Maple Season

by Heather | 1 Comment

We went to the grand opening of our friends’ maple sap shed this weekend. Chris and Melinda own Stoney Ridge Farms, about 10 minutes from our house.

Lots of people came out to support them. There were tours of their production equipment (you need to boil the water out of the sap to get syrup) and a pancake breakfast inside. They have around 3,200 trees tapped and Chris welded a lot of the equipment himself.

Outside there were tree tapping demonstrations and a presentation of the tools that are used.

Ben even got a turn, I was surprised how interested he was. It may have been the power tools…

Before we left, we headed out back to see the storage tank where all the sap is kept before it gets pumped inside to boil.

I think Ben was a little bummed that there weren’t any animals on this farm, but he had a ton of fun playing in the mud with his friend Easton.

And the tractors, the boys loved the tractors!

I wore Cassidy in my Ergo carrier the whole time. She was unfortunately bundled in Ben’s old snow suit so a few ladies thought she was a he. It’s hard being the second kid.

It was really neat to see all the family come out for our friends’ big day. Aunts, uncles, inlaws, brothers…all these people we’ve met at weddings and birthday parties were out helping. This is one of Chris’ brothers and his girlfriend.

Chris and Melinda, you guys rock! Thanks for sharing your maple farm with us!

They’re holding an open house again next weekend too, check out their website for more info!

Randoms

by Heather | 0 comments

Can I just say how thankful I am I have Andy as a husband? For many reasons, but specifically this week we’ve been looking at replacing our vacuum cleaner. It’s just the standard $60 model from walmart, we’ve had it since we got married (almost 8 years!) and I feel like it just pushes dirt around these days. So Andy took it upon himself to do research, compare brands and models, find out what we could get at different price ranges. What husband does that? It just really made me thankful, that he knew this was something important to me…and while we’ll decide together what one to get, I didn’t have to take all the time to think about it.

This week Cassidy rolled over from back to front. I didn’t see it but she wasn’t the way I’d left her in her crib ;-) She also started clapping when you say “Yay!” And she’s started waving at you when you say “Hi!” It’s super cute but my goodness, slow down baby girl. Actually I don’t know who taught her to clap and wave, but it wasn’t me. I’m totally enjoying Cassidy as a baby but I feel bad, I forgot about all the cute baby things you can teach them, oops. She still has to learn “so big!” so I’ll get on that :)

We watched Frozen this week, Ben loved it. Andy sat on the couch pretending to sing along to all the songs. It was hilarious, I don’t think he knew it was going to be a musical Disney movie. Ben calls it “the princess movie.”

I’m going to be starting a MOPS (Moms of preschoolers) group with a friend at church. We won’t actually be starting until the fall but the church offered to pay for the membership now because it was half off. Andy calls it the Brooms group (mops is an unfortunate acronym). Actually, our church is going to be moving too. We’re technically subletting from the Victor Park & Rec right now and they’re going to be moving. We can’t afford the $30k a month to rent the building from the owners. I honestly don’t know how the Park & Rec can afford that either. So, if anyone knows of any real estate opportunities in the Victor/Farmington area…

We tapped our maple tree out front again. It’s actually not even the right type of maple (it’s a silver maple) but the syrup we’re getting from it is tasty anyway. Sap is boiling away outside right now (you boil the water out of the sap to get syrup). Yesterday we went to the grand opening of our friends’ new sap shed, they have a 3,000+ maple tree production. It was so fun to see their farm and boiler he’d welded himself. Will post about that in a bit.

Shrek!

by Heather | 0 comments

When we were home visiting family a few weekends ago, I got to sit in on the dress rehearsal for Shrek. Andy’s dad volunteers at the Palace Theatre building sets and he took me to see one of the show’s run throughs. It was only dress rehearsal, but I enjoyed it so much! The production was very well done, actors and sets were pretty impressive. We only stayed for about 3/4 of it before I got a text from Andy that said Cassidy had been screaming for 20 minutes. Duty calls I suppose. This is the last weekend for the musical and I think all the tickets are sold out!

So I’m curious

by Heather | 7 Comments

Who reads this thing? Besides my parents :) If you have time, please leave a comment on this post with your name and maybe a little bit about yourself and how you know me (if you do). What do you like/dislike about the blog? What would you like to see me write about? I would love to know who’s following!

::crickets chirping::

8 months

by Heather | 0 comments

Cassidy is 8 months old! She babbles all the time, a lot of bababa’s during the day. Smiley and very responsive to everything that’s happening around her. If you happen to take something away from her she flips out though, screaming her displeasure. She adores her brother (who can make her giggle) and her kitties. Perks right up when either of them enter the room.

Still no crawling forward, she just spins herself in a circle and scoots backwards then gets stuck. No rush little girl! Rolls from front to back and almost back to front, just can’t maneuver that arm out of the way. She sits up really well and I can walk away, confident she won’t fall over.

She tends to prefer finger foods and feeding herself to the pureed food I’ve made. Rice, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, peas and green beans taste better when she picks them up from her tray, than when I try to feed her with a spoon. Sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin and the ‘orange foods’ are still a favorite. Still nursing, although she’s starting to get very distracted and tries to look around (while still attached!!!) It’s usually best for all parties involved if we go into a quiet room to focus on the task at hand. I let her play with a sippy cup and she’s ok with it, still pretty messy and learning how to tip her head back and use it.

As far as sleep goes, it’s still hit or miss. Actually this week she’s been going down at 7pm, waking at 11pm to eat and then falling asleep again until 5am. Eating again, then falling asleep until 7am. We’ll see if she keeps it up, but it’s so so so much better than waking 2-3 times a night. Naps are still hit or miss too, sometimes she’ll do two 40 minute ones, other times a 1 hour morning nap and a 2 hour afternoon nap. I really haven’t been able to determine a pattern, just thankful when she does nap!

No more pictures!

Hot cocoa

by Heather | 0 comments

We had snow days on Wednesday and Thursday. Well, Ben’s not in school yet but there was a blizzard that whipped through and then everyone needed a day of clean up. I actually even got a call from the school that things were closed, funny because I’d just registered Ben for fall UPK two days before.

We took advantage of all the snow and played outside for a long time. Andy had even used the snow blower to make paths in the backyard for Ben to run through. Afterwards we came inside and Ben insisted he needed hot cocoa. Excellent idea!