Apple Orchard

Jeremiah's preschool class had a field trip to Nivens Apple Orchard today.  We started with a (poorly-photographed) hayride that Jeremiah pronounced "awesome."  From that hayride, we scouted out which trees had apples low enough for Jeremiah to pick.  It meant a farther walk for us, but we had a lot more success than all the people in the picked-over section.  (I've been on this particular field trip twice before, and I've learned a few things over the years!)

The rule was "pick from the trees, not the ground."  As you can see, there were plenty of apples on the ground:

We filled our bag as full as we could:

After we finished picking, the class went through the "corn" maze.  They have really expanded this over the years.  The farmer's granddaughter in me noticed that it wasn't corn, it was sorghum.  Also, it was overrun with morning glories.  Hopefully the children didn't come away with the notion that "corn" has purple flowers!

Jeremiah's favorite part was when he got to be the leader:

We also checked out some farm animals, played on a playground, and tasted apple cider.  Jeremiah said the apple cider was good, but he wouldn't take a second sip.  The class dispersed at this point, but Jeremiah and I stayed and ate our picnic lunch.

I went looking back through my pictures to find ones of Joseph and Joshua on this same field trip.  It turns out that I have been to Nivens on September 29 of three years--2006, 2008, and 2011!

Joseph--2006

Joshua--2008

Rural Communities Project

The second graders at Joshua's school are creating displays of types of communities.  Joshua's class was assigned rural communities, so he decided to create a farm scene.  On Saturday, Joshua painted the fields, roads, and barn, and then added the animals:

(It's hard to see, but Joshua sponged some brown paint onto the pigs so it would look like they'd been rolling in the mud.)

 

Not surprisingly, he wiped his paint-covered fingers on himself more than once.  We anticipated that happening, so he painted without a shirt.  If you look closely, you can see several colors on his chest:

On Sunday, we moved on to fence building:

 I had to man the hot glue gun, but Joshua did all the putting-into-place work.

Josh is pretty proud of the finished product:

What Rain is Good For

"Mom, the back of my legs get wet when I jump."

"That's OK, Jeremiah.  We'll change when we get home.  Go ahead and splash."

"OK, Mom." 

FX Challenge

The Children's Ministry at our church puts together several FX Challenges throughout the year.  FX stands for Family eXperience, and the challenges are family night activities that incorporate a Bible story and a concept to focus on (in this case, Knowledge).  We started working on ours last night, and it included creating a family tree.  The challenge creator asked us all to email her pictures of the family working on the challenge.  Here are the two I sent her:

Now, just for the fun of it, here are some "outtakes" from along the way toward getting a good shot:

(Jeremiah is the most entertaining.  Joseph barely wavers.  Joshua sneaks in a couple good ones.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1st Day of Soccer

Our guest blogger today is Joseph.  Take it away, Joseph!

Scenes from today's soccer games:

Joshua going for the ball

More of Joshua

He had a long, hard game.

Time to relax!

Now, time for my game:

Charge!

I also scored a goal, but Mom didn't get a picture of it.

Jeremiah's First Day of Preschool

This week Jeremiah started preschool!  Even though he just turned four, he is in a K3 class.  We'll wait to start him in kindergarten when he is about to turn six instead of next year when he is not quite five.

All decked out in Cars2 accessories:

About to enter school.  Not quite sure what he's thinking:

 When we got to his room, one of his classmates was crying and clinging to the teacher.  I wasn't sure how that was going to affect Jeremiah, so for distraction I asked him to pick something in the room to have his picture taken by:

(My camera and I need to have a heart-to-heart about focusing in low-light conditions.)

Next we took a picture with Mrs. Rhonda (still wearing the clinger):

(It's nearly impossible to get Jeremiah to look at a camera long enough to snap a picture.)

Jeremiah decided to head back to the Lego table.  He soon told me it was time to stop taking pictures.  I took that as my cue to leave!

I stopped outside the door and saw that he was completely unconcerned that I had left:

After I left, I ran four errands without having to unbuckle/buckle a carseat eight times or having to tell anyone, "No, we're not buying that today."  Then I still had time to read my Bible study and eat lunch.  Hooray!

Jeremiah's take on the first day:  He met lots of new friends, sang a song about a crocodile and a monkey, and ate all his lunch.  I asked him if he got to go outside to play (it had rained overnight) and he said it was too wet, but he got to play in the gym.  His preschool is at Rocky Creek church where his brothers play Upward basketball.  I guess he hadn't put that all together until that day, because when he told me about playing in the gym, he said, "And it (school) is attached to Rocky Creek!"

(Don't look now, but I'm all caught up on blogging!)



Greenville Drive Game

After Jeremiah's birthday party, we went to the Reading All Stars Greenville Drive game.  The boys earned free tickets to this game by completing the library's summer reading program.

This was Jeremiah's first year to complete the program, so we all walked around the stadium in the pre-game parade:

The boys were impressed with all the ball dents in this sign:

All the boys got free t-shirts, but the smallest size left when we got there was adult small.  Joseph wore his and Tony carried the rest:

Posing in front of the "Green Monster:"

 We met up with some friends there:

 The view from our seats:

So thankful we were in the shade!

After Sunday games, all kids get to run the bases.  You can find our three boys by looking for the red hats:

Joshua and Jeremiah:

Jeremiah wasn't really sure what to do once he got to the big crowd at home plate, but Joshua was a great big brother and went back to get him and make sure he got safely back to us.