Enjoying Two at the Petting Zoo

Today was another beautiful day outside. So, after taking a walk this morning, I got the boys a snack and we headed to pick up Daddy from his work. Then we went to the little petting zoo in Leola to look at the animals and "feed the ducks," which is Joshua's favorite part.

You could tell it was spring because most of the animals had babies. We decided that all babies are precious. This tiny little goat hid in the corner of their house as the other goats came anxiously up to us for food, food and more food!

The boys don't seem to enjoy the animals eating right out of their hands (which I don't blame them) so Joshua said "let's go feed the ducks!" There, they simply drop the food into the water and watch the ducks scarf it down.

On the way to the ducks, the parrot said "HELLO!" and the boys laughed at it. They also saw the donkey, bunnies, birds and a few other animals, which included this pig. I'm used to the pig there being huge, but this pot-bellied pig was rather small. Daddy called him Hamball, which the boys smiled at.

Thankfully I had plenty of quarters in my minivan to buy the food. Joshua would accidentally drop some, but Caleb threw it ALL right in immediately, even after we told him to only throw a few at a time.

The weather was BEAUTIFUL! What a great day to be spending time with my oldest two boys and their Daddy!

Then we saw the mama duck with tiny little babies. We tried to throw them food, but they weren't hungry. Then Daddy said it just seemed mean to throw things at them, even with good intentions. True - if they weren't hungry then the food wasn't really helping them. We gave it to the other ducks who swam hungrily toward us. You can see how dirty and disgusting this place is, but it's great that it's free and available to the public. We enjoy going there.

Right behind the ducks was a caged deer. Daddy saw Caleb venturing over there, so he joined him.

Then... the deer SNEEZED! It surprised Caleb and cracked him up. The deer continued to sneeze and sneeze, and each time the Bluke would laugh and laugh.

Joshua wanted to know what was so funny, so he turned around to watch. It was an odd sight! Soon the boys pretended to sneeze back, thinking they were communicating. (Hopefully this thing doesn't have anything that humans can get!)

I loved Caleb's face in the picture below. He was really amused. He LOVES animals.

We decided to walk around some more, and we saw Tom Turkey, a llama, a yak, and a VERY noisy goose. I had to take video of the goose because it was honking away, and Joshua kept telling him that he sounded 'very cross!' We laughed and laughed. This goose was talking up a storm, and I was surprised at how loud he was.

We fed a few more animals as we walked around, but soon enough it was time to take Daddy back to his work.

When Daddy came home, we made cheeseburgers, milky noodles, baked beans and watermelon for dinner. Yum! It was definitely a summer meal. But, it wasn't all that hot today - upper 70s with a refreshing breeze. It was lovely. After dinner, we took the boys on an 'adventure walk.' Our original plan was to see the kiddos playing baseball behind our house at the school. But, Joshua wasn't interested in sitting still since Daddy told him we'd be adventuring. Instead he was looking for treasure. He grabbed my hand and told me I was his bestest Mama Bean to adventure with. Love it! I always tell him he's my bestest Joshua and Caleb's my bestest Caleb. We ended up at the playgrounds behind our house, and the kids had fun sliding and climbing until it was time to come in.

When we came in, I told the boys the 'story' of the two brothers who loved each other so much that God decided to bless them with another brother. The youngest brother would start out a baby, who wouldn't do much besides eat, sleep, cry and need his diaper changed. But, even though it might seem like Mommy & Daddy spend lots of time caring for baby, they still loved their oldest sons very, very much. Eventually their baby brother would grow bigger and bigger and be able to play with them, and the three of them would be good buddies. They listened for awhile and then Joshua said he was ready for his bedtime snack. Oh, how I love my boys! I'm looking forward to the newest addition and hope that the boys have an easy transition, as do we.

Today was a great June day. If all goes well, we plan on taking the boys to the museum tomorrow since we have two free tickets. I'll post more when I have time!