Down on the Farm

The past two years we went on a farm field trip with the private school Easton attended and Dalton now attends. It's a fun time for all.

This year, with Easton in kindergarten, he didn't get to go. And Jason worked from home so that he could pick Easton up from school. But the little two and I headed up to the farm. Nothing like harvesting pumpkins and veggies on a 93 degree day. And this didn't happen weeks ago, this was just on Tuesday (September 28). Colorado is confused.

Anyway, we got there and got on a tractor-pulled trailer next to our neighbors. I have liked the farm field trip in the past as it give you a chance to get to know some of the other families but Dalton and Emery are apparently pretty attached to one another at school.






Oh well. At least I enjoy them. All but their first grader--Ben--came.

The three wagons towed our large group from field to field. We got to harvest more vegetables this year than we have in the previous two trips. We stopped for potatoes...


...onions...


...carrots...


...beets...(that's our neighbor Lisa helping Emery, Dalton, and Cooper.


...we also collected lettuce, acorn squash, and our neighbors took Dalton into the rows of corn for me. Walking through the tight rows of corn and not whipping Autumn (strapped to my front) in the face with leaves was proving too daunting a task.


Our last stop was for pumpkins.



Dalton and I got one for each member of the family. He was super proud of the one he chose for himself and wanted to carry that one by himself without putting it in one of our bags.

When the tractors brought us back to where we started, they have lil' wagons waiting for us to take our haul to the car:


Dalton put his lil punkin in his car seat while we headed back to the farm area to play and have our picnic lunch.


When we sat down to eat I realized the father of two small girls across from us was someone I graduated high school with (PJ, for Kelli and Tonya who might be reading this). I said, "You went to Overland" and he slapped his palm on the table going, "I knew you looked familiar!" We caught up briefly about people we've stayed in touch with, gotten in touch with again, and the 3 Facebook friends we have in common ha ha ha.

After finishing our lunch, Dalton wanted to play. I was super hot and wanting to stay in the covered shelter to keep Autumn out of the sun and chat with our neighbor so Dalton went to check out the nearby fire truck they have on the property where I could see him. I told him not to go anywhere but the firetruck. A little while later I saw him wandering away. Wondering what he was planning, I kept an eye on him. I was in a covered picnic shelter and I saw that he was heading to another picnic shelter on the opposite side. I noticed he was walking around and I told my neighbor, "I think Dalton is lost". I could see him, of course, but he couldn't see me. So I start booking it across the dirt calling to him. Just before I got there I saw a woman talk to him, pick him up and pat his back reassuringly saying, "We'll find 'em". I was like, "He's mine! I'm right here!" and she handed my sobbing boy over to me telling me she heard him crying and going, "I don't know. I don't know." Poor little guy. He'd mixed up which shelter I was in. I felt so sad for him.

We decided to call it a day after that little traumatic (to him) event. I carried both kids to the car and Dalton recounted the story, "I was on the firetruck and then I was walking and walking and looking for my cute mama (yes, he really said that!) and then I didn't know and I was cwying..." :(

As we were driving I asked, "Other than getting lost, did you have a fun day?"
Dalton: "No, I did not have fun when I was losted."
Me: "But you had fun before you got lost, right? What was your favorite part?"
Dalton: "Getting the groceries." :) All our produce...usually we get that at the grocery store. Ha!

We came home to Easton and Daddy playing a little Star Wars Wii and began to wash our veggies:




He got his shirt all wet but wanted to pose with the "groceries". Such a ham!




Such a fun morning with my littlest ones. Even if my thighs are super sore (sadly) from a 20 pound person strapped to my front and having to squat to get veggies then climb onto a high(ish) trailer with Autumn plus our bags of "groceries" again and again. Oy! But I'm already looking forward to next year!

I Could Be an Aunt Soon!

Weeks ago my mom and I hosted a baby shower for Jessica and Janna. I hit up my party plannin' friend Jennifer for some theme ideas and one of them was an "Alphabet Shower"...as Jessica is a teacher and I knew she loved the idea of a bunch of books for the baby, I loved that idea. Jennifer also sent a bunch of links with ideas for decorations and cakes and games and I also did a bunch of Googling myself. I also thought I'd use sagey green and brown as the party colors as those will be prevalent in the baby's nursery.

My mom and I then did some brainstorming and discussing together and voila...a shower was born!

I did these in Photoshop after copying an invitation I found online:


Along with this special request for the attendees:


I went down to my mom's a few days before the shower and we did a lot of the decorating and set up. My mom did a ton herself after I left. We only had a bit left to do (and the food!) when I arrived the morning of the shower. Here's the scene:

(We also had green and brown balloons out front but Lauren wasn't back from picking them up when I took this picture). :)


Lambs ended up being a bit of a secondary theme as that is what they're doing in the nursery.

I found this print from someone on Etsy and my mom ordered it for the shower and for them to put in their nursery:




I made a diaper cake. I had never made one before but I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

In addition to the rings of usable diapers, the inside hides supplies like a bottle, pacifiers, baby wash, baby lotion, diaper cream, fever reducers... I forget everything I had in there.

More of the scene:


"G" is for gifts:




Look at what my mom did to the Kleenex box!


Brown alphabet cookies, green pistachios, and brown chocolate covered almonds:


The fabulous cake my mom ordered!!!


The back:




The paper products:


We went with predominately green and brown foods:


We had finger sandwiches with various brown breads...ham and swiss on pumpernickel, cucumber sandwiches on rye, and my mom's delicious chicken salad on Paradise Cafe's yummy molasses bread. My mom made a pepperoni pasta salad with alphabet shaped pasta. We had guacamole. A veggie tray with only green veggies: green pepper, edamame, snow peas, zucchini, cucumber, celery... I made a green dip for the veggies. We also had a green fruit tray...green apple, green pear, green grapes, honeydew, kiwi... I made a margarita fruit dip that was green as well. We did pinwheels rolled up in spinach tortillas (therefore green again). Then of course the yummy lime sherbet punch.

One thing that was not green nor brown was my cheese tray...but those were block shaped. And last-minute I had to write an A, B, and C on them (in mustard). :)

Those green bottles with the flowers were another one of my crafty projects for the decor.

We carried the alphabet theme all the way to the bathroom!







We even had various alphabetty songs playing in there on a hidden CD player. Different people singing the ABC song, Dr. Seuss' ABC song, Elmo's alphabet rap, the Jackson Five's "ABC". I called it the AB CD. Ha ha ha! :)

Jessica and Janna's friends were very prompt, with many arriving even before the 1 pm. start time! We had food, of course...there's Lauren helping herself to a plate:




There was crafting...I had a decoupage baby block station set up on the deck:

(See the little clothesline with onesies and letters? Grammy provided and hung the onesies for that outdoor decoration.)

This is one that I did as an example:

I still need to finish them...not all are done and I need to get on that!

We had games...like "Guess the Girth". I assured Jessica we wouldn't play anything like that but she said, "That sounds fun!" so we did:


Her life-long friend Audrey won that one:


Since they don't know the gender we also did a game to predict what it'll be by dropping clothespins into a jar. Each person got a green one (g-green-girl) and a brown one (b-brown-boy) to drop:


"Boy" won by one clothespin:


We also did another game that Jennifer suggested where we gave everyone a sheet of paper with the alphabet down the side and they had to come up with a baby-related item that started with that letter.

The kitchen is also full of guests. I think we had 31 people total.

Then of course there was gifts. I handed Lauren the camera for that part as I was busy taking gift notes on their already alphabetized guest list (with addresses):


I don't know if Jessica and Janna knew about the "inscribe a book instead of a card" part of everything but I think they liked it. Some brought lots of emotion:






Then it was time for cake:


You know how it was 4 blocks? We only used one at the party!

So we have one of the blocks in our freezer for another day.

One thing I'm bummed about is I didn't get a lot of posed pictures of guests or me and my mom. I did start taking a few at the end:








But before long it was after 3 and people were needing to leave. My mom ordered some adorable baby block boxes filled with green bath salts as the favors:




Then we helped the moms load up the car with their haul:


They got a block of cake and eventually were on their way to spend time with some family who flew in from Texas just for our little shower. Jessica also had another friend from college fly up from San Antonio to surprise her just for the two hour party. Dude, I didn't even have a baby shower and they've got people coming in from out of state! Awesome!

I think we did an okay job and now I'm ready to meet my niece or nephew!