Harvest Fair

Today was Grace's first official Field Trip. Her Kindergarten class when to the Sonoma County Harvest Fair. She has been looking forward to her first field trip since school started and has been counting down the days all week. I took the day off work so that we could spend it together.

Grace fed carrots to a horse, milked a plastic cow, and hugged Clo, the most famous cow in Sonoma County.

We learned about cows and what it means to chew the cud. We saw giant award winning pumpkins (605 lbs!) and navigated a hay maze.

One of the biggest things Grace was looking forward to was a "fair lunch". She eagerly ate her entire Giant Corn Dog. Then we fed leaves to a goat (they think they are chips!), and hunted for eggs in a huge pile of straw.

Our last stop before we left was the "Barnyard Scramble". There played pumpkin bowling (Grace knocked down 6 pins!), had a potato sack race and did somersaults. I'm not sure what we were supposed to do with the plastic animals in the red barn, but Gracie chose to throw them out of the window (don't worry I made her pick them up and put them away).
There wasn't as much to do at this year's Harvest Fair, but we still had a good time spending some Mommy-Gracie time with no other siblings.

Soccer or Keep-Away?

At half-time of Emma Jo's soccer game on Sunday, Gracie and Cooper decided to have a game of their own. Gracie thought they were playing soccer so she set down the ball and tried to teach Cooper how to kick it. Cooper tried for a couple of minutes, but they he decided Keep-Away was a much more fun.

Pumpkins

This past weekend we picked our pumpkins from Grampa's Pumpkin patch. As I was looking through the photos I remembered posting last years pumpkin photos on this blog. That made me realize I started this blog over one year ago! I can't believe that I missed that milestone! When I started it last September I had no idea how it would go, if I'd remember to post and if anyone would read it. Now, just over a year later, I don't always remember to post and I don't know if anyone reads it, but I love having this blog. It makes me happy to know that the kids have a recording of their childhood, complete with pictures and even some videos.

Here are the pictures from this weekend's adventure in Grampa Pumpkin Patch.








Here is a flashback to last year's pumpkins:

Fw: Just looking good...

Another email from Grampa:

Hanging out…What did you have to eat today?

Fw: Gracie

An email I received from Grampa today:

She is moving the ball until attacked by another player…

Long Week, Short Weekend

This week was just one of those weeks. For Mommy it started with a long drive to Oakville followed by several hours of meetings (budget are no fun), then a drive back to school and more meetings. More meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday were rounded out with a night of no sleep on Wednesday. By the time Friday afternoon rolled around I was DONE.

The weekend started with dinner at Grammie and Grampa's. While visiting with them is always nice, it was especially nice this week since Uncle Bud and Aunt Nancy are visiting from Indiana. We don't see them very often and it was so great to visit with them.

Today was dominated by soccer. Grace's game was at 9:30 and Emma Jo's was at noon. Both teams did great. It was fun to see Gracie sticking in there and fighting for the ball. In the past she has sort of hung out on the fringes and watched and waited. The Purple People Eaters played together as a team! It was nice to see them applying the soccer skills that Coach Rob has tried to hard to teach them.

When soccer was over, the girls decided the best way to recover from the 90+ degree temperature outside was to run through the sprinklers.

More soccer and expected hot weather tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it (after hopefully a good night's sleep tonight).

Purple People Eaters 1st Game

This weekend marked the beginning of the Purple People Eater's season. They had a game on Saturday afternoon and a second on Sunday morning. Emma Jo got to play mid-fielder for the first half of Saturday's game and played Goalie for the rest of the weekend. Saturday's game was against a tough opponent. Most of the girls in Cloverdale have played together for many years since they have a very small league. In fact in the Under-12 division they only have one team which means they get to travel to Windsor to play against our teams. Sunday was another game against neighboring cities with the PPE traveling up to Healdsburg to play on their soggy field.
We were thrilled to have Grammie, Grampa, Mays and Dallas in the audience this weekend. John and Tracy were at a wedding, so Grammie and Grampa got to babysit twins. Gracie and Cooper loved having their cousins to play with, both at the game at at the playground afterwards.