Family Farm Fun

Having a pet pig (even in a farming town) is quite an anomaly, so people are always interested in hearing about Festus and meeting him. Loves the attention School Trip #1 In January, Festus visited 1st grade with Bah. We brought him at the end of the day to help the teacher avoid chaos. Right when I got there, the kids were so adorable making sure to be very calm and quiet. Bah and I had everyone sit in a circle on the floor. She then gave each of her classmates a Cheerio. I put Festus down and let him get acclimated which took about two seconds. 😀 He walked around the circle politely taking a Cheerio from each student. He did that one more time, and then the kids took turns holding him. They all (Festus included) did great; he didn't even squeal at all. I tried to get him to perform a trick, but he was more interested in investigating instead. It was a fun experience, and the best part was seeing Bah beam with joy over her sweet piggy. Passing around Festus Bah, he...

Every year at the beginning of school, parents are asked to help or volunteer (if possible) for one of the holiday parties: Halloween, Christmas, or Valentine's Day. I always let the girls decide which ones they want me to help with. This year, both decided on Valentine's Day. As a result, we have 52 treats to make plus their own class Valentines and boxes. Pig and unicorn Valentine boxes Once I got the note from preschool that Boo was responsible for bringing the "eat at school" snack, I scoured Pinterest for ideas. I gave her the options of: a popcorn, marshmallow, snickers, M&M mix heart-shaped and chocolate dipped Rice Krispie treats heart-shaped sugar cookies chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes strawberry shortcake trifle cups She (not surprisingly) chose the strawberry shortcake trifle cups. This weekend we worked on getting everything baked and prepared, and on Monday we put it all together. I looked at quite a few different recipes and i...

Cousin E and Bubs What do farm kids do in the winter? Not to sound too redneck, but, of course, they go out muddin' and shootin.' 😀 This Colorado January has had such crazy weather that it goes from three inches of snow to sunshine within two days. A few weekends ago, it peaked at almost 52 degrees, so we decided to head to the farm for some fun. The kids hadn't been out to the farm since harvest ended which meant they were very excited to play. Near the end of July, we upgraded our bench Gator to a two-row Ranger. While we were shopping, we bought the girls a little four wheeler for all of the hard work they had done over the summer. They were troopers out there every day helping us irrigate, giving up a family vacation to hoe pumpkins, and hardly complaining at all. Family-sized ride Since we bought it so late in the summer and then got busy with back to school and the opening of Pumpkins and More A-maiz-ing Farm , they didn't have much time to play w...

Life with a piggy is not everything I imagined it would be, so far, it has been even better. I didn't go into too much detail on this in previous blogs, but the girls started asking for a pet pig in June of 2016. After Boots gave us the "okay," I started following a few nearby breeders on Facebook and saw the cutest picture of a little piglet for sale. It had us hooked. I looked around a little more and reading reviews. The reviews for the original breeder were mixed between positive and negative which made me nervous. After more research, I found our current breeder. She had wonderful reviews, her adult pigs looked well-taken care of, and she had pictures of her young daughter playing with the pigs. At the time, she had one piglet available with more upcoming litters. I messaged her, but someone already had a hold on the posted piglet and was confirming that evening if it was for sure. If not, we were second in line. Looking back on it now, I am so thankful that we were ...

Happy unexpected snow day to me! Kids in the Holyoke school district already had today off, but it was scheduled as a teacher in-service day. Last night around 6 pm, though, they called for a snow day. We had a wonderful, wet snow perfect for making a snowman and having snowball fights. The kids' Olaf snowman After so much fun outside, it was time to come in and warm up. As I have mentioned multiple times, my girls are crafters. They love anything to do with crafting. Since we had the whole afternoon to ourselves, I decided to plan a craft. I always like to try to sneak a little education in there too, so I coordinated a storytime and craft. The book we are reading is The Mitten by Jan Brett. This is one of my kids' favorites and is a great way to incorporate many multi-level crafts. In fact, when I started gathering the book and supplies, Boo told me about a fun activity they did in preschool after reading the story: they pretended to be the animals fitting inside ...

How many of you out there experience the post-holiday slump? I always feel like the first few weeks of January are depressing. The glow and excitement of the holidays are over. The weather is usually cold and gloomy. My house is in shambles from all-over toys, and I am crabby from trying to cut back on sweets. This year, though, I am working on continuing the joyful spirit and not allowing myself to get down in the dumps. I have found some techniques to help keep me on track that I am excited to share. 1. Make a routine and stick to it. This can be applied in almost every area of life but is especially useful in balancing work and home life. For some people, this may sound like torture, but my type A personality thrives on a schedule and organization. My routine revolves around efficiency. When I wake up, I shower and get the kids' breakfast ready. Then I wake them up so they can get dressed while I do my hair. When they are dressed, I do their hair while they brush th...

Everyone, please say hello to the newest addition to our farm family: Festus. He was the kids' Christmas present from us. We picked him up about a week before Christmas, and so far he is settling in nicely. He enjoys cuddling with the kids and definitely enjoys his meal time! Right now, he is inside when we are home, and in the garage in a pen when we are not home. We are also working on harness and leash training to get him outside more. I cannot believe how smart he is already. He picked up on litter box training after just a day, and he already spins for a treat! On the ride home Snuggled with Boo Getting treats from Bubs Napping on Bah If you don't know much about mini pigs, there is a huge misconception about them. Everybody thinks that a mini, micro, or teacup pig will stay tiny its whole life. However, a pig is considered "mini" if it is under 300 pounds! So many people out there starve or stunt their pigs to keep them small due to ...