Hay Maze and other fun

Despite standing in line for two hours today to get the girls the H1N1 vaccine, and the two and a half hour nap that followed, we still had time today to go out to the maze. We had a great time - it finally feels like fall weather, where you can just wear a fleece and feel snuggly. And even if we don't have fun-colored leaves, we're determined to have fall regardless!

So at the maze, there was a petting zoo. The girls had decided they wanted to pet a chicken (sadly, there wasn't one) but they soon turned their favor to the rabbits, which decidedly did NOT favor them back. There was one boy who seemed to act as the rabbit-wrangler, and he helped the girls get some pets in:

Elena, wondering why this sweet rabbit doesn't want a pet from her or Soft Dog. What the goat is doing in the feeding trough we are not exactly sure...

Both Steve and Christina tried their hand at getting the rabbits to want to interact with the girls, but we mostly just got them to sit still for a few seconds a a time.

The girls love horses/ponies/"neighs" in their books, but in person they weren't quite as excited. Elena got up the guts to go have Soft Dog pet the pony, but Clara was pretty frightened, especially when the pony came and "neighed" behind her. She talked about that the rest of the night, but seemed to recover okay.

There was a big hay maze (you can kind of see it way behind us here) but that nearly gave us (especially Christina) a heart attack when the girls started running through it willy-nilly. You really can't see how to get out or where someone has gone once they are a few feet ahead of you. Luckily, the girls turned themselves around and ran out pretty early, and we went to a kids version:

Elena figured out a cheat/innovation very early on and just jumped up and over the hay bales to get where she wanted to go. Clara, being just a bit shorter, had a harder time getting up, so she mostly walked/ran through it along the pathways.

Eyes closed, but Elena very proud of herself there in the middle of the maze:

Victory for Clara, who made it out of the maze almost on her own!

The other really fun aspect to this maze was the included playground. It was so much fun for them to swing and slide and climb, since it's been a bit cold lately to go to a playground. We found out that Elena knows how to grab a rope and swing out on it, feet completely off the ground.

Next up, one of our last slow weeks at home before a very busy two months of visits, travel, finals, and holidays. We can't wait!

Gathering our Pumpkins

Today we went to Benson's Farm, our favorite local farm, to get the girls their carving pumpkins for this Halloween.

They are much more familiar with the idea this year than in the two years past, and so were excited to get pumpkins before we even got to the farm. Once there, they went straight to selection. But Elena was waylaid early on:

Not a big fan of this scarecrow:

Neither was Clara, really - she wouldn't even go on the same side of the wagon!

Elena looks like she's turning her nose up at these poor pumpkins, but really it's because Christina was trying to get her to look at the silly scarecrow again:

Enough distractions, parents! Back to the serious business of picking a pumpkin:

They examined carefully, and each picked their favorite one. Then, there were other fun sights to see. Clara found some little gourds she loved:

And she commenced a hilarious dance with them - very much like yesterday's leaf dance!

Dancing done, she tried to sneak a few more pumpkins on to our wagon. We convinced her we didn't need more of these, but we bought several squash and pie pumpkins to eat in the coming months and the bounty made her happy.

Back home, we played some in our meager leaf piles. Truly - what fun are green and brown leaves without the vibrant oranges and reds that were stolen from us this early-snow year?

Apparently to one little girl, they are fun enough as is. Elena had such a great time in the leaf pile. Note we said "one girl" - Clara is adamantly NOT a fan of the leaves if she is horizontal!

Daydreamin'......

Tomorrow we hope to go to the hay-bale maze. More pictures should follow!

Sick day?

There has been some version of THIS going on for the last few days here:

By and large, Clara has been quite sick (we think it's a virus) and has wanted to lay low. Steve got the bug, too, and laid low himself today. Elena was pretending (we think) to be sick because Clara kept telling us she felt sick. So Christina was up and around and fetching juice and LOTS of toast. Do everyone else's kids eat bread like mad when they don't feel well??

Anyway - all in all, we didn't do much yesterday or today. But tonight it was beautiful out, and Clara was dosed up on Motrin and eager to do something, and we decided to go play in the yard for a bit. What a dose of medicine that was to our weary group - we had so much fun!

First, the girls stopped to smell the rosemary (the only thing still alive in our garden thanks to our early snow):

Then it was a rousing game of jump-from-the-chairs:

But when Clara started in on the leaves, Elena forgot everything else:

The two of them made up some kind of crazy dance you would not believe - we really should have gotten it on video. It was hilarious!

Steve put a "coat" on our young pear tree to protect it this winter, and the girls can't get enough of talking about how the tree wears a coat. They took this to mean the tree needed a little extra affection, so they gave it:

Then, for the big event of the night, they made up a new game in the house that Nana Rose and G-Daddy got them this spring. It's hard to tell here what's going on:

Okay, it probably won't be clear from ANY of these pictures what was going on:

But the game was modeled after "The Three Little Pigs" with a lot of huffing, puffing, and blowing the house down - except that generally that involved PULLING the house down and around they yard at the end to simulate the level of blowing they thought should be occurring:

Checking to see if a "wolf" is coming to get her:

Keep our good health in your thoughts, as we'll do for you! So far, no flu here, although the rest of the town seems to have been entirely taken over with it. We hope this is the worst of it for us!

And once again, snowily...

We had a little confusion in our household over whether we have the chocolate-chip pancakes the first day we SEE snow at our house, or the first day we WAKE UP to snow at our house. Nature very kindly gave us a do-over just today, when we woke up to snow blanketing the outdoors!

Clara and Elena could not wait to go out and stomp in the snow, so we bundled them up even before breakfast and headed out into the white stuff:

We thought the girls would have fun playing in the yard, but it quickly became apparent that their real interest was in being "rescuers" of all the things that had gotten snow on them. Here they are pointing to the poor snow-covered car:

And they quickly went over to remedy what they saw as a major problem for the car:

They implored Christina to help, too. Sadly, we didn't have the scraper around so we all went at it with our mittens:

Then, Clara found the flower pot, with the last of our pansies:

And, oh no, then they saw their watering cans had been snowed on!

And, the poor ornamental frog got hit, too:

The girls dusted him off, too.

Soon, it got too cold to be outside much longer, so we went inside for left-over chocolate chip pancakes and fresh scrambled eggs. The snow really made Elena hungry - she proceeded to eat eggs, pancake, and four pieces of toast!!

Here are the "rescued" pansies that Clara wanted to save. The loss of summer is so sad, even though we know we'll try to make the most of winter (guess we skipped fall this year!).