Lion's New Clothes.

Brinkley's creativity had grown at an exponential rate. She's drawing abstract things like wind and perspective (a horse close up and the horse far away). All on her own, I'm not teaching her these things. It's pretty impressive. 

One of my favorites that she did was some clothes for Lion. She taped them on. It was so cute. 

 On his shirt is a picture of his Lion family. 

 

Best Part of the Day

We're so glad when Daddy comes home! 

(Don't mind that Darce is in her pj's and Brinks is half naked.)

Critz

I love visiting cool farms that capitalize on stuff. Businessmen would be a more accurate term verses farmers. Those folks know what they are doing. 

They plant a few things, have a couple animals and then fill the farmland with lots of other stuff to fill your time and take your money. But it's fun! And we love it.

Actually, we lucked out though on the money end of things. Critz farms does an annual fall festival thingy that costs like $15 a person. We (unknowingly) came a day early and missed the crowd and all the hullabaloo and just got to enjoy the beauty, {some of} the activities, the many animals... ahem... like 4 of them, and even snuck into the gift shop that wasn't quite open. But what are they gonna do? Say "we don't want your money." Umm. No. So we got to peruse at our leisure while they filled up a bunch of balloons in the back room. 

The kids loved it. A hay maze, a variety of slides, a giant wooden boat (freaking awesome), a big wooden train and a playground. Not to mention the stinky animals. The chicks were brand new! We even fed the horse some grass. 

After appeasing the children, we did mommy stuff and visited the apple press (which wasn't up and running for tours and that's fine by me cuz it mighta been boring. But maybe not. Who am I to judge?) We accidentally happened upon the winery. We turned down the wine but said yes to corks with wobbly witches legs dangling off the top to add to our Halloween decor. 

We picked out a few perfect pumpkins and called it a day. A very perfect day.

Skaneateles

On another day while my mom was here, we visited Skaneateles. 

Guess how that is pronounced? 

You'll never guess.

Skinny-atlas.

Yep.

Anyway, it's like this fancy little town that people around here rave about. 

And it was cute. I give it that. It had a cool feel to it and a nice walkway out onto Lake Skaneateles (one of the finger lakes), plus a gazebo for some impromptu kid dancing.

But we didn't quite know what else to do there. We walked up and down the main street. It had a few boutiques we stopped in. But everything else was so ritzy and high end. Clothes I'd never buy. Shoes that I guarantee are too skinny for my wide feet. Purses not from thrift store. Restaurants we couldn't afford. There was a thrift store on the side of a building in a basement, but it closed at like 4:00 p.m. (as did most places) so, we missed it. And that was it. 

Oh, except the library was having a random honor code book sale on the front porch. You could pick out books, stick some money in an envelope and shove it through the mail slot. 

Oh, yes we did. 

It was beautiful though. I hate to sound all negative. We enjoyed it, really. I got a wonderful picture of the back side of some buildings. It made me feel so artsy and authentic. And I actually did buy a local artists line drawing and watercolor of the main street for 2 bucks. So, there's that. 

Maybe I should have talked to a local before visiting to know what the 'thing' to do around there was.

Okay, before I offend anybody that loves the place here's some pictures of our adventure.

Pretty rad, right?

Grandma Ginny visits New York

Mom mom came to visit us in New York for the first time! We love, love, love when she comes to visit. The girls love to love on her, and I love to have a helping hand! It's nice to have someone to go with when visiting new and exciting places. 

Not that Palmyra is new. Both of us have been there. But still. We loved every minute. Not only did we get to do the Sacred Grove and temple - there just happened to be a town festival going on! What are the odds, really?

So, we got to eat Hoffman hot dogs, take a horse drawn trailer ride, see booths and get ice cream. Just the kind of thing my mom and I love. We are suck suckers for festivals.