The Maple Festival

One of the really cool things about living in New England is being able to experience new things. Well, this past week we were looking for something to do as a family. Wouldn't you know it? The Maple Festival was going on. We drove north to East Hartland and got to check it out. We'd never been to a maple festival before so we were pretty excited to see what it was like.

We went to a sugar farm called Sweet Wind Farm and learned all sorts of new things about "sugaring." We saw the sugar house where the syrup is made, watched a maple tree be tapped, tasted raw sap, and tasted some yummy maple syrup. Along with all things maple, there was a bounce house, scooters to ride, pony rides, and a tire swing (which was one of the favorite parts of the day). We had a great time and were so happy that we ventured out to do something new.

The sugar house

All the kids on the scooters

The owner of the farm about to show us how to tap a maple tree.

Josh, me, and Kate about to go on the pony ride.

Josh and his pony, Jellybean.

Josh

Jake waiting for his turn on the pony.

Jake, Josh, and Kate

Josh on the tire swing.

Jake on the tire swing.

Kate on the tire swing.

All the kids by the tapped maple tree.

A Few Random Things

For those of you who know me well, you know that I absolutely love books and I love to read. So, when I walked into my bedroom and saw my sweet husband and adorable daughter all cozied up in our bed with books in their hands, I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures. Notice the reading choices for each of them:

Robb reading Freakonomics and Kate reading Clifford.
Wait. Is Kate really behind there?

Oh! There she is!

As you can imagine, having older brothers can influence a little girl's interests. Well, here is Kate playing dress up...turtle style. She is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan!

Look at that ninja stance.

Kate got her first black eye a few weeks ago. I thought it was important enough to capture on camera so I tried taking some pictures. Here is the best one I got...

Here she is trying to hold her eyes open. She kept blinking!

Here she is just being silly.

Josh and Jake got to make homemade musical instruments for their music class at school. They could pick any musical instrument they wanted as long as they could actually play music on it. When they came home with this assignment, they had ideas of what they wanted to make. They were listing off instruments like the trumpet, the pan flute, etc. I was thinking to myself "how on earth are we going to make these things?" Luckily, when it was all said and done, they decided on the instruments below. Jake made a guitar and Josh made an ocean drum. It turned out to be fun assignment and they had a lot of fun playing them in their class.