homeschooling is cool: the pumpkin patch

our nature group went to the real deal pumpkin patch last week. i say real deal because that's what it was. there were no rides, no face painting, no games. just a field of pumpkins most still on their vines and a few farm animals. my kiddo's loved it. we have actually visited this pumpkin patch for the last few years. the pumpkins are usually nice in size and are plentiful, but this year they lost their first crop (too much rain). they planted a second crop which we got to choose from, but most of the pumpkins were small or were not ready to be picked. however, my kiddo's had no problem finding a pumpkin or having fun. take a look...

pretty much first thing my girl found her pumpkin

(see tiny, but manageable for little kiddo's)

a pumpkin flower and the start of a new pumpkin

did you know that these beetles are pumpkin pollinators? we read it in a book about pumpkin farms. i always thought that beetles were bad, apparently not in this case.

the beautiful yellow pumpkin flower is all dried up, but there is now a beautiful orange pumpkin.

my little fella found a pumpkin just his size too

i found my girl gathering these seeds (from weeds), she wanted to take them home to plant them. i didn't have the heart to tell her we don't want to plant seeds from weeds. i suppose it could have been a good learning opportunity, but she was just too excited about them. i couldn't do it. so, while she gathered seeds i decided to explore a little too and take some photos.

i found wheel barrows

and clay pots.

then, i stumbled onto these two

and we saw a real farm tractor drive by

it was awesome!

when it was time to go i even found the best pumpkin in the patch. i'll take that one in the yellow shirt!

homeschooling is cool: let's bowl

what do you do when your home school nature day gets rained out? you go bowling where it's nice and dry. that's right, we took our 20 some kids to the cal bowl and had a great time. take a look...

watching the big leagues and getting pumped for their session

my little fella was raring to go. he's in love with bowling. he was first introduced to it on my sisters iphone and he's been hooked ever since.

the famous pose

my girl has got her bowling shoes on and she's ready to go

this is probably one of the random balls that garebear through down the lane when it wasn't his turn. taking turns was part of our lesson on this day. let's just say we're still working on that. he's 2, what do you expect?

checkout my girl's form and style

bowling balls are so photogenic

this little fella wasn't lacking form or style

actually, all of our home school friends had great form and style. they had good sportsmanship and with the exception of my little one they were all great at waiting for and taking turns. it was the perfect rainy day schedule. i almost want it to rain again.

gare: a photo sequence + a day at the stables

the other day we went to the horse stables with a friend of ours. her sister has a horse there, so we (the kiddo's) were able to go for a little ride. first up was my little fella. take a look at the fourth photo in this sequence it's my favorite and it sums up his horse riding experience...

horse stables: gare's first time ever on a horse

he seriously had a pouty lip from the third photo and on. needless to say he is not my little jockey, but he loved the helmet and wore it the entire time we were there even though he wasn't riding a horse.

my girl on the other hand, loved it! this was her first time on a real "big" horse. she has done the pony rides at the fair, but this was the real deal for her.

oh my gosh, she's such a natural right?

look at her all kickin' out her heals with excitement! she loved it and has been asking for a horse ever since.

while avery was riding we passed by this little (and i really mean little) horse. he is a miniature pony and so cute. these two littles hit it off.

here's gare's new famous pose. he's been doing this lately. remember him here? what is this? it's cracking me up and way too cute. he'll do it again a few photo's down.

after the ride we took bella (that's the horse) to rinse and cool her off.

my girl helped

and you know who did this.

she was a good helper and the horse loved it.

after the cool down rinse we put bella back in her stall,

fed her some watermelon rinds and carrots and called it day!

cake + cake + more cake!

ok so, i am a little frustrated right now because i can't figure out how to make instagram photos a normal size, but i'm not gonna let it get to me and i'm just going to continue with my post. i will gladly accept any advice on how to do this, so i won't be frustrated with future post. enough said about my frustration, let's move on to the celebrations and cake. this past weekend my baby girl turned 7! yes, 7! we had a full weekend and as you know from my post title it included a lot of cake. take a look...

celebration #1

friday night we went out to vietnamese food with the mister's family. my girl loves vietnamese food, so this was her choice for her birthday dinner. she's wearing her birthday beanie from grandma.

next door to the restaurant is a really tasty chinese bakery where she picked out this vanilla cake.

both of my kiddo's enjoyed spending time with their cousins and this little fella was having a blast playing video games on the computer. my goodness, my kid is loud when he plays video games.

celebration #2

saturday morning consisted of making a rainbow cake for the nights celebration with my family

i made the cake topper last minute, just to spruce it up a bit. a little bit of felt, a dowel cut in half, some buttons, string and a glue gun made it look pretty cute.

it was a success! there was a rainbow in there!

more cousins to celebrate with

and more lalaloopsy's to add to her collection

this is the face my girl makes if you call her lalaloopsy's lalapoopsy's. let's just say, she doesn't like it!

celebration #3

more cake for my girls ballet friends. she had to take photo's for her nutcracker performance, so we decided to bring cupcakes to share with her fellow angels. after that we went to a friends birthday party where we ate more cake + cookies + candy.

we were full of sugar and everything sweet this weekend. speaking of sweet check out this sweetness from my little fella...

isn't that just the sweetest thing you ever heard?