Apple Pickin'

It's become our family tradition to go to Kuipers Family Farm every year to pick apples. We wait for just the right weekend so that we can pick some of our favorite Cortland apples:) Mason and Spencer really had fun eating and picking the apples. Spencer liked carrying around the heavy bag like a big boy. It was such a beautiful day. We will look forward to going again next year.

1st Day of School

I can't believe that Mason is starting his 2nd year of preschool. He has grown up so much in the last year. He is excited to have Mrs. Nott for his teacher. He is really excited that his best buddy, Taylor is in his class again and that his friend, Jessica is also in his class. It's going to be a great year. I was asked to be the parent board member for his school. I feel honored that they wanted me to be involved. I absolutely love Apple Tree Preschool. I feel so blessed to be a part of it.

FIRST HAIRCUT

We took the boys to get their hair cut today. We take them to Cookie Cutters in Naperville. This was Spencer's first. He did such a great job. He loved sitting in "Lightening McQueen" and watching Bob the Builder. Unfortunately, I forgot to put the memory card in my camera. I paid a little extra for them to take his picture and they put some of his baby hair in a little bag for me. I miss his longer hair, but he looks adorable with his new do. Here are some before and after shots.
BEFORE
AFTER

Lion's Park

What a fun morning at such a beautiful park. We enjoyed the spray area, the trails, collecting acorns, and playing on the playground. I plan on taking Mason's 5 year pictures there and our family portrait.

Fair Oaks Farm

On Sunday, we drove over to Indiana to visit Fair Oaks Farm. It was an amazing dairy farm. We watched a 4D movie before bus tour of the dairy farm.

On the bus tour we drove though one of their ten barns surrounded by 3,000 cows (that's a total of ~30,000 cows).

We saw how feed is prepared. And we saw how they milk 72 cows at once on a giant carousel.

Amazingly, they use all of the manure to produce the electricity for their farm.

The farm also had a lot of activities and fun things for the kids to do. They had a train ride, tractors to drive, a rock climbing wall (milk bottle), a maze, and much more.




The most amazing part of our visit was witnessing the birth of a calf. About 80 calves are born at Fair Oaks everyday. The birth we witnessed needed some assistance by two experts.


Mommy and baby were both doing great.
We also got to see a new calf being hand-fed. It was so cute!


At the end of our visit, we visited the cheese factory and saw how they make their own cheese and ice cream. Nana and Grandpa bought some cheese and Mason indulged in some yummy strawberry ice cream.

Day Out with Thomas

We finally made it to Day Out with Thomas this year. He comes every August to Union, IL. There is a train museum there which makes it the perfect stopping ground for Thomas. We went with our wonderful neighbors, Steve, Sara, and Lee. The 3 boys had a great time seeing and riding on the "real" Thomas. We also all enjoyed looking at all of the other trains at the museum. It was a really fun day. Who knows, if Spencer continues to really love Thomas, we may just go back in a couple of years.