Today our family went on our first field trip! You see, when my good friend, Amy, heard we were doing a farm theme, she offered us a tour of their farm! I was so very excited to take the kids to see exactly where milk comes from! (Ok, ok, I'll admit - I was curious too!) Top that off with a chance to visit with this sweet family and I was over the moon about the chance to venture into the country! 

We couldn't have picked a more beautiful day! After Matt gave us a little tour of his ol' stomping grounds on our drive up, we arrived to a very delicious welcome!

We were treated to some maple syrup candy! Mmmmm! So good!

As you can see, the girls were very pleased with this snack!

Then we went to see the cows! They all had different, interesting names which we enjoyed reading from their tags (or maybe that was just me?! In any case, I may have found the perfect name for a little boy should we ever have one! ...No, Amy, its not 'Exile'! Haha!)

Taitum was not the least bit scared of them and almost got licked by one! (I squealed from the shock of how long a cow's tongue is! Tait, on the other hand, didn't flinch!)

Pipey really liked the baby cow!

We got to watch them being milked! Pretty cool stuff! (Poor city girl Piper mistaked the cow's teats for more...masculine...body parts...eehehehe!)

They even got to have their fingers suctioned in the milking equipement! As usual, Piper refused but Tait loved it!

We also got to see where all the milk went to! Such a neat process! 

So there, girls! Now you know!

 I must admit though - the highlight of the trip for Piper was the social time with Amy and Joel's sweet girls! But really, who can blame her? The opportunity to run around in wide open spaces, build castles from cow feed and throw hay in each others faces is priceless when you're 3!

Thanks, Amy and Joel, for letting us explore your farm! We had such a great time!

Amy is a fellow blogger! You should check out her blog, The Great Escape!

I ended up not getting to do very many specific Tot School activities with Taitum this week but she was more than happy to tag along with everything that we did do! I've learned to not sweat it when things just don't work out to be able to do many Tot School things since my happy-go-lucky little girl is content to participate in anything and everything! I've also learned that often tot times happen spur of the moment and its usually her idea!

Like this feather in the jar activity...

She made a rooster craft like her sister (although I failed to get a picture of her creating it!) but was done rather quickly. She began playing with the feathers that were all over the table - lifting them up and letting them drop. Eventually I grabbed a jar that was near by and she happily dropped them into the jar until craft time was done!

She was very careful to not drop her egg during our egg and spoon races! Of course, this meant she walked very slowly down the hall and didn't win a single race but she didn't care! She was far too concentrated on balancing that egg!

She 'helped' Piper bake cookies - mostly by tasting the brown sugar and the butter and the raisins! Its a hard job but somebody has got to do it!

She made a cute little chick, too! She adores painting and ended up painting more of the newspaper than the styrofoam balls! When it was time to glue the eyes, beak and wings on, I helped her out a lot since she still loves putting everything in her mouth and the last thing I need in the run of my week is a trip to the ER because of a swallowed googly eye!!

Taitum is also a huge fan of working out! She joins me daily and does the cutest little push ups and jumping jacks but her all time favorite is strength training with the hand weights! Hehehe!

Tait was pro at this spooning activity! It was her idea to stick Snow White in the bowl and make the pasta rain down over her!

My favorite moment of the week was this one:

Tait got all dressed up for a visit from Boppa and cousin Emile with the help of her big sister...

They couldn't decide which shirt looked best and so, Tait wore all 3 of them!

I love my girls!

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This week we finally got more into our farm theme although we ended up mostly concentrating on chickens since Piper was just so interested in them! We also worked on the letter C (for cow or chicken!) and overall had a really great week together!

The letter C cut and collage (we added the cow to the printable).

We used many printables from Musings of Me's Farm Fun Pack including this one! Piper traced the word then went to the fridge and found the correct magnet letters to make the word! She LOVED this!

Piper stamped the letter C.

And pin poked it too!

She made letters in flour with her finger.

Here's letter C!

The most fun though was getting to vaccuum it all up!!

(Thanks to hands on : as we grow for the great idea!)

She also added the correct number of clothespin to each number card.

With the farmyard jumble (from Musings of Me) she found each letter that I called out and covered it with a stone.

She played with her farmhouse a lot!

One day she made a chick out of styrofoam balls attached with a toothpick.

Aren't they so cute?!

The girls had an egg and spoon race with plastic play-doh eggs!

Then cracked open the eggs and made little nests with mini eggs in them!

Piper made her own batch of cookies this week, too! She got all the ingredients out herself, measured and stirred, arranged them on the cookie sheet and popped them in the oven! She was very proud of herself and excited to share them with Boppa and cousin Emile when they came for a playdate! (It was a super good recipe too! You should try it!)

And their indoor picnic together was a success! Cousin Emile couldn't get enough of those yummy cookies!

Another day, Piper made a rooster!

She also planted a bean in a cup with damp paper towels so we could watch it grow! I wasn't sure this would work but...

A few days later, this is what we saw!!

That's a wrap for this week! Next week we'll hopefully get around to all the other animals that live on the farm!

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Now that we are getting so much fresh air playing outside each morning, Taitum is finding lunch extremely hard to get through!

Life with Taitum is a non-stop show! She is forever goofing around, making funny faces, doing a silly dance - anything to make you laugh! And laugh we do! The best is getting to share in her silly shenanigans like making faces with her in the bathroom mirror (this is something her and I do far too often!).

She has also become a full tilt toddler! Go, go, go!! That's her motto! She goes from one thing to another to another to another...all in about 30 seconds! She doesn't get in too much trouble though because 1) she has a big sister keeping track of her every move and 2) I do my best to keep her occupied!

Without further ado, here is Tait's busy week:

First, we played with this Sunmaid raisin book I found at the library. She had to add the raisins to the ladybugs that had no spots or the dogs that had no spots or the cinnamon rasin bread that had no raisins. She was rather enthralled with eating the raisins so it took a little while for her to catch onto the concept. Once she did, she'd quickly put the raisins on the page where they were supposed to go then quickly swipe them all back up and into her mouth!

This activity took some fine concentration but she was able to put every toothpick in the jar! She was really into this activity even though it was quite the challenge!

Taitum is very interested in the books I read to them at breakfast in the mornings and as soon as I let her down from her high chair she heads right over to take a look at them for herself! I do believe I have 2 bookworms on my hands now! (Not that I'm complaining!)

This activity was extremely hard for Tait. She simply had to pinch the clothespin open and attach it to the edge of the container. She worked on it diligently but couldn't quite keep it open long enough to get it onto the container. I ended up helping her out with most of them (which she was not very happy about!)

We've done this one before - placing the stones in the ice cube tray - but Taitum is in love with this activity so I pulled it out again!

Playing outdoors was definitely the highlight of Tait's week! She especially loved being able to take her beloved Eggroll bunny for a walk in the stroller! This was adorable to watch because every so often she'd stop and go around to check on him!

Upon Piper's request, we made some more bread and bird seed feeders to put in a tree in our yard. Last time we did this, I wouldn't let Tait help since she was so terrible at putting everything into her mouth. I really did not want to be digging bird seed out of her mouth! But she's gotten better with this so I decided to let her try. I still had to watch her like a hawk but she did great and enjoyed being able to participate!

She helped her sister find farm animals in our farm animal hay box. Piper had to sort the animals and Tait decided to make it a little bit more challenging for her sis by finding one and running away with it before Pipe could sort it! ;) Nothing like combining a sorting activity and PE!

On St. Patrick's Day, Taitum painted a shamrock.

She was also going to make a Froot Loop rainbow like her sister but...

Decided just eating them was a better plan! Considering that this was her first time ever having them, I can't say that I blame the girl!

That was our week! Hope you enjoyed tagging along!

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