Three three year-olds go to the zoo

One of my young mom friends, Sarah, goes to the zoo often with her children.  

   Often!   Every week maybe.

      She knows I babysit my 3 year old granddaughter on Mondays.

She suggested we go with her and her 3 year old daughter and a 3 year old she babysits (another young mom friend's son).

 Claire, Brahm and Kate

 Kate is notorious for showing her baby doll to everyone.  It goes everywhere with her!
("What's her name?" I asked her this morning in Sunday School.  "Just Baby.")

The flamingos were really active that morning!
Looked like they were walking on water as they skimmed back and forth.

 Such beautiful birds!

We have a stuffed jaguar at our house that Claire loves to play with who looks just like this.  Even the same pose!

See the anteater's tongue?

Claire had to show Stephanie, the elephant, her Ellie Elephant.

Sarah found out that shortly after our visit, Stephanie was off exhibition getting acclimated to the new exhibit, Elephants of the Zambezi River Valley.  Soon 1 male and 5 females from Swaziland will join Stephanie!  

 These 3 year olds were having such fun!!

We gave them some coins and they had such fun watching them whirl around and around.

 Kate showing her dolly again.

 They took turns in the wagon.  Kate looks pretty worn out here.

"Let's do our penguin poses!" 

 A tradition.

Kate was having none of that!

After a picnic at the zoo, we headed home for naps.

They each were sucking on their fingers.

All do it in different ways.

They were sooooo very tired that we had to sing song after song after song to keep them awake!

"Jesus loves the little children"

"The wheels on the bus"

"Zacchaeus was a wee little man"

"The wise man built his house upon the rock"

"What other song do you want to sing?  Can you think of any others?"

And so for over 1/2 hour we sang and 

the children's eyes drooped more and more.

Sarah sent this picture.  They were all tuckered out!

Festivals

A couple of weeks ago was Taste of Newton and Bethel College Fall Fest.  Seems like the whole town shows up on Thursday night to eat walking tacos, verinika, pork chops, funnel cakes.....  Such a fun time meeting old neighbors and people you don't run in to on a regular basis.

(picture not mine)

I woke up on  Saturday morning at 4:20.  An earthquake rattled my dresser.  

The epicentre was in Oklahoma at a 4.4.

I couldn't go back to sleep and that was ok.  Saturday morning was the monthly bird walk on the Bethel College Sand Creek trail.  Every month it is at a different time and this time it was 7:30.  The time depends when they know the birds begin to wake up.

This walk is for anyone.  Beginners and those who really know their birds. 

 Most of us are in between.  We just love birds.

We learn about bird behaviours and begin to recognize bird calls.  We saw lots of birds this month.  They were very active.  There were so many robins getting ready to migrate!  Ours go south and we get some come to Kansas from the north.  Lots of blue jays and crows this morning along with many red flickers.  (see picture)  There were also bluebirds, cardinals, a yellow bellied woodpecker, tit mouse, nut hatch (heard it, didn't see it), hairy woodpecker and yellow-shafted flicker.

Of course there are many starlings.  Evidently Shakespeare mentioned them in some play and someone thought they should introduce them to the western world.  It ended up that they didn't bring the one Shakepeare was talking about.  And these starlings are a mess.  A pesky bird.  They chase away the pretty birds.  They can tolerate more ammonia than any bird, meaning that they don't clean up their poop in their nests.  Their only redeeming quality is their song.  They can imitate many songs, like the mockingbird.

A bird watcher joke:  A Eurasian dove, starling and sparrow went into a bar.  The bar tender said, "Have you been introduced?"   

If you didn't get it, all 3 of these birds were introduced to the United States.

After the walk, I headed out to Kerry's Barn Sale (Keriel Dairy).  I love this barn sale!  I try to go every October!  I get Christmas gifts and this year I won a raffle!!

(picture from Kerry's blog)

I brought home Dan's famous pulled pork sandwiches and Kerry's delicious mocha cupcakes!!

Our daughter was in Green Bay visiting a friend.  Adam texted to say he was bringing the girls to Bethel Fall Fest so we went to meet them there in the afternoon.

Ever since several kids from our church got E-coli, I'm not a fan of little children (especially ones who still suck their fingers) and petting zoos.  But Claire is hesitant about animals and so she just looks at the animals.  

 We love Mojos on campus!  We got some treats there.


And played at the park next to it.

 Dad lives close to the college so we stopped to see him and sing some songs to him.
Since then (this was 2 weeks ago) my Dad has had another stroke.  Prayers appreciated as we consider hospice.

It was close to supper so we took the family out.

Sophia saw this news about the presidential race.

"Race?  They have to run in races?"

Sophia LOVES anything about the presidents.  

She reads books about them.  

She can name most of them.  

She considers it lucky that I was born when Eisenhower was president.

We took a walk on the river path enjoying the beautiful fall day.

And had fun at a park!