Reading Pete the Cat

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Brave

Today I took the girls with Grandma and their cousins to the movie Brave.  I thought it was pretty good.  This was the first time Stella had ever gone to a movie, and she did a really good job of listening and sitting still.  She was a bit restless at the end,

A Gaggle of Geese

I'm not sure where these geese came from, but there were about 25-30 parading down our street the other night.  Now, I personally hate geese.  I think they are pests and they are mean.  Erick has no such fear, and of course encouraged the girls to feed them.  Piper is fearless, but Stella wisely chose to hang out with me.

Their First Fairy House

This was a bed that Piper made for the fairy.  The blanket blew away sadly (a leaf).

I've been wanting to make a fairy house with the girls all summer.  This was an impromptu one that was made the other night.  They had a lot of fun, and I am anxious to make some more.  Maybe one that can be permanent.  Fairies like natural materials, and they had fun collecting sticks and other items from around the yard.  I'm not sure where they found the pink netting though.

Fireworks Painting

Boogie Board Video

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Some of my favorite pictures from Myrtle Beach

So I'm putting most of my photos into a collage to play, but I wanted to showcase some of my favorite shots.

Myrtle Beach

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Ivory Soap Explosion

It's time for another Pinterest idea.  This time we tried the popular ivory soap pin where you microwave it.  Here is where I got my original idea.  I was a little let down by the experiment, but the kids seemed to like it well enough.  It didn't last very long, but they still had fun playing and experimenting with it.

First we chopped the soap up into smaller pieces.  

Then it was microwaved a couple at a time until we got this It was hard to see into our microwave, so the girls couldn't actually see the process as it exploded.  The texture was quite like tissue paper.

Piper had fun squishing it, and later added water to it to see what would happen.  It came in handy later when we painted and we needed something to clean up with easily.

Fair Oaks Farm

Piper and I took a trip to Fair Oaks Farm with a couple of my teacher friends and their kids.  Fair Oaks Farm is a working farm- actually about ten of them combined.  They have an educational center filled with interactive exhibits, a birthing barn where you can watch live births, and more! 

 We started out in the birthing barn.  Everyone was anxious to see a baby calf being born.  This is the stoplight outside the barn.  It tells you what is happening inside, and how close the mama cow is to giving birth.  When we arrived, it was on yellow- which meant the birth was close to happening.  Hooves were able to be seen, and that is exactly where we started.  The first time we went we saw two births, one boy and one girl.

Mama gets some assistance giving birth this time.

Piper and her new friend watch as the mama greets her new baby.

Baby calves are taken from their mama soon after they are boon.  Piper expressed concern that he would miss his mama.  :( 

Next we went on the bus tour and saw one of the neighboring farms where the cows live.  We learned about the feed and how it is grown and stored.  I was surprised that although they pride themselves on being "green" they did not allow their cows to graze and only fed them "feed"

Cows are milked three times daily.  They are easily trained and line up on the carousel to be milked.  It literally turns with the cows on board, and they know how and when to get on and off by themselves.

  

 Exiting the milking parlor.

 Piper feels the pipes leading in and out of the tanker room.  One is hot and one is cold.

There was a large play area outside for the kids to interact with.