would love to grow a garden.  Their mother would not.  So, this basil project is plenty for us.  We are also growing a tomato plant that we grew from a seed at a different children's museum event (Science Night).  That plant is growing, but they seem to think we are going to be able to make spaghetti sauce from it's tomatoes.  The entire plant is the size of, I don't know... a parsley garnish.  Look for our sauce in the spring of 2016, I suspect.

Inside, the kids could make butter - which neither child likes, so Lew was happy to sample for them.  He said it was very good, actually.

 Then we headed upstairs to the diner.  Lew ordered the special.

I just ordered dessert.  

 Holding their basil plants.

Happy Mother's Day

The rose was a gift from my local Walmart greeter!  How sweet is that?

butterflies

We visited the Butterfly House that our aquarium has added this year.  On Wednesdays, if you wear wings - you can get in for free.  Carl was none too happy that I made him wear wings, but he did it.

 If you look closely here you can see that the butterflies with the brown circles on the outside are the ones that are brilliant blue on the inside.

 This one hung around on Gretchen's sneaker for a long time.

 having a fruit snack

just waiting....

 They kept landing on my camera bag, but quickly left me.

 Here is one flying over towards Carl's armpit....

 He landed and stayed for a few minutes.

 another one flying over his lap....

 That one circles around to visit Gretchen.

Don't let him fool you - he complained 99% of the time we were there.

 After the butterflies, we stopped at the beach to do their Wednesday Night Homework.  Every week on Wednesday, they have to do something creative with their list of spelling words.  Each month the teacher supplies a list of choices - except for May.  In May, you could make up your own.  One week we made letters out of food, one week we used rubber stamps... and this day we wrote our words in the sand.

 kernel

 spearmint