Home on the Range

Guest post by Crazy Fox.

We went to a cattle ranch and we saw a lot of cows and some babies.

There was over 325 cows all together and we got to feed them all.

We got to ride on a hay wagon and it was fun.

The cows were hungry.

I like this cow a lot because he looks cool.

These cows are heifers. That means they have not given birth to a calf.

Just One Extra Hour . . .

So much for resolutions.

We woke up this morning to fresh snow. I had big plans for today. A new week, a new year and a new schedule. We were going to start school as soon as the Zookeeper left for work. The only problem is, I love to have fun with my kids. I love to make memories with them. I think it is one of the joys of home schooling to tell your kids they can go play in the falling snow. We still got all our school work done. We just took one extra hour of Christmas vacation.

Little Lady and Crazy Fox making snow bricks.

Digging Badger making a stockpile of snowballs.
(Thanks Great Grandma and Great Grandpa!)

Crazy Fox sliding down the hill.

Digging Badger on his snowboard.

Little Lady doing what Little Lady does.

Little Lady's Tobaggan Trouble

This morning's fun started out great. Little Lady lugged the toboggan up the short slope and waited for her turn to go down. She has learned it is better to let one of her boys go down first to pack down the snow.

She was all set and ready to go.

She gave it a little forward heave ho, but she didn't move.

Her brother gave her a little help and she started in a downhill direction.

But still no speed. None at all.
She leaned over the side and started digging herself out. All three of them were laughing so hard. Little Lady continually cracks us up. She was just so matter-of-fact in the way she decided that she could dig her sled out and gain the speed she was looking for. All the while laughing with that deep belly laugh, the genuinely tickled laugh that can not be reproduced. It is the laugh that comes out of her when she is making other people laugh. The noise that allows her to get away with almost anything.

One more little heave ho, and she was off!

Little Lady guiding the toboggan like a pro.
Can I have some hot cocoa?
I love that girl!

Happy New Year!

The kids and I had a quiet evening at home. Well, it wasn't really quiet. You see we took all of the Christmas decorations off the tree and transformed it into a New Year's Eve tree. We put shiny hats and horns and sparkly tinsel and garland all over it.

We had a basket of noise makers and instruments we found around the house. And the kids used them . . . all night long. It was really very festive, just not really quiet.

Little Lady helped me decorate our clock cake. We just used what we had on hand.

We made it 11:59 so we could do a count down.

Happy new year from our zoo to yours!