Fairies and ponies and fairy ponies!

I have lots to update about. Claire had another riding lesson this past Thursday morning. It was windy and chilly and awesome. I'm loving this fall weather. I'm super happy with temperatures in the 60's and 70's. We headed to the barn which is less then ten minutes from our house and we are always happy to be there.

We walked out toward the pasture and Claire asked me what that pole was for. I asked her what she thinks it's for and sure enough she tells me it's so people can tie their horses to it if they need them to stay there. It's amazing how many questions she can just answer herself. I've been getting more into the habit of just asking her what she thinks the answer is to most of her questions and it's exciting to listen to what she says.

Happiness is a field of grazing horses.

Kellyn was happy to hold both horseshoes on the way out to the arena.

We got to the barn a while before Claire's lesson and saw the farrier. We've never been there when he is and it was the perfect learning opportunity. Claire has asked how horseshoes are made and we've watched youtube videos but seeing it in person was way better. We asked if we could watch and he said of course. After one of the horses was done Claire noticed the hoof clippings and we asked if we could keep some. Thankfully he didn't think we were weird at all for that (or at least didn't show any signs of being weirded out) and then he offered the girls each their own horseshoe to keep. It was the highlight of their morning.

The girls and I are flying to Boise in 2 weeks and 2 days and I'm so excited. I have flight anxiety but I don't want to get into that too much, the short version is I had a bad flight in Thailand and have had anxiety since. Claire has flown once and I guess Kellyn has too but she was in my belly and neither of them remember. They have asked many times if we can fly though. They don't know about our upcoming trip yet, if they did they wouldn't stop asking until we were on our way to the airport. I don't know if I'll wait until the day of to surprise them or tell them a couple days before. So as an Usborne consultant I'll probably always find a way to talk about an awesome book we are reading and plug it into my blog. I love these books. I've ordered some fun ones to bring on the flight but this one I'll share with them a few days before we fly so we can really learn about the airport and planes.

I had to hold back from opening every single flap on this page. I find this all really interesting and I'm 28. I love learning and re-learning things with our girls!

A lot of fun flaps and you should totally get this for your littles before you fly one day. 

Look Inside an Airport

Back to the title of this post is that we've been focusing on fairies this week. We made fairy dough (Pinterest idea), I read fairy poems, I found fairy music on youtube that we listened to while they played, we made a fairy garden and added our leaves and rocks that we've collected over the past couple weeks. It's been fun! We took some time to draw yesterday. I mentioned drawing fairies but Claire decided to draw a black unicorn that was sending her healing powers to a bunny with a hurt paw. It's great! She drew the night sky above it and added stars too, I love her mind. Kellyn drew some fun shapes in her journal too and I am really more convinced she's going to be a real lefty.

Fairy dough is messy stuff. Hair conditioner, corn starch and glitter. We skipped the food coloring but it was still magical.

Skipping through to a few random photos. Here is Doctor Kellyn making her horse all better by covering it completely in stickers! This was from the other day and her horse isn't covered anymore so I imagine that all of those stickers are stuck in the carpet in the playroom. I've avoided looking so far but I'll find out soon enough.

This was taken this morning. I'm the blue robe she's sprawled out across. She took over my lap while we watched Team Umizoomi.

It's been a rainy couple days so we were inside majority of the day. She found her big alphabet cards and decided to make a card trail....I think she was avoiding hot lava in the kitchen.

This cat....he's huge and he snores and he takes over Jake's bed upstairs.

The girls were pretty wild inside so after dinner we ventured out to burn off lots of energy before bedtime!

Luke was peeking out of the upstairs window watching the girls play and probably longing to be outside with us.

The girls raced leaves down most of the time until Kellyn brought her Cheerios out and they discovered they float much better then wet, soggy leaves. Bye bye snack.

Another book shout out! Claire likes when I read to her, she likes picture books and shorter stories. Kellyn is more of a bookworm and has always sat for longer periods of time even since she was really little. Both girls are horse crazy so I ordered the first three Fairy Ponies books. I was thinking I could show one to them and gauge their interest. They were so excited. I read the first chapter of the first book and it was a hit. Earlier today I mentioned reading some more and it was quickly brought downstairs and we finished the entire book. It was 9 chapters, 95 pages. I feel like that's a pretty big deal for a 3 year old and a 5 1/2 year old. Claire is really into the story. It has illustrations every couple pages but she's listening more to the words and I'm so excited. They didn't know that I had the second book hiding in my closet so while they were downstairs with Daddy I tidied up their beds a bit and set the book on their nightstand. Kellyn was the one to find it and she brought it down to Claire. They were so surprised and wanted to know where it came from. I totally suggested that maybe a Fairy Pony dropped it by so we could continue the adventure.

Claire looked at the first few pictures in the book and she was ready to head up to bed much earlier then normal. They got ready, got in bed and we read 3 chapters before I had to say no more so they could get to sleep. I'm really looking forward to reading more of the story with the girls tomorrow and it makes me so happy to see the girls excited about it too.

Fairy Ponies

We have some fun events coming up with friends but it's pretty mellow. I'm really looking forward to seeing my Mom. I miss her a lot and this trip is much needed. I feel it's been the longest since I've visited and it's tougher now that we are so far and have to fly to get there.

September Adventures

I'm kind of having a photo dump post for all the things we've been up to. They aren't all in order but they've all happened since my last post.

This past Sunday we headed to school (NLA) to help out with garden clean up. It was a lot of fun and the girls were asked to help out with harvesting the veggies which I think is the funnest part of having a garden. They picked tomatoes, carrots and peppers. I helped harvest some okra which I'd never done before and honestly had no idea it looks the way it does. 

Claire helped one of the Daddies plant some new seeds! I think swiss chard, radishes and lettuce was planted.

On Monday we headed to Laurel Park to play with friends. I brought some of my Usborne books for friends to check out and some paper airplane books for friends to buy if they wanted them. I have two paper airplane books the girls love and we shared them with friends.

One day since my last post we took Daddy to Laurel park to show him the lake and the ducks. This was a different kind of duck that had longer tail feathers and red marks on it's face. Chris looked up what type it is but I can't remember the name now.

I brought some baggies of bird seed for the girls to throw and the geese weren't really impressed. I didn't want to bring bread and it's tiny seed for birds. haha Oh well.

Last week I took the girls to BJ Reece Orchard in Elijay, GA. Daddy was gone for a couple days in Los Angeles for work and a day trip out of town kept our minds busy since we missed him. We saw the petting zoo area and the goats came up to the fence to check the girls out.

We walked further down into the orchard and found the ponies and a donkey.

After picking a bushel of apples we loaded them in the car and headed into the Apple Store. We bought pumpkin, lemon, strawberry and blueberry cream cheese rolls (separate, not all together! Ew!) and lots of apple cider. YUMMY!

They have a bee hive inside the store. The tubing for the bees leads to the outside of the building in their parking lot. Claire tried to find the queen bee and remembered from a bee class we went to at NLA that the queen bees usually are marked with a color on their bodies. No luck finding her though.

It wasn't busy since we went early in the morning during the week. It was overcast and just a really nice day to pick apples.

Claire wanted to know where Daddy was. They really didn't want him to be gone.

She tried drawing a penguin in her Usborne step by step drawing book.

Claire tried it too.

Last Thursday we were back at the barn to see Miss Jenna and Fergie. Claire said she wasn't going to ride and then she decided to ride anyway.

Kellyn was happy to be back but said she wants to ride too. Miss Jenna said that she would love to have Kellyn sit on Fergie next time if she wants to. Once we got to the car Kellyn told me she does NOT want to sit on a horse. These girls make up their minds every 5 seconds. It's hard to keep up sometimes.

Kellyn likes lining things up. She took out her letter blocks from a game to play with.

I came into the play room to find the girls working together and playing Hungry Hungry Hippos together. I enjoy our days at home together, especially when they are playing so nicely together. Thankfully they don't fight too often but it's tough when they do bicker.

Claire says she wants to learn about fall so I decided to focus on being outside, looking at leaves, learning about apples and Johnny Appleseed. We went to Sweetwater Creek State Park to collect different leaves and stones and I read the story of Johnny Appleseed to them. Funny thing is that I don't remember ever learning about him but I enjoyed the story with the girls too. 

The girls took my phone to capture a few pictures of different mushrooms in the woods. Don't worry, we didn't touch them.

Jake joined us on this walk. He seemed to have a good time and a good workout.

We love this tree!

I thought these Turkey Tails looked so neat!

One day Claire asked to make a necklace so she did that for a little while.

I've been trying to set up more artsy things for the girls instead of always making crafts. I want to see more of their creativity come out without prompting them to do something specific.

Here is Kellyn's masterpiece from a couple days ago:

Here is Claire's masterpiece:

We are starting a Daisy's Troop and I had a training and go this! I can't wait to get our first meeting planned and uniforms, books and all the other fun stuff! Kellyn was upset that I only had one and she says she wants to be a Daisy too. My Mom had the great idea of me making a little blue vest for Kellyn and I can make up little patches for her until she's old enough to have her own official Daisy uniform.

Today is a lazy day at home. I enjoy our quiet days. The girls are actually napping. We've had lots of bickering happening for two days now and I suspect lack of sleep is creating the crankiness. I hope they are happy campers after some much needed rest.