First Day of School

Today, Carli moved up to the three/four year old class.  She is growing up so fast! 

 

 

Her teachers are Ms. Judy and Ms. Charlemane.  We have been told she will learn quite a bit in this class.  Hard to believe that in just two short years, she will join me at Piney Grove.  Where has the time gone?

Our Playroom

 

Since Austin was no longer using his room, I took it over.  The plan was to turn it into a playroom for me and Carli.  So Joe and I packed up the remainder of Austin's things and I got busy. 

All summer, I painted and painted and painted!  It took FOREVER to cover up the bold blue stripe I had painted around his room when he was playing football.  (Note to self:  never paint a stripe again!)  Three coats of white primer later, I was ready to put on the pink coat of paint on the walls.  I quickly decided that I didn't want to put that dark color in the bathroom.  So since Carli loves polka dots as much as her mother, I used my Cricut to cut pink circles out of vinyl and Joe and I put them all over.  A quirky black mirror from Ikea completed the look.

 

 

Then I bought two bookshelves to divide the two work spaces.  Instead of using the cheap cardboard that came with it, I got some thin plywood from Lowes and...yep...painted it.  The result was terrific.

 

Then we were ready for the "big reveal".  Carli was in school each time I worked on the room so she really didn't know anything.  She knew Mommy was painting it and that I moved all my craft stuff down there, but she thought it was my room.  She was in for a big surprise.

 

Lazy 5 Ranch

Today, Joe and I took Carli and a friend from church, Ashlyn, to the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville.  After picking her up, Carli roped Ashlyn into reading to her most of the way there.  Then they sat in the back playing and laughing.  It was fun to see this side of Carli, which we don't get to see often.

waiting to board the wagons

We got our ticket when we arrived  and watched the prairie dogs at the picnic area.  They were cute and Carli laughed at them.  Then we headed to the horse barn to load one of the wagons.  Joe, Carli, and Ashlyn sat on the outside seats of the wagon and I sat in the middle so I would be able to get better pictures.  We got going and right inside the gate was a HUGE ostrich that was so fun to watch.  He knew we had food and wanted it.  As we were watching him on the other side of the wagon, we were surprised when a different type of animal (some type of cow) poked his head under the seat of the wagon, spilling one of the buckets of food.  All of us screamed and Ashlyn jumped into the seat.  We laughed and grabbed the buckets before we lost all of the food.

 

After leaving the entrance, we came upon Carli's favorite African animal, the zebra. We were so close to them, but unable to feed them due to the fact they are very dangerous because they bite with sharp teeth. They are so gorgeous!

 

Next up were all type of deer from various areas.  We saw a mother feeding her baby and feed some type of white deer.  Carli wouldn't stretch out her hand to feed them, but instead just threw the food onto the ground for them.  We thought this was odd since she enjoyed feeding them so much at the Spring Folly a few months ago.  Maybe it was because they were so aggressive or because the first ones were so big.  But she was happy to just throw them food.

 

In this area, we also saw water buffalo.  There were several in a large pond almost completely submerged, but there were a few who wanted to be fed.  Carli laughed and laughed at one that had Joe feeding it over and over.  He just opened his mouth and waited for you to throw the food inside.  There were also beautiful white deer with horns that felt like velvet.

Around the next corner was the giraffe.  Carli was so excited.  There were several in the fence and they were so tall.  One giraffe was pregnant, expecting to give birth any day.  Carli was fascinated to see the LONG tongues grab the food from the buckets.

Then we saw a rhino.  That animal was enormous!  He eats over 50 pounds of straw a day.  With all that weight on him (about 5000 pounds), our driver said he could still run over 30 mph if he needed to.

Next was some type of gentle animal that looked like a goat.  This was the closest Carli got to feeding one.  She would take the food from the bucket and give it to Joe to feed.

 

 

I think the cows from India were probably the funniest animal we saw all day.  One even came charging to the wagon to get food.  They had really long tongues which they stuck out to get food.  They hooked the end up and let you drop it into their mouth.  One kept "begging" Joe for food so much we thought it was going to lick his arm.  We laughed and made cow faces after the day was over.

 

 

After the wagon ride, we walked through the area which had some more animals to view.  We saw a lemur, several types of birds, camels, and donkeys.  As I was taking the picture of the camels I kept saying, "Don't spit on me."  I was so afraid it would.

 

 

 

After a quick picnic lunch, the girls got the wiggles out on the playground.  Then we headed home.  We were exhausted, but had a great time!