wilkinsonquints: farm

Monday, April 4, 2011

Spring Break--Part 3, the Finale!

If you missed them, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our Spring Break Adventure.

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day, so of course I woke up early to prepare a fabulous green breakfast for the family and prepare lots of fun Irish games for the day...NOT REALLY--actually I completely forgot about the holiday until my mom reminded me (which Riley and Kaiya were only too happy about, since it meant that they got to pinch me). My mom made Riley some green eggs for a snack and that was about as festive as we got (sorry kids, I'll make it up to you on April Fool's day---promise!)

Riley with his green eggs and no ham

Thursday afternoon Dr. Candice Park (now known as Dr. Candice Wood) with her mom and her new little baby for a visit. Candice was the resident doctor who took care of me during my pregnancy and who delivered the quints. It was so fun to see her! The quints especially loved the baby :-) (notice that she and her baby are wearing green and she even brought us green cookies---there is one mom who didn't drop the ball for St. Patrick's day!)

Kassidy, Ryder, Kyndall, Kaydence and Rustin look at baby Lauren while Candice snaps a photo.

After our visit with Candice, we headed out to the farm. My cousin's husband, Steve, is a dairy farmer and owns a small dairy farm out in Florence, AZ. I am not much of an animal person, so I really respect anyone that can do that for a living---especially in the Arizona heat! Steve and Kiera were great to give us a tour of the farm and let us help feed the baby calves.

Kaydence, Kassidy, Ryder, Kyndall, Riley, Rustin and Kaiya come face-to-face with the cows.

My cousin, Kiera, and her little boy Ledger

Kaydence, Ryder, Riley, Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin and Kaiya

Filling the bottles for the baby calves....brought back memories of the early days when I used a similar process to fill bottles for the quints :-)

Heading out to the calf stalls

My cousin says that this little cow is considered "perfect": black face, white stripe and pink nose.

This little guy was born only a few hours before we got there.

Feeding the calves (Note: this is a rare sight---my MOM is feeding the calves. If there is anyone who is less of an animal person than me, it is my mom!)

Front: Kaydence, Ryder, Kyndall, Rustin and Kassidy, Back: Riley and Kaiya, Driver way in the back: Dylan (Kiera's son and second cousin to my kiddos)

Friday was our last day in AZ and we went to "Makutu's Island", a big indoor playplace with crazy slides, tunnels, fireman poles, etc. The kids thought it was super fun, but some of the less adventurous ones wanted me to go with them on everything. That was when I realized I am not as young as I used to be :-) My cousins, BrieAnne and Kiera, met us there.

Makutu's Island: Kyndall, Kaiya, Kaydence, Ryder, Rachelle, Rustin, Kiera, Dylan, Ledger, and BrieAnne

Friday night we had dinner outside on the patio

Papa, Riley, BrieAnne, Kaiya and Mimi

The "Goodbye" picture---it is tradition at my parent's house to take a picture in this spot before leaving

Ready for the trip home.

The drive home went fairly smoothly. I came up with a new plan for rest stops and actually managed to shave 5 minutes off our stopping time!! (It's the little things that make life exciting.) At our first rest stop, the kids were happy and well-behaved. As we paraded in, I could hear comments like "Oh, how cute!" and "That is so adorable!". By the time we got to our second rest stop, the kids were tired and ready to be done with traveling---they were not happy or well-behaved. The only comments I got were "Oh, you poor thing!" and "I'll pray for you!"

All in all, the trip was a lot of work, but a lot of fun! Crazy or not, I am glad that we did it!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Pumpkin Patch

This week my mom was here helping with the babies. She is so great to try to come every month---I always love having her here to help! Now that the babies are a little older, we have been a lot more adventurous in taking the babies places. It is always a lot of work to get out the door and manage the chaos wherever we go, but it is usually worth it to get out of the house for a while. The babies really enjoy a change of scenery as well. It is amazing how fast the day goes when we have some kind of outing!

This week we took the babies on their first trip to the outlet mall---I figured I better start getting them used to it, since I love to shop and the Children's Place outlet has come great deals! The babies also had their first experience with a fast-food play place. We took the family to eat at a new Chick-fil-a that opened near us. I have a really favorable opinion of Chick-fil-a---especially after this weekend. We made a huge mess and the workers didn't even glare at us---instead they came to our table and offered to refill our drinks! It is a very family friendly establishment. They have little containers of Cheerios for younger kids. They also give out place mats that stick to the table to make things a little bit more sanitary (of course my crew thought they were more fun to rip off and play with, but it is a great idea!). The kid's meal toys are always educational--usually a book or craft project. The chicken nuggets are actually pieces of real chicken that they cut up, bread and cook on-site, and the lemonade is fresh squeezed. This particular Chick-fil-a had plenty of high-chairs (which is not always the case when we go out) and they had a great toddler area in the play place. Ryder especially just loved it. He couldn't stop laughing and running around. I am bummed that I didn't take any pictures of it!

Saturday we took everyone to the pumpkin patch at Sweet Berry Farm in Marble Falls (about a 45 minute drive from our house). Jayson got called, at the last minute, to go down to Galveston and help clean up the mess left by Hurricane Ike, so it was just my mom and I with all seven kids. We met Jayson's brother Joel and his wife Tobi and their two kids (Alec and Cora) at the farm. The farm is always a fun place to go in the fall. They have all kinds of different pumpkins, a hayride, pony rides, goats to feed, pumpkins to paint, fall flowers to pick and corn field mazes. It has been our tradition to go there every year. We missed last year because the babies were too young, so Riley and Kaiya were really looking forward to it this year. It was a hot day and very dusty at the farm. Having the babies along also limited what we were able to do. But despite all this, I think that everyone had fun---at least part of the time!

Kaiya, Riley, Cora, Alec, Ryder, Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin, and Kaydence.

I can't get the babies to even try most of the yummy food I make for them at home, but they all wanted a bite of the pumpkins! (Ryder, Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin, and Kaydence)

Kaiya and Riley--I know that this isn't the best picture of them, but I thought it was so funny. Kaiya was really mad that Riley got to sit next to the big pumpkin. Life is soooo unfair!

Playing on the tractor--Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin and Ryder

More fun with the tractor

Kyndall, Ryder, Rustin's back, Kassidy and Kaydence. It is nearly impossible to get Rustin to sit still long enough to take his picture!

Kaiya and Riley

The Hayride! Riley and Kaiya had their hearts set on going on the hayride. Joel and Tobi didn't want to go, so we took everyone by ourselves. I think this was the only part of the day where we seriously considered having ourselves committed to the insane asylum when we got back. Before we got on the ride, we didn't realize that part way through they were going to drop us off, have us walk through a tunnel to the other side of the road, and get on another trailer to finish the ride. Luckily Riley was able to carry Kyndall and my mom and I each carried two babies and somehow we made it! As long as we were moving, the boys thought it was fun. Kyndall also gave no complaints. Kassidy hated the whole thing (did I mention that it was really dusty???).