Rock Solid Family

I finally feel like I’ve got everything ready for the baby’s arrival. I have my hospital bag packed, set the bassinet up, and took our 9 month family picture. Now we are just in waiting mode. Here are some of the pictures we took today.

We have a tradition with every new baby we take a pregnant family picture. I was afraid that our tradition would have to change as the kids got older but they were all in a goofy mood tonight and had a blast seeing who could have the biggest belly. I think Elijah won on the cutest belly since they stuck a baby doll in his shirt. That’s the baby dolls head sticking out the top. I love the grin on his face.

I also had Scott take this picture of just me and Elisabeth tonight. I really think the family picture is more fun though. 🙂

And finally a picture of the bassinet which I put up today. I’m glad I got it done. When they said “some assembly required”, they really meant it. It really wasn’t too bad to put together. It would have been frustrating though if we had to put it together last minute.

We’re playing the waiting game. There is so much going on this next couple of weeks. I would really like to be able to go to all the activities. My dad will be graduating from seminary with his doctorates degree next Saturday. We also received a birthday party invitation for next Saturday. Then the following Saturday is a family reunion that I would really like to go to.

With all these upcoming activities, I’m really curious when our baby will come. My doctor told me not to go more than 1 hour away from the hospital. We live an hour away!

I’m trying not to be nervous about it though. I really think things will go smoothly when the time comes. Right now, all we have to do is just hurry up and wait!

Tuesday was a busy and fun day for me and the kids. We started the day off with my doctor’s appointment. The kids really like the new location of the doctor’s office. I actually like it too. I have 4 less red lights to go through at the new location. Saves me a few minutes even though it is basically not very far from where it used to be.

When my doctor checked for the baby’s heartbeat, Elisabeth started kicking and moving. I told my doctor that if it were up to the baby she’d just go ahead and crawl out. 🙂

For those that understand the numbers, my fundel height is 40 cm. I am 2 cm dialated and 70% effaced.

I’m not going to get too hopeful until I’m around 4 cm dialated. I was turned away from the hospital with false labor 2 or 3 times with Elijah. So I’ll probably be skeptical this time around and think I’m having false labor and it be real labor. If that does happen at least it should go quick once we make the hour drive to the hospital.

After the doctor’s appointment, I took the kids to the park for our homeschool park day. I had forgotten about the water park being turned on and didn’t have the kids bring extra clothes to change into. I did earn bonus points toward mother of the year for letting them play in the water anyway.

After the park, we went home, started a load of laundry and then I just relaxed a little bit before Scott arrived home from work. Then I got ready to go to our homeschool group’s Moms’ Night Out where they were having a baby shower for Elisabeth.

Here I am pictured with my friend, Jennifer who was our hostess for the evening. We had a fabulous taco dinner followed by delicious cake for dessert. There were about 16 ladies plus two babies present as we gathered in Jennifer’s living room.

Elisabeth and I received so many beautiful clothes and accessories. Pictured above is a beautiful dress that one of the young ladies had sewn for Elisabeth.

Another mother had made me a beautiful nursing cover. Out of 6 children this is the first time I have actually owned a real nursing cover. I have always just covered up with a blanket. I’m looking forward to getting to try it out with Elisabeth.

I also received a new diaper bag and a good supply of diapers, baby wipes, baby soaps, shampoos, and lotions. I always appreciate having a good supply of diapers.

I also received a mother care package of bath salt, lotions, and potpourri.

Then after opening the gifts, I enjoyed getting to visit with all the other mothers. I think that is what I enjoy most about our Mom’s Nights. I love sharing stories and listening to other moms tell about what they’ve been doing or have done.

Now I’ve gotten most all of Elisabeth’s clothes washed and put away. I can’t wait to dress her up in all the beautiful clothing we’ve received. Our other two daughters are wanting to put all the outfits on her in one day. I can kind of understand. It will be hard to pick out just one outfit to bring her home in. Then we’ll have to pick out which of all the beautiful dresses to bring her to church in on her first Sunday at church.

Only 2 more weeks until my due date! I’m continuing to exercise 3 days a week at our karate class, although much slower now. It’s hard not to give up and just sit out the whole hour and a half. However I know it’s good for me. I’m sure by continuing to do as much as I can in class will help the delivery to be easier, so I keep on trying. I’m hoping that with the extra exercise, I’ll have Elisabeth closer to her due date and won’t have to be induced.

Now I just need to get my nesting instinct to kick in and start packing my bag for the hospital. 🙂

I just got a hold of Scott’s phone and was able to get the pictures that he took from it it. This first family picture was taken on Easter Sunday. We had the hardest time getting Elijah to stand still.

We had sibling poses that I shared on my Easter blog. I didn’t have this picture to share at that time though. The girls wanted to pose with Elisabeth. I think this is such a sweet picture. It was Hannah’s idea to hold my tummy that way. 🙂

This was our most recent family picture taken after karate class last Tuesday. Our next karate family picture will have Elisabeth wearing her new little pink gi that was given to us by our karate instructor.

I need to take one more family picture this month. I need a profile shot of me to show how big I am in my last month before the baby is born. Traditionally Scott and the kids stuff pillows or something like that in the front of their shirts to make a silly pregnancy picture. But I’m thinking of coming up with some new tradition since the kids are getting older. Joshua will be 14 this summer and might not be as willing to participate in such silliness. He was rather hesitant 2 years ago before Elijah was born. We may come up with something new this year. That will give me something more to blog about once we finally take that last picture before the baby.

I’m especially looking forward to getting our family picture after our baby is born.

Keep checking back, I hope to continue my goal of blogging at least once a week, even after the baby is born.

I probably should rate my blog PG for those parents who don’t want their kids knowing anything about this subject. I’m mainly posting this for those parents who worry about the day that their kids ask them “that” question.

Normally, I don’t go into details over this question because usually the people that ask me or my husband “You know how that happens, right?” are only teasing and we give some equally humorous comeback and leave it at that.

Also when I was a kid this was an embarrassing subject that no one felt comfortable asking questions about.

Well, I was faced with the difficult task of explaining to my children how babies are made. We were sitting at the table and Jonathan (4) says that when he grows up he’ll have a baby in his tummy. I then explained that he will be a daddy when he grows up and that only mommies can have babies in their tummies. I told him that one day when he gets married his wife will carry his baby.

He is my 4th child and I’ve actually had this question asked plenty of times before. My eldest, Joshua who is 13 was fairly simple for me to handle because I turned that task over to his dad to give him that father/ son talk when he was about 9 or so. Well, when our lunch time discussion took place, I saw this was no longer a task that I could just leave to my husband to handle because now it was our daughters that were also asking questions.

I believe in only giving a child as much information as they want to know on a subject like this. We don’t watch t.v. except an occasional movie. We don’t let them run free on the internet. To them kissing on the lips is something you don’t do until you’re married. So whenever someone on a movie kisses they ask if they’re married.

My first explanation is that the mommy has part of the baby and the daddy gives her his part of the baby and God puts the two parts together and the baby grows in the mommy’s tummy. That used to be enough of an explanation to satisfy their curiosity. Not anymore!

Joshua had given the technical name of the daddy’s contribution. Then the girls commenced to speculating how the daddy gives his part of the baby to the mommy. They thought that when the parents kiss the daddy spits his part into the mommy’s mouth. Hannah was hollering, “Ewwww… that’s gross!” I saw that I wouldn’t have to worry about them kissing boys. But I also realized that this needed to be our biology lesson for the day. The above picture is the kids all set for my explanation.

Okay, sensitive folks may want to stop reading here. But for those parents who want to know how I handled this “every parent’s nightmare” situation here is my explanation. But don’t be offended because I’m warning you now. 🙂

First, I told the kids that they know the differences between boys and girls because they’ve seen me change lots of diapers. They all agreed. Hannah even mentioned having seen her baby cousin’s diaper changed which is a girl.

This is the pictures I drew on the board. I explained that my pictures were not exact and not to scale. This was just for illustration purpose. I first drew the picture on the left of the female reproductive system.
I explained how that God created girls with a whole lot of eggs inside of their ovaries. I then explained that when they begin to turn into women they will release an egg once every month. I then explained the menstrual cycle. I had to explain for Jonathan’s sake that boys don’t have to worry about that part. They just need to know for when they have wives.

Now mind you that the kids are all making comments and asking questions throughout the whole explanation. I’ll give a few of those at the end of my commentary.

After getting through the explanation of the menstrual cycle, I then drew the internal reproductive organs of boys. I reminded them of boy diaper changes, so that they would know what area I was talking about. Yes, I gave them all the technical names for all the parts.

I then explained how when boys become men they will produce sperm. I then explained how the sperm exits the same area urine exits but the sperm is produced in the testes not the bladder.

Then when a man marries a woman they come together and as the Bible says they become one flesh. They join together.

I would have stopped there but the girls then asked, “How do they join together?”

I then drew the picture on top of the board of the funnel. I explained that whenever you want to pour something from one area into another area that is smaller you would use a funnel. I drew a picture of a bottle with a funnel and a bucket of water and told them how the water goes into the funnel and into the bottle. I then erased the bucket and put a bunch of dots to represent sperm and erased the bottom part of the bottle and explained that the boy part (a.k.a penis) was the funnel that inserted the sperm into the womb.

They still wanted to know more and I explained how parents share a bed and made sure that they understood that the sperm doesn’t just jump across the bed but that it was only when they join together that they can make a baby.

The light came on at that point. They told me what they thought I was saying and I told them they were exactly right. They then said that even though they didn’t understand it all they could wait until they were married to figure the rest out. I told them that they now know more than I knew when I first married and that it’s fine to not understand it all. It’s okay to figure the rest out then.

Now for the comments and questions they had during my explanation.

They all imagined chicken eggs when I talked about how women have eggs inside of them. Jonathan thought I was going to crack and be cooked because I have eggs in me.

Jonathan was real caught up on the sperm part as well and even offered me his which I explained that when he grew up he would give those to his wife. Remember he’s 4 and he has the totally wrong idea of how this works. I informed him that in a few years daddy will reexplain it all to him.

Thankfully Jonathan forgot the word “sperm” by the time Scott got home and when he asked me what it was that was inside of him I sent him to go ask Daddy his questions. Scott told him about his heart and his lungs. How digestion works, etc. He even told him about his kidneys and blood. This was all fastenating information to Jonathan. And Scott wisely avoided any further explanation of reproduction to Jonathan. Like me, Scott didn’t want Jonathan explaining it to every stranger that greeted us in the store. I could just see that the next time someone asks us, “You know how that happens, right?”

I hope this post helps some of you with children know how to broach that inevitable question. Only give children as much information as they want to know. You’ll know when it’s enough to satisfy their curiosity without having to go further. They’ll usually say okay and switch subjects or run off to play or they’ll keep asking questions.
All children are different but hopefully you can get some ideas from my experience. 🙂

Matthew 15:4-6 “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Saturday night, I put the girls’ hair up in curlers. Ruth wanted her hair a little more of a conservative curl with it curling under all around. Hannah wanted wild curls all over her head. 🙂

I did manage to get Hannah’s curls to be a bit tamer after a good deal of brushing on Sunday morning. Ruth’s hair I curled too thick and I’ll have to try again sometime with less hair in each curler. I let her wear my butterfly clip and that made it all good.

I wore a maternity dress that I hadn’t worn in a while. It used to be much looser on me. The kids kept telling me that my belly was getting tight. They were impressed with how much the baby has grown.

We have a tradition every year of taking a picture of all the children at church on Easter Sunday. We were missing a couple of families so our children were the only ones present. You wouldn’t believe how much work it was to get Jonathan and Elijah to stay still or not make faces for the camera. 🙂

Since we were the only ones there we took some individual pictures and group pictures. This was my favorite of the boys pictures. We had them sit on the steps hoping Elijah might stay put better.

Since the boys sat on the step, we got a picture of the girls sitting on the steps. They felt like princesses in their pretty dresses. Next year we’ll have Elisabeth in the picture.

Ruth took this picture of me and Scott. Joshua also got a picture with Scott’s phone. We also set Scott’s phone on a timer and got a family picture. I need to get him to transfer that one to me so I can post it.

Services went well. I taught Hannah, Jonathan, and Elijah during Sunday School. Scott preached an excellent sermon from Exodus about the Passover and the last plague of Egypt. Scott brought out a little fact that I had never thought about. Pharoah wasn’t the firstborn in his family. His firstborn son died but he did not die. I thought that was interesting.

Another point in Scott’s sermon that was thought provoking is how Pharoah would have let the men go worship God by themselves, but wanted them to leave their women and children behind. Scott mentioned how that was the same thing Satan tries to get families to do today. Satan will tell parents, “Oh, it’s okay for you to go to church and follow God, but just leave your kids to do what they want to. You don’t have to take them with you.” You can see this happening all around. People saying they want to follow God but on Satan’s terms not how God wants them to.

We need to stand up like Moses did and say, “No, we’re taking our families with us. We’re not going to leave anyone behind.”

Sunday night we had a good lesson on Complaining. Our family was the only ones that showed up for the evening service, but we had a great lesson and discussion despite our low attendance. The lesson talked about the Children of Israel complaining in the wilderness because their was no water. We discussed the different ways we should be content under all circumstances. That doesn’t mean we can’t desire something greater but that we can be content under whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. Hannah informed us that she will never complain again. 🙂

After our lesson, we were supposed to have business meeting but we jokingly declared no old or new business and voted to adjourn. We did sit down and talk about the problem we have with our attendance and discussed what we might can do to help improve our current ministries at the church.

We would like to see everyone, members, nonmembers, and visitors want to come to church. There needs to be something that gets everyone to feel they have a place where they want to come. I’d like to see everyone so excited about what they get to do for God’s Kingdom that they are excited and not just coming because there is nothing better to do.

We’ve discussed different aspects of ministering and how different things we do can help encourage others. I’m hoping some of our discussion will be something we can start incorporating into our own personal service at church and that the changes we make will be the spark that helps get our church on its way to revival. Pray with us as we seek to make a difference in our community.

I also encourage anyone reading my blog to consider your own heart and the reason you go to church. Do you only go when you don’t have anything better to do? Do you look at church as only a social club where you go whenever you feel like getting together with friends? Is church only about what you can get out of it?

Or is going to church your way to show God how much He really means to you and to encourage your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? Does your heart yearn to hear the message God has prepared for you that day? Do you see church as your opportunity to serve in that greater calling that God has for you?

God wants to be close to you. He wants to do great things for you and through you. Even if you don’t see what that great thing is right now, go to church seeking out what God has for you. He’ll show you if you really truly want to know. It can’t be a half hearted search though. You need to seek God with your whole heart.

My prayer is that everyone will get off the monotonous fence of everyday life and seek a greater relationship with our Heavenly Father. He can show you true happiness and contentment. Go to church and ask God, “What can I do to serve You better?”

You know it would make your pastor’s day if you came to him and said, “I want to be more involved in church! What can I do to help?”
And even better than that, it would make God happy!

Jeremiah 29:13 “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

We had a great weekend. Since my husband was off on Friday, we were able to leave Thursday evening to visit my family. We spent Thursday night and Friday night at my parents cottage and enjoyed getting to relax and visit with them. Then on Saturday we went to my Grandmother’s house for a baby shower for Elisabeth.

We really enjoyed the time with my parents, my sister and her family, my Mema, my Aunt and Uncle, and one of my cousins and her daughters. In the picture with the shower gifts, I’m sitting next to my second cousin.

In the first picture we had all the great-grandchildren present pose with Mema around the picnic table my Dad made.

In this last picture, Elijah was sitting so sweetly in Mema’s lap. He was so comfortable that we thought he was going to fall asleep.

On the way home from our visit, we stopped and picked up some beads so that I could embellish one of Hannah’s fancy dresses for Easter. It looks extra fancy now.

I also put the girls hair up in rollers. I’ll be taking pictures after church. It’s very late (or early rather) and I need to get some sleep.

I’ll try to post some more pictures later.

Monday was Hannah’s birthday! She has been planning this day all month.

Her first request for her birthday was that we get to watch a “girly” movie. She complained that there were too many movie nights that we had to watch a “boy” movie. She wanted to watch something really girly with Princesses in it. So after co-op today, we went to the store and bought “Barbie and the Three Musketeers.” This movie fit Hannah to a T. Even Scott laughed and said that it was the perfect Hannah movie. Pretty much the story line is how Barbie wants to be a Musketeer but people keep telling her that girls can’t be musketeers. She doesn’t give up and meets 3 other girls who all have the same dream of being Musketeers and protecting the prince. Despite all the odds against them they uncover a plot against the prince and finally get their chance to rescue him. I love the twist on the normal Maiden in Distress being rescued by the Prince. Having the Prince in distress being rescued by the Maiden was exactly up Hannah’s alley. 🙂

She also wanted a funfetti cake with sprinkled icing. She asked me to draw a picture on the cake of a pink castle with purple doors. In this picture you can see what I managed to come up with. Hannah declared it perfect.

She also wanted a pinata. I let her pick one out while we were at the store. She originally wanted a castle pinata but decided that the flower one would hold more candy so she chose it instead.

We let each of the kids choose what they wanted to hit the pinata with. It was a lot of fun watching them.

Hannah went first. I think the bandana covering her face should have been rolled up thicker because they could see the outline of the pinata a little bit through it.

Elijah went next. I must say that something about being two just makes him extremely cute hitting a pinata. We didn’t put the bandana on him, since we were afraid he’d hurt himself or somebody else. You can also see his big smile better.
He loved getting to hit that funny flower swinging on a rope.

Jonathan was next. He chose to use his numchuks which are soft. When I questioned the effectiveness of such a soft weapon on the pinata, Scott just told me that at least he won’t hurt himself.

Ruth used sii to hit the pinata.

Joshua also used the sii. We teased him a little about the pink bandana on his face. He didn’t mind the teasing at all. We had a good laugh though because Scott was a little more aggressive moving the flower up and down for Joshua. We kept telling Joshua that he was getting beat up by a flower. He was having fun right along with us and loved the challenge.

I wasn’t planning to post this picture but I’ll go ahead and do it. They all insisted that I take a turn. I felt a bit silly but I humored them. I preferred staying behind the camera but Scott had one of the kids take over the camera. You can see how big Elisabeth is getting. I’ve been told that she looks lower and I must admit it’s getting harder to walk. I kind of go around with more of a waddle now and trying to avoid cameras. 🙂

Scott decided to fight the pinata with his bare hands. We had a lot of fun laughing with him as well. Joshua got to pull the rope and enjoyed the sparring match between Scott and the flower. Of course Scott’s barehanded fight inspired Elijah and he had to go over there and slap the flower with his hands when it was his turn again.

Hannah got to open her birthday presents at the end of all the fun. She was real excited to have gotten new sparring gear and a new gi bag to put her gear and uniform in. She even got a pair of house shoes that have a special floor cleaning sole on them.

Since Hannah put her gear on the others all geared up for a sparring match and I had them pose for this last picture.
Jonathan got Hannah’s old helmet and a new set of gloves to go with it. Hannah had outgrown her old helmet. It won’t be long and Jonathan will outgrow it and be passing it down to Elijah. Ah, how time flies these days!

I just have to add another advantage to having a large family, you always have a big party and plenty of game participants on hand. 🙂

I had a Doctor’s appointment yesterday. Elisabeth has a healthy heart beat and I’m measuring a couple of inches big. But my doctor didn’t seem concerned about it. She simply told me, “Y’all just make big babies.” So I’m guessing Elisabeth might be on the bigger side. I’m hoping she’s not competing for Jonathan’s 11 lb birth weight. All the others fell around the 8 to 9 lb range. I’ll just have to wait and see. Only 2 more months to go!

This week past week was so busy. My last blog was about Monday, which was Elijah’s birthday. Tuesday was a normal day with karate class that evening. Thursday, I took the kids for a dentist appointment. Our dentist is 2 1/2 hours away from where we live but it’s well worth the drive to go to a dentist you like and trust. The kids were all excited and they all wanted to go first. They learned a lot from the visit as well. They learned about all the tools that the dentist uses and how to brush their teeth properly. They learned about cavities and what the dentist does to fill them. Joshua and Ruth both had small cavities. Ruth was able to have hers filled while we were there but I had to make another appointment for Joshua. We spent the whole afternoon there. I didn’t take any pictures, since I was so busy keeping up with the younger ones that were waiting their turns.

Saturday morning, we had karate class. Then we bought a few items to complete the girls’ wardrobe for the Father/Daughter date night. All the girls were dressing up in 1950s style clothes.

Then we stopped by the theater and picked up the tickets for us to go see the Movie “Monumental” produced by Kirk Cameron. I am looking forward to taking the kids to see it.

Saturday night, Scott took Ruth and Hannah to the Father/Daughter Night with friends in our Keepers of the Faith group.

It was a 1950s theme skating party. They had a lot of fun skating and playing games.

They also enjoyed Coke floats and Root Beer floats, hamburgers, and French Fries.

While Scott and the girls were gone, I treated the boys to a movie night. We enjoyed watching Spiderman 2, while eating French Fries and Fish sticks. After the movie ended, the boys and I enjoyed some ice cream.

After the ice cream the younger two boys enjoyed getting to have a bubble bath.

Scott called me to let me know they were on their way home. He let Hannah talk to me on the phone first.
That girl had me so confused! All she talked about at 90 miles a minute was crushing heads and baking cookies. The whole time she was talking I couldn’t get her to slow down long enough to explain any of it. So finally I interrupted her and asked her to pass the phone to Daddy. He laughed at how confused she had me and explained that somehow he had gotten into a discussion with her on the French revolution. You’ll have to go to his blog for her take on it.

My ears were better relieved when he passed the phone to Ruth and she actually told me calmly and cheerfully all the fun things they did at the party. None of which had anything to do with crushed or chopped off heads. 🙂 Thankfully!

Tomorrow is Hannah’s birthday and I’ll be posting pictures. She has already told me what she wants to do tomorrow. It should be a pretty interesting day. 🙂

And yes, I’m going to leave you hanging. Don’t you love suspense?

We celebrated Elijah’s Birthday on Monday. We had a busy day filled with fun and excitement for our little man.

Our day began with going to our homeschool co-op. For those that are not familiar with homeschooling, a co-op is usually made up of homeschool families in an area that meet together and have classes taught by the parents. For instance in our co-op, I volunteered to teach a recorder music class. I teach the beginner level during the first hour class and intermediate during the 3rd hour. The second hour is a p.e. class where the kids have group games for about 45 minutes followed by a 15 minute break and snack time.

Elijah is in the 0-3 year old class. Jonathan is in the 4-6 year old class. Hannah is taking beginner recorder and embroidery. Ruth is taking science and sewing. And Joshua is taking Science and Legos.

This was our first week of co-op and I felt it went well. We meet once a week for 6 weeks.

After co-op ended we went to the store and picked Elijah out some birthday presents. I got him a stick horse from the dollar store and I let him choose the color hat he wanted. I also picked him out a toy gun, since he had been running around the house pretending to ride my broom and pretending to shoot with toy guns he took from his siblings. Now he has the full outfit.

After the store, we stopped by our friends’ farm. They live real close to us and we let them know we were coming. The older kids got to bottle feed some of the baby goats. Elijah was still a bit nervous at that point. I had to take this picture of them in the goat pin. I joked that only half the kids in that pin were mine. 🙂

We got to see a border collie herd goats. It was really neat to watch him from a distance obey the commands of his trainer, with just the sound of a whistle and the sight of a shephrd’s rod. The kids asked lots of questions and learned a lot.

The dog won’t mess with any sheep or goat that has a baby. We saw one he had left way out in the field and they took us in their gator to see whether the sheep had given birth recently. Sure enough she had a new baby lamb with her. Then we heard another lamb crying a little ways off and Joshua got to hold the lamb and reunite her with her mother.

Jonathan got to steer the Gator through the pasture. You know that was exciting for a 4 year old.

Then the kids each got to go for a ride on a horse. Hannah had been begging the whole time if they could ride.

Joshua went after Hannah. Then Jonathan rode with Joshua. Jonathan was a bit nervous as you can see by the picture.

After Ruth had a turn Elijah got to ride with her. I was amazed at how calm he was. Before this just the sight of a horse scared him. But after seeing the others ride he was saying, “My turn!” He looked so comfortable in the saddle he might would have fallen asleep if he had ridden much longer.

The kids got to sweep the horse area. They had so much fun that I told our neighbors that they should get themselves a couple of extra brooms and charge admission. 🙂

Then came the tractor. Elijah climbed up there all by himself. He was so excited.

The others all got to go for a ride in the bucket. I think they couldn’t have had more fun if it had been a Ferris wheel. I was afraid that Elijah would panic so I held him down below. Don’t worry, they didn’t go anywhere just up and back down. 🙂 In fact Hannah was in that bucket so good she almost didn’t want to come out.

I had to take this picture because Jonathan is petting the dog that he had been terrified of when we first stepped out of the car. The kids also enjoyed playing fetch with her.

At the very end of our visit, I had the kids all get in the back of the gator for one last picture before we left. We had so much fun and learned so much.

Elijah fell asleep before we even left the driveway good. Jonathan was out as soon as he found the recliner. 🙂 Sure signs that they had a really good time on a farm.