Fun at the Farm!

The girls and I had a busy morning today!  (Jacob did as well, but he wasn't with us--he is in his summer clinicals now all day, every day.)  I slept terribly last night and was woken up by the girls a couple times each, and then Naomi decided she was awake and ready for her day to begin at 6:30 this morning, so I was exhausted and very irritable.  (Naomi led me right downstairs when she woke up and brought me to the kitchen drawer where I had put the watercolors, wanting to paint.  So she must have liked the watercolors yesterday more than I thought!)  We dropped Jacob off at the hospital at 8 and came home to get ready for a playgroup meetup.  Naomi wouldn't eat the breakfast I made for her, she didn't want to wear the shoes I got out for her, and Aleta wouldn't stop crying and screaming, so I had a really hard time getting myself and them ready and everything together for us to leave.  I came so close to just giving up and not going, but I didn't because I had RSVP'd for the meetup and the playgroup had given a headcount to the farm people (we were going to a farm for a tour of the animals).  This is one reason I really wanted to join a playgroup--so that I wouldn't give up and flake out on my plans when I'm too tired or too frustrated with the girls.  Because the farm was so much fun, and we would have missed out on it!

The farm was called Walk About Acres, and they have both guided & unguided tours.  Because of all of the young kids in our group, we just did an unguided tour.  They had chickens, peacocks, geese, goats, pigs, emus, and probably a couple more animals that I'm forgetting.  They have the place set up so that the animals are in different areas behind a fence, and they have a gravel road/trail going around in front of all of the animals so you can walk around and see them all.  I was afraid Naomi would be scared at first (since she was so scared of the penguins when we first got to the zoo!), but she really enjoyed seeing and watching all of the animals.

Looking at some of the animals...

Emus!

Looking at some goats...

She was pointing & saying, "Look!"

Thanks to Jacob, Naomi loves to use her hand as a gun to shoot people.  She makes this cute little "Ba BA!" noise when she shoots you, and she has even recently started to make a funny little noise and "die" when someone shoots her.  It's actually pretty cute.  Anyway, she thought it would be fun to shoot the animals at the farm, so every time we'd walk up to a new animal, she'd make her guns and shoot them through the fence.

She was shooting the chickens here with both hands.

When we got to the pigs, a few of them were eating.  Naomi and I stood there watching one of the pigs eat for a little while, and then she said to the pig, "Mmmm, that's good?".  I laughed so hard.  She is so funny!

They also have a bunch of bee hives at the farm, which I avoided, because I HATE bees and I'm terrified of them and anything else that buzzes & has a stinger.  But with their bees, they make honey ice cream, which you can buy at their little store.  Our whole group stopped at the little store to hang out at the picnic tables and eat ice cream.  I got a cup of chocolate/vanilla for both Naomi and me, and it was delicious!!  Naomi, who loves ice cream, wouldn't touch hers because there was a cat running around, and she was too distracted by the stupid cat.  All she wanted to do was run after it, so she ran around following it under the picnic tables and wherever else it decided to go, yelling "Doggy!  Doggy!".  She still thinks everything around that size with fur and 4 legs is a dog.  So I ended up eating my own ice cream as well as hers, but I didn't mind!

Aleta was pretty good the whole time, especially considering she was left in the stroller and mostly ignored while I looked at the animals with Naomi.  It was a little hard with the double stroller at the farm, because the big gravel made it extremely hard to push the stroller around, and it was a very bumpy ride for the girls, but I don't know how I would have done the outing without the stroller!

Peeking out of the top of the stroller at me...

Happy girl with all of her toys!