tuesday nature day = amy's farm + miguels jr.

i have to say i love, love, love our nature days. i love to get together with our awesome group, i love to visit with the moms, and i love our adventures. today we went to amy's farm which is about an hour out from us in ontario. it was such a fun day. the farm is small, but full of adventure and learning for the whole family. we were led on a guided tour by our own farmer, farmer heidi. i think what i heard was that she lives and works on the farm while raising and homeschooling three of her own kiddo's. that's rad! yah, i just said rad! because it is rad, so rad that we have been inspired to get our garden/mini farm started this weekend. if you are needing some inspiration to get yours started take a trip to amy's or just

take a look below at what we did...

we were welcomed

with beautiful views

the rules of the farm

1. plant you feet into the ground - no climbing

2. leave things you find on the ground on the ground

3. walking feet

newly hatched ladybugs

rows of organic veggies

a fresh picked carrot

organic brocolli that is unfortunately

being destroyed by a bug

that was brought here from africa

lesson learned = buy local

avoid introducing foreign bugs to our organic crops

each kiddo got to pick a leaf of swiss chard to feed to the chickens

a fine looking leaf

my little farmer girl

my little farmer boy

yeah, spring is on it's way

got milk?

gwynevere

all these kiddo's were eager to milk this mama cow

my little miss reached right in

and got some milk

the little fella wanted to hide from this experience

i should have too because i just couldn't get any milk out of her.

these little fellas talking over the sheep

there was a horse too- he ate the carrot from above

we got to groom this little horse named crystal

something we found on the ground - toenail clippings from the horses

thank goodness for rule #2 because the little miss wanted to take this home

my cool cat

and don't forget this cool cat

this my friends is not from the farm, but from a restaurant nearby called miguels jr. which happens to have the best darn bean, rice, cheese, and guacamole burrito's around. so, of course we made on stop on our way home.

a homemade birthday party

our little fella turned two today. our usual birthday routine is to head to disneyland and spend the day with our family. that was my intention for this day, but when i woke up i felt like just having a low key day enjoying our boy. we started the day off with a pancake breakfast from mickey d's, which according to my girl is his favorite restaurant. we then just took it easy and hung out in the backyard. it was fun and we were all enjoying ourselves, but then all of a sudden i felt like we needed to do more. so the little miss helped me prepare a homemade birthday party for the little fella. here's what she came up with...

first, make cupcakes

second, wrap your homemade gift

third, balloons make every party

they played while i blew up 25 balloons

and last but not least decorations

now it's time to party

unwrap the homemade gift

which happened to be his favorite present

and blow out your candles.

don't forget to make a wish!

happy birthday to our favorite little boy in the whole wide world.

we love you more than you'll ever know.

lunch at bob's

i don't know about you, but bob's big boy was one of my favorite places to go when i was a kiddo. my family would go there for burgers and hot fudge sundaes. i think my favorite part was climbing all over the bob statue out front. after all i am a sucker for red + white check overalls. when they closed most of them down, i have to admit i was a little bummed. but, recently bob has been making a comeback and he's not too far away. so after a few failed attempts of activities (read more about that here) on martin luther king day we headed over to bob's for lunch.

here's how it went...

we went with the cousins

gotta love a good old fashion diner

look at all those brown eyes

the mister got to come with us

french fries

the little fella had fun watching

all the cars pass by on the busy street

of course we couldn't get through it

without one of the kiddo's moping

it was a serious mope

but then she quickly snapped out of it when...

her strawberry sundae came

and they wanted their sundaes too

this is how the little fella asks for ice cream.

nice huh?

so many choices

but, the hot fudge sundae always wins.

it was good too, can't you tell?

all in all bob's is not as good as i remember it, but it's more for the experience than the food. check one out if you get a chance.

i don't know if you remember, but my little fella was bob for halloween. here's a fun little sequence of him trying to get use to his costume...

he really hated the pants, but quickly got over it when

he saw our neighbor with a big bowl of candy.

that's my little fella for ya!

boots!

these boots were made for exploring and that's just what they did on our tuesday nature study with our homeschool group. it's been rainy a lot here in so.cal, so when we visited the san joaquin wildlife preserve in irvine most of our kiddo's sported their rain boots. they came in handy (or footsy just to be corny) because there was lots of mud puddles to walk through, wade through, and stomp through. that's just what we did and as we were hiking along the kiddo's found some bones in the bushes that just so happen to be one of the highlights of the day. the kiddo's were so excited about this find that i braved the bushes, grabbed a plastic bag and dragged the bones up to the path so we could get a better look at them. turns out the bones were an intact fish skeleton. it was pretty cool. there were lots of ideas about were it came from, what it was, how it got there, and lots of poking and prodding with sticks to look at it from all angles. take a look at where and what our boots explored last tuesday...

rudolph pops

getting into the Christmas spirit with

rudolph pops from cost plus.

i'm just gonna say it:

"gosh my kids are cute!"

tis the season

it's beginning to look alot like christmas around here.

with no thanks to me, it's been all the little miss.

you see we're gonna be moving in like 15 days (i know crazy)

and even though we got the christmas boxes out of the garage,

i really don't want to put much up because as soon as i do, i will be

turning around to take it right back down. but with two little ones

you can't just skip this time of year. it must go on with or without

me and since i haven't unpacked those christmas boxes to get out

our decorations my girl made her own nativity scene tonight. i love it!

she's so creative. i like this nativity better than our fancy ceramic one.

i think i will have her create our nativity scene every year.

she did a great job...

she used ripped up toilet paper for snow

oh yeah, and don't forget the grinch.

we started our christmas reading off

with this classic.