Harvest Festival 10/9/10

Three years ago we started heading down to Rockford for a weekend of their Harvest Festival. We usually go down there the day they do trick-or-treating around down town. It just so happens that that weekend also coordinates with the day that some of the local preschools put on a Young Fun morning. The preschools that want too pay to have a "booth" can bring a craft or activity for the kids to do. This year there 10 stations. They were: 1) making a paper plate shaker instrument, 2) making a paper bag pumpkin, 3) a bean bag toss game, 4) apple painting (we didn't do, didn't want to get Cinderella dirty), 5) making a noodle/straw necklace, 6) making a book, 7) playing play-doh (didn't do, too many people waiting and since we have it at home, we skipped it), 8) making a noodle sculpture, 9) playing bucket bonanza game, and 10) making a mirror image leaf painting. I would say we spent a little over an hour there. It was a fun, free hour! :-)After we left Young Fun we headed to get some lunch. After we got done eating we had a little time to kill before it was time to trick-or treat. The Rockford school district mascot is the ram. Many of the local schools, students, and businesses decorated a ram and there were a couple dozen of them on display on the dam. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture of the kids with the Meijer ram. :-)
We had a little more time before trick-or-treating so we went and checked out the police car.....the kids were excited to sit in the back seat! We told them that this is the only time we had better ever see them in one! ;-) The kids also got to "drive" the fire truck (pictures on our pictures website and Facebook).
The weather today was untraditionally warm. The normal average high temperature for this weekend is about the about 65ish (give or take a few degrees). Today's high was 76 degrees! The costume Marc has this year is a thick, furry Sulley costume. We thought it would be great at keeping him warm while trick-or-treating on Halloween. Since it was so warm today, we waited until right before trick-or-treating started to get him in his costume. Marc was Sulley and Samantha was Cinderella. :-)
My cute kiddos walking around the block trick-or-treating to the local businesses. It is so nice, the block makes a square and there are probably 30 businesses in that square. Not all participate, but a lot do. So everyone just makes a big line and walks around the block collecting goodies. :-) Samantha did great. She said "trick or treat" before they gave her her "candy corn", and thank you after they gave it to her. Great practice for Halloween! :-)
After we trick-or-treated, we took a hay ride around downtown. It cost us $12, but it was a fun, fall thing to do. :-) Another family was nice enough to take our family picture on the hay ride, and it actually turned out cute! :-)
The parking lot we parked in was right next to the local ice cream shop. We figured they would be closed for the season but it was a convenient place to park. To our happy surprise, it was still open! So after a very warm afternoon in the sun, we stopped for some yummy ice cream before we got back in the car.
A friend of mine (who also happens to be a kindergarten teacher) gave me the idea to have the kids guess how many pieces of candy they thought they would get. I decided to try that this year. Samantha guessed 1 piece and Marc guessed 50 pieces between them both. After we got home, he counted how many they actually got. They got 65 pieces all together. Not bad guessing for an almost 7 year old! :-)
The kids got some really yummy candy! Here's to hoping they share with Mommy. ;-)
It was a very beautiful weekend with great weather, great activities, and great fun with a great family! :-)

Mapping Project 10/2010

Marc spent a couple of weeks learning all about mapping. He learned about north, south, east, and west as well as what a legend is and what a compass rose is. He was given a homework assignment to create a map of his bedroom. He was given complete freedom to do what he wanted as long as he included a compass rose and a legend.

He knew right away that he wanted it to be put in a box. The idea I suggest to him was to take pictures of his actual room things and glue them to look like his room. He liked that idea, so off we went to make his room.

I cut yellow construction paper to fit along the inside of the box (the walls) since his walls in his room are painted yellow. We also cut tan paper for his carpet. The only box we had that was about the correct size was a diaper box. He said he didn't want to be picked on by the kids for using a diaper box, so we covered the outside with blue paper.
So, after we got all the papering done, it was time for gluing the pictures in to make the box look like his room. The final product was very cute and Marc was very proud of it!
The day he turned it in was a day that I took him to school, so I walked in with him. When he gave it to his teacher, his teacher looked very impressed. :-) Here's to hoping for a good grade to reward his hard work! :-)

Red Flannel Festival 10/2/10

Every 1st weekend in October, Cedar Springs has their Red Flannel Festival. Every year we head down and go to the craft show, for some lunch......
usually a midway ride or 2 (we didn't this year we didn't because it was cold and raining off and on), and then we watch the parade. Samantha loved the marching bands this year. Every time a music group cam by she started marching.
The parade was right smack in the middle of nap time, so she decided to have a nap with Daddy instead. ;-)
This year seemed extra cool and windy, so, even though we had fun, not quite as much as some years past.
After the parade we came home for some thawing out. ;-) Samantha had to check over the candy loot from the parade. ;-)
It was a fun, cool, windy afternoon. We look forward to doing it again next year, just maybe with some warmer weather. i wonder if anyone has ever thought of moving it a few weeks earlier for a better chance at nice weather? ;-)

Fall Fun at Klackles 9/26/10

Every year we head to Klackles Orchard at least one time. All the way there Samantha talked about apples, apples, apples. So the first thing we did was get on the apple-picking wagon and go get some apples.
We got LOTS of apples!! We each get one of these bags to fill with apples we pick included in our entry fee.
After we got done picking apples, we headed to the store and got some cider and donuts to eat. YUM!! I usually take a picture of the kids eating their donuts, but we were being swarmed by so many wasps that i wasn't able to get pictures of that part. :-( Luckily no one got stung!
After our yummy snack we headed back to the Family Fun Farm part. This apple ruler is a yearly picture ritual.
Marc has always loved riding the barrel car train. We were excited that Samantha was big enough to ride it with his this year! :-)
As soon as we got done with the apples Samantha kept asking abut the "punkin ride". So after some fun in the family area we boarded the Enchanted Pumpkin Ride.
Do you think Samantha was excited to be on the pumpkin ride? ;-)
We thought an almost empty pumpkin patch would be a good spot for some cute pictures.
We usually get 1 big pumpkin to carve and a few smaller pumpkins to paint. Well, I am going on a field trip next week to a pumpkin patch where I will get a small pumpkin and in a a few weeks Marc is going ( and I am accompanying) to a different pumpkin patch where we will both get small pumpkins. So, since it looked like our status on getting small pumpkins was good, we just picked the big pumpkin for carving.
It was a cool, breezy day, but a very fun, fall-filled afternoon! :-)

ArtPrize 9/25/10

This weekend we went to the 2nd Annual ArtPrize. Last year was a big enough success that it happened again this year. Art Prize is an art contest. The artists are required to find a venue to host their art and then when it is time, we the public walk around and see lots of good, and some bad, art. For the first week we get to vote "thumbs up" if we like it, and "thumbs down" if we don't. After a week, the top ten pieces of art that got the most "thumbs up" are published. We the public then vote for our favorite. The piece of art with the most votes wins $250,000!!!

This year there were some pieces displayed at the Meijer Gardens, so we drove out there before we headed downtown.There are pieces of art scattered ALL over downtown. In addition to the pieces scattered around downtown, there and exhibition halls where there are many pieces displayed in the same building. These are just a few of the ones we saw.
I liked this one because the kids got to get involved in the art. The wall was covered in felt and each of the little colored squares had strips of Velcro on it. The kids were encouraged to go up to it and rearrange the squares and change how the art looked. :-)
The artist of this piece was nice enough to offer to take our family picture in front of his piece.
We took LOTS more pictures of art. You can see them on our pictures site pictures.stoufer.com.
I thought I wasn't going to enjoy myself, but to my surprise, I did. We are planning on going back down next weekend to see more. :-)

BeyBlade Frenzy! 9/17/10

My friend Sarah Jehnzen, owner of Sarah's Deals, had yet ANOTHER product testing party. :-) This time it was for Beyblades. Apparently there is a Japanese anime cartoon show all about them. They are metal, spinning, battling tops. The company sent her 5 tops and an arena for the kids to play with.There were times when the kids took turns having 2 of them battle and other times when all 5 tops were in there together. Marc took a turn battling Daddy. :-)
This is how the younger sibling sisters spent some of their time. ;-) What are they to do when their brothers are having fun with new toys?? ;-)
Marc really enjoyed playing with these. Sssshhhhh.....we got him some for his birthday in November. ;-)
Thanks for another great party Sarah! :-)

Happy 60th Birthday John Ball Zoo!! 9/23/10

Tonight we headed to the zoo for a members only 60th birthday party. We were going to eat dinner at the zoo, but the gates were closed for another 30 minutes before the party started so we headed down the street and got some hot dogs at Dairy Queen. We took them back to the zoo and ate them by the water.Samantha thought it was SO cool that we ate dinner with the "gucks". :-)
After dinner we made sure to keep some hot dog bun to feed to the ducks/geese.
We were excited to see Nessie again. We loved looking at her at ArtPrize last year, so it was nice to see her again.
What would a birthday party be without cake and ice cream???? Well, they gave us some when we went in! :-)
After we ate our cake and ice cream we headed to look at the animals. The bears were very fun to watch. They were getting in and out of the water.
Who is the tallest animal? ;-)
Samantha liked watching the "kitty" walk around. She asked if she could pet the kitty.
My little smarties were guessing what kind of animal each paw print belongs to.
All 3 of my kids had fun playing the drums at the entrance of the "African" section.
We were all a little skittish about petting a snake, but we were all brave and pet it. It actually wasn't too bad. It was softer than I would have thought. I always thought snakes were slimy, this one wasn't.
Samantha was terrified of the water fall the last 2 times we went to the zoo. Not sure why. Daddy tried using Disney's trick about waterfalls. He showed her the front of the water. Then showed her the back of water. ;-)
Normally there is a charge to pet the sting rays. Since this was a special evening, it was free. Samantha didn't so much pet them as splash in their pool. ;-) I think a few of them got her because Daddy said she jumped a couple of times.
Marc really liked trying to reach them . He thought it was cool how slimy.smooth they felt (me too!).
Since this was the zoo's 60 birthday, they had a coloring station where the kids could color a birthday cake picture.
It was a nice few hours o wander around the zoo that we have been to so many times before. Happy 60th Birthday John Ball Zoo!