Finished Quilt, Friends, Farm & Funnies!

We had a fun week and weekend!  The other day when we were out talking to our neighbors, we found out that I'm not the only one pregnant on our street.  In fact, there are 5 additional women pregnant...all due within 4 months of each other....August, September, October, and November...and yes, all on our street alone.  You could probably say something is in the water! :-)  On Friday, Hailey had her post-op appointment and the doctor said her eardrum has healed up nicely and she can now go swimming!  Too bad the weather has been more Fall-like this weekend and will remain that way for the rest of the coming week.  But not to worry, because we know Summer will arrive eventually.  The only thing she cannot do is swim to the bottom of a pool for 6 weeks, which we won't have to worry about either, because she barely likes to even get her head under water.  Within 10 minutes of getting home from her appointment, our new mattress was delivered.  They had called me on my way to the appointment saying that they would be early (why is it that they end up being early when you don't want them to?).  I told them I would try to get back as fast as I could, but I couldn't guarantee anything.  They said that was fine and they would just wait for me.  We were in and out of the doctor's office in a matter of probably 7 minutes total, so we made it home with plenty of time to spare!

On Saturday we had some friends over...Dave & Erika, and Eric, Sarah & Joshua...for a "Fall-like" barbecue at lunch.  We had a great time catching up with them!  I meant to take some pictures but then never did!  Oh well, next time!  After they left, we relaxed for a while and then I started working on a Father's Day gift for my dad (I'll reveal that next week).


On Sunday, we got up early and headed down to a working farm that is now owned by the Forest Preserves.  It has a huge educational barn for people of all ages to learn how a farm operates.  Our inspiration came from Hailey two weeks ago when we were driving through the back roads of Wisconsin and she said, "Ewww" as we passed a fragrant dairy farm.  Oh Hailey, you are such a suburb girl! :-)  We figured we better get her some exposure to some farm life.  So, at the farm this morning Hailey got to swing on a tree swing, pet some very friendly barn kitties, observe cows, horses, pigs, sheep, and chicken, gather eggs, and milk a cow (well not a real one, just an exhibit).  She had a great time!  The one thing I wanted to do was tour the restored 1920's farm house, but that didn't get started until noon and we would have had an hour and a half to waste.  We'll just go back another time.  When we got home, Brian got to work on making a cage to go around my strawberry plants (the birds and chipmunks are already eating the non-ripe strawberries!).  He wasn't able to finish today, so I'll post a picture of the finished project later.  I headed to Wal-mart to get the rest of the groceries to make tonight's dinner.  After I got home, I finished binding up my quilt and I'm very excited to have it done!  I really like how it turned out.  This is our first lap quilt (I've only done wall hangings and our bed quilt before this).

 Looking at some of the cows

Driving an old tractor

This was one of her favorite exhibits...a produce cart.  You could climb up onto the wagon from the back and pretend to guide the horse.

 This is part of what it would look like on the produce cart.

 What a grocery store would like look back in the 1920's.

She had to gather the eggs from the nests to her left and then put them in the "carton " or drawer.  Once you closed the drawer, the eggs would slide down a shoot and back into the nests.

Milking the cow

She was excited to actually milk a cow, but we'll have to make sure she doesn't pick the same spot to milk a real one! :-)

 Pulling on a rope to lift different sizes of straw bales.

The backside of the farm house.

In the afternoon after we got home, Hailey jumped a little on our neighbors' trampoline.  She loves any chance she gets to do this!

Pretending to fly on her  "magic carpet " while watching Aladdin.  She has such an imagination!

 My parents dropped by this summer quilt my mom made Hailey for her bed.  It has Disney fairies on it and Hailey loves it!

 My finished quilt.  The lighting wasn't the greatest, because the sun was starting to set.  So, the orange is actually more of a lighter gold than that.  Hailey helped to show what the back looks like. :-)

Some Hailey funnies from the week:

- While coloring a picture, Brian & I asked her a question during a conversation we were having.  She replied, "Don't bother me.  I'm working.  Just like you, Mommy."  I said to Brian that I wished that's what I actually did when I went to work! :-) 

- On a different night, and again while she was coloring, Brian & I were trying to come up with names for this new baby and we said to Hailey, "If this baby is a boy, would you like this name or this name?"  She sighed and said, "I don't want it to be a boy, I want it to be a girl."  Brian said, "Okay, that's fine, but if it's a boy, do you like this or this?"  She said (now really annoyed), "I don't care."  In her mind, we have a choice and she doesn't want us to choose a boy.

- While driving home from picking up my quilt after it has been quilted by my mom's friend, she was looking out the window and commenting on how fast we were going (I think we were going about 45 mph).  She got this idea to pat our legs, pat our heads, and rub our bellies and that would make us go faster.  So, I tried to play along as best I could (obviously not really increasing my speed).  When we got to our neighborhood, we had to slow down and there was another car a little ways behind us.  Hailey turned around in her seat to watch it and said, "Oh no, Mommy, the car is catching up to us!  We need to go faster!  Start patting your legs!  I don't see any policemen!"  Maybe I should stop emphasizing that it's bad to speed and that you will get a ticket from the policemen.  I'm thinking she probably understands that now.  We may need to now work on always doing the right thing!

- This morning I went into her room to wake her up so we could get ready to go over to the farm.  She was not in any way ready to wake up, so she said, "Mommy, you can wait right here while I wake up."  Or in other words "fall back asleep".