Corn, Pumpkins and Straw, Oh My!

Heads-up... for those of you that check our blog regularly... I posted 2 entries tonight! (and 2 entries last night)

So... as you'll learn in the next entry, the weather was so nice on Saturday that we decided we needed to get out of the house as a family and enjoy it. After playing with mommy's hairbands and blowing bubbles in the backyard, we packed up and headed out for Leeds Farm. We had a blast and hope we can make it back next year!

Leeds Farm is in Ostrander, OH and has all sorts of fun activities...

You can pet and feed the goats.

Take a peek at the young calves.

Walk hand-in-hand with your mom from barn to barn.

Check your height if you'll stand against the wall long enough!

Play in the giant cornbox for nearly an hour!

Rope Mommy into playing in the giant cornbox with you for
nearly an hour while Daddy played the role of Papa-razzi... get it?
(We're making popcorn sounds in this picture!)

Check out the giant pumpkins and figure out
which one is more comfortable to sit on.

Play on the slides and in the straw with Mommy.

Land at the bottom of the slide in a
giant pile of straw and giggle loudly.

Discover the joy of going down
the slide face-first into the straw.

Roll in the straw a bit.

And hope Mom comes to help me get up
because this straw is slippery stuff and
there are other kids waiting to come down!

Woohoo!

(Cleanup wasn't nearly as bad as I expected... we only found a few kernels of corn when we got home and another 6 in Em's coat pocket at church the next morning.)

Headbands and Bubbles

We played around the house on Saturday morning and while I was working on a project in the kitchen, our daughter was working on her own project in the bathroom drawer where we keep our brushes and my hair accessories...

Ah, but we were proud of our treasurers! Cheese!

Looks like she's ready to join Willie Nelson on the next tour!

Just another fine example of the abundance
of hairbands. Count 'em... 4!

After playing in the house, we realized how nice the weather was outside (well, that and Emily eyed the bottle of bubbles in the kitchen), so we opted to head out and get some bubble-blowing in. Daddy "snuck" up on us with the camera and caught some of the action.

New Hat and Gloves and Grapefest!

Heads-up... for those of you that check our blog regularly... I posted 2 entries tonight! (I'll have a few more to post once my battery recharges!)

We picked up a new hat and a couple of pairs of gloves at Wally World last week. Em was thrilled and even though they were still fastened together she insisted on wearing them all through the store. She makes me giggle.

The following day, Em was still very excited about her new hat and gloves and wanted to wear them to church (even though it got up to at least 70°F around lunch time).

Yeah, I know... REAL pretty, huh?
And yes, there just happens to be
another mismatched pair of gloves in
our house just like those!

Where's Mr. Blackwell when we need him?

...2 days after the famous glove purchase....

And yet again... where's Mr. Blackwell?

We did manage to take the gloves off
long enough to snack on some grapes!
That's my chipmunk!

Mmmmm, num-num!

Yup... still squirreling away a grape or two!

Zoo with Shell

Emily and I helped with food pantry a couple of Saturday's ago and the weather was so nice we decided we just couldn't spend the rest of the day inside so we called Aunt Shell to see if she wanted to hook up with us at the zoo. She was headed up this way for her class reunion that evening so we made a date.

Em had a fondness for brushing the "other"
end of the animals in the petting zoo.

Aunt Shell... hmmm... how many years
did you show sheep at the fair and you
still don't know the right end?

This was too cute to pass on the photo-op.

While the goats and sheep were fascinating, we
found an even more fascinating specimen in the
petting zoo... the little girl(s) with painted
faces really threw Em for a loop. She kept getting
right in her face and saying, "That's Nasty" or "Messy".
I'm sure the little girl's mom was thrilled.

No, we're not picking our nose, we're still
concerned about the little purple-shirted
girl in the background that has stuff
all over her face.

Yep, still checking her out...



See, Aunt Shell, this is how you feed a goat.
...one tiny piece of hay at a time.

Yeah, go ahead and pretend that you
were sitting on that thing so I could
get a picture of Em... you liked it!

Yet another picture that was too cute to pass up!

Thanks for spending the afternoon with us at the zoo, Aunt Shell!

Last Week's Activities

I forgot fill you in on last weekend's festivities!

To celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary, the three of us left Friday after work and headed to Mohican State Park for a 1 night stay and to spend the day Saturday in the area. We booked a special package that included pizza, a movie, popcorn and a gift certificate to the gift shop. We ordered our pizza, explored the lodge, located the pool and Em took special interest in the race car arcade game in the game room and then we picked up our pizza and popcorn and headed back to the room. After waiting exactly 30 minutes after eating (wink, wink) we dudded up for the pool and had some family fun time. As always, Em loved the pool and wasn't exactly thrilled when it was time to get out.

After breakfast on Saturday we checked out and took a drive around the lake in hopes of finding the place to rent a boat that we could take out for a joyride. Em took a much needed nap on our way there and woke up in time for us to put her warmer clothes and lifejacket on. She wasn't exactly thrilled about the lifejacket but after Ed, the friendly marina guy, gave her a sucker she was content.

She loved her first boat ride and
like her daddy, she loves to go fast!

Captain Dad!

Check out all that lollipop
juice on those chops! I would
have flipped if this sticky mess
was in my boat... if we had one!

Lollipop Heaven..MMMMmmmm, num, num!

Look! Someone finally has enough
hair to blow in the breeze!

The captain and crew.

Em is turning into a little teenager and really enjoys her independence. After grabbing Daddy's finger and getting him to help her with the light switch she will "dismiss" him and will frequently disappear into her room and close (slam) the door behind her. We'll often times find her sitting in her glider and reading books or playing with her puzzles. Sometimes she'll bring us shirts and pants that she's pulled out of her dresser drawers while she's exploring. I've finally smart enough to take almost all of the hair accessories out of her top drawer (where it was so convenient to get to) and moved them into an out of reach spot in her closet. She used to open all the baggies of barrettes, clips, rubber bands and everything else and shake them out onto the floor. Not a problem if you only have a few, but we're talking a container of 500 rubber bands and probably about 50 clips and bows that we have accumulated. (I know! Amazing for a kid that is just now getting hair!)

I decided to leave a small container of baby-sized scrunchies in her top drawer because there's probably about 200 of them and they can't hurt her and she can't hurt them. She loves to play with this stuff, so why not. After a quiet spell last night, I poked my head in her room and discovered she had dumped the entire bag out on the floor and was flinging them around her room. I had a need to "containerize" them so we put them in a biiiig basket. As you can see from the pictures below... the basket quickly became a bathtub for Em and we promptly began to entertain ourselves with it's contents...

Until next time... have a great day and be blessed!

Chef Boyardee's Secret Ingredient

It was Wednesday again in the Hypes household and it felt like another night where I just didn't want to worry about what to make for supper. Tom and I were both in the mood for pizza so I called the order in and he picked it up on his way home. Miss Em still isn't impressed with the idea of pizza so I threw together some ravioli and veggies for her.

We're chowing down on some wonderful Belly Buster's pizza (Yes, that's really what the place is call!) and Em is sauntering her way through her veggies and sees a few pieces of ravioli on her plate. In standard form, she asks, "What is THAT?!?" and I reply with, "It's yummy ravioli." She responds with, "Mmmmm, Num!" and proceeds to put a bite in her mouth. No expression, no excitement, no spitting it out, no indication of whether she liked it or not.

Em moved on to the corn. Not only moved on to it, but chowed it down leaving only ravioli on her plate. And, as Em is prone to do, she proceeded to dismantle and deconstruct the ravioli. She does this with sandwiches, peanut butter crackers and anything else that has been "assembled" at some point in it's life. She pulled the layers of pasta apart and revealed the "beef" filling. (If you've ever eaten Chef Boyardee you really have to wonder if that truly is beef... it doesn't look like the stuff I was raised on!)

The next part is something only Em would think of...

She looks up at me with this confused/horrified look, glances back at the dissected ravioli on her plate, looks back at me and does the sign for POOP!!! Her expression was truly priceless and I only wish I had the camcorder running at that point. Tom asked what I was laughing at and I had a hard time even telling him what she did because I was laughing so hard.

Try as I might, I could NOT convince her that her ravioli was not filled with poo. I tried telling her it was beef. I tried telling her it was meat. I tried telling her it was hamburger. She wasn't buying it. She picked up her plate and handed it to me and wanted nothing to do with it. (Thankfully, she didn't fling it like she did the other night! Oh, I was so upset with her for that little stunt.) Anyway, she decided she was done with eating for the night.

Sigh... This is one of those times that I wish she could express herself more so I could truly understand what she was thinking or this is one of those times that I'm very thankful she's not expressing herself more