Pony Rides and Mini Farm Animals

With Todd heading back to work today, we wanted to take Lauren out for the day yesterday to enjoy the end of (our) summer. We all needed to get out of the house and into the fresh air, so we headed over to Tanglewood Farms with the Crunkletons to see the miniature farm animals. As a bonus, admission included a pony ride!

Beaming the entire ride, Lauren LOVED being on the pony! She even told Mommy not to hang on (fat chance, kiddo!).

Lauren's hair is finally long enough for braids. I can't believe she sat still long enough for me to french braid her unruly curls. Of course, by the time this picture was taken she looked like a total ragamuffin! :)

Lauren was VERY nervous in the variou animal pens, so she had to be held. I think it freaked her out to have the animals coming right up to us, and in the case of the goats, even jumping up on us, vying for the bread pieces. Here we are going to see the mini-jersey cows and the mini-llamas. I thought she'd really dig the llamas, especially since the LLAMA LLAMA RED PAJAMA book is her current fave. No such luck. Maybe it's because they were taller than many of the other animals we saw, with their long necks...?

Here she safely feeds the goats from behind the gate. We also saw mini-sheep (including black ones in honor of her oft-sung song "Baa Baa Black Sheep"), pigs, donkeys, shetland ponies, goats, bunnies, manx cats....all "mini" of course! She loved hearing the sheep bleat, the pigs oink, grunt and snort, and the donkeys bray. But...only from the safety of mom or dad's arms, naturally. Quite a load in 95 or so degrees to have to carry her around!

Riding on a rocking horse.

Mommy makes another rare appearance on the blog, as we two were total "rock stars" in our shades. Lauren's have little strawberries on them. How cool is that?!

A family portrait on the only non-mini thing at the whole farm-- a GIGANTIC chair.

Total Chunkaroo!

Todd weighed Davis with his certified fishing scale yesterday and he was a whopping 15 lbs!!!! Just check out those chunky little thighs...

He's full of smiles and giggles now, and still as sweet as can be.

Caught on Camera...

His Very First Smiles!

Like a Butter's Dream

Lauren's version of Row, Row, Row Your Boat this morning went a little something like this:

Row Row Row Your Boat

Gently Down the Stream

Merrily Merrily

LIke a Butter's Dream

She was pretty insistent when I tried to tell her the correct words that, well....I was completely crazy and completely wrong. That's my child, certainly. :)

Davis- 7 weeks

Davis, seen here at 7 weeks today, is such a blessing to us. He's a mellow baby, really only fussing when he wants his diaper changed, when we aren't feeding him fast enough, or when the toots just won't come. :) He's a natural addition to our family and we can barely remember life before his arrival.

Boy Bonding

Daddy and Davis are cashed out after a tough morning of golf (Daddy) and life (Davis). I love D's little navy shorts. He already dresses like his Pop!

Our Little Big Leaguer

Our Davis at 6 weeks old, in 3 month size clothes already...I think he might eat us out of house and home before he's full-grown! Here he is in a baseball outfit, compliments of Nana and Umpy. Sadly the shortall covers the multiple fat rolls quickly becoming a semi-permanent fixture on his chubby thighs! He even has baseballs on his socks. Overkill? Perhaps. Todd and I have decided that "Starting Pitcher, Davis Marschke" has a nice ring to it... :)

Lauren let him borrow "HER BASEBALL" as a prop for the photo shoot. :)

Always one to be in the mix, Lauren wanted to "help" me take pictures. She pushed the button on several shots and actually did pretty well on centering the photos. A budding photographer, perhaps?? Then, naturally, she wanted to see some shots with her face in the frame.