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It was Leah's turn to take a trip to the farm. Our playgroup headed out to Gaver Farm for a morning of Fall fun.

The farm had so many things for the girls to do, with at least 6 different mazes.

The corn crib was a big hit. Fun like a sandbox, but without all the sand all over!

Leah and Rachel had a great time test driving the tractors.

Leah loved this slide! She probably went down it 15 times, and insisted on doing it all by herself. It is made of ridged tubes, so she'd bump down and laugh all the way.

Chad chaperoned Molly's class to a nearby farm with a pumpkin patch. Before leaving, Ms. Colella talked about the animals they'd see and read a story about pumpkins.

It was a tight squeeze on the bus, so Chad shared a seat with Molly and her friend Catherine.

After a talk about the farm, it was time for a hay ride on a beautiful day. It's hard to believe it's late October with 80 degree days.

They even rode through a stream. The kids had to get a peak at the approaching water. Molly was a bit worried that they might sink.

She picked corn, cotton, and a pumpkin, though she doesn't seem too sure of her choice in this picture.

Molly was even brave enough to feed this goat some corn out of her hand.

On the way home, several kids took a little snooze after a busy day. Molly snuggled up and closed her eyes, though she never actually fell asleep.

I set up a tour of Rita's Italian Ice on Friday morning for some friends. Miss Dora taught the kids all about how the ice and custard are made.

After learning how to make the cool treats, the kids played a "Guess the Flavor" game with samples of the Italian ice. They tried banana, mango, oatmeal raisin cookie, and Sour Patch Kids.

Leah was kind enough to share her samples with me. "Want some, Mommy?"

Did you know that July was National Blueberry month? In honor of that, the girls, some friends and I headed up to Larriland Farm to pick blueberries on Thursday. The hot weather didn't stop the kids from having a great time!

Leah was great at picking the blueberries, though not one actually made it into her bag.

The next stop was the red and purple raspberries. Clearly, Leah preferred the blueberries since there are actually raspberries left in her box! (Or it could have been that she had to share this box with Mommy!)

Looking for the perfect one!

I could have stayed all day picking fruit, but the kids had had enough. We now have blueberry ice cream to show for our efforts!

I chaperoned Molly's class field trip to Clark's Elioak Farm this week. The kids started off the morning with a hay ride, keeping an eye out for silly-faced trees. Molly must have spotted one!

The hay ride ended at the Pumpkin Patch. All the pumpkins were the perfect size for preschoolers.

Molly picked up at least 4 pumpkins stating, "No, that's too heavy" before she settled on one.

Our tour guide brought out several animals for the kids to pet. Molly is always hesitant to pet animals, but she took a chance with this baby chick.

If petting the baby chick was a stretch for Molly, feeding the goats was definitely out. However, her classmates had a fun time handing out the snacks.

The line up.

Cinderella and her Prince(ss)

What could they be saying…Molly: "What was your favorite part?" Taryn: "Hmmm, let me think about that…"

And finally…16 bumps on a log!

Summer!

It's strawberry season here, so the girls and I went to a local farm to pick strawberries. Leah decided to make sure they were nice and ripe for eating!

Molly was instructed to pick only the strawberries that were red all over. Here she is showing off some of her loot. (Much like she did a few years ago!)

And the weather has warmed up enough to pull out the water table. The girls have played with it almost every day since.

A bit of fun from the field trip to the zoo. They actually did their power walking for several minutes, but it didn't last very long once I got in front of them to take the video. They seemed to think I was a great target for attacking.

The big field trip of the year happened this week - the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. I got to go as a chaperone along with many other parents. One of the highlights of the trip was that we rode in a school bus there and back. Here's Molly gazing at school as we pull away.

Once we got to the zoo, the kids were excited to see some animals. I believe Molly and Taryn are looking at some cranes here.

Here are Cole, Indraja, Jenna, and Molly watching the ducks in the African Aviary.

We saw lots of big animals as well, like rhinoceroses, leopards, lions, chimpanzees, and more. This cheetah was sleeping pretty close to the glass, so the kids decided it needed to wake up. They proceeded to shout "wake up" over and over at it. It didn't work, as the cheetah merely opened its eyes slightly for a second before closing them back.

The kids even got to feed a giraffe. Here's Molly placing her leaves on its very long tongue. I'm surprised she was brave enough to do this. She's usually scared of animals, and this was a pretty big one.

I think he likes it. And don't worry, Taryn and Ava already had their turn feeding it.

After feeding the giraffe, the kids got to wash their hands in this big basin with shower heads. They all got a kick out of it, especially Molly.

All the kids climbed up to see the elephants. This picture is typical of most of what I saw all day - the backs of the kids as they looked at the animals.

We tried to take a picture of the six girls that stuck together throughout the trip with the giraffe in the background (to go with their shirts), but posing six 3-4 year olds can be challenging. This is the best I got.

We had to book it to get back to the bus on time, as no one wanted to leave. Fortunately, more fun was still in store for us - a bus ride home. Here, Molly and Jenna are having fun with the wind blowing in their hair on the bus ride home for a few seconds before being told to sit down.

It was a great trip, and the kids in our group had a great time. I'm very glad I got to go with them. There are a bunch more pictures on Flickr starting here.

The girls and I headed to Port Discovery Children's Museum with our playgroup this week. Leah loved playing in the Wonders of Water room.

Molly and Simon had fun filling this cylinder causing it to spin due to the power of water.

A couple of our playgroup dad's came along for the fun too. Zach is doing a great job overseeing the boat building.

The museum has three floors of exhibits for the kids to discover. Any kind of "shopping" area was a hit!

While the big kids played in the three story tree house, the toddlers checked out the new Tot Trails exhibit. Leah liked making these pegs light up.

And she thought it was fun to sit in these seats that looked a lot like turtle shells.

What happened to waiting until 16 before she got behind the wheel?

The Music Studio was great. They loved playing with the Boomwhackers and the big drum.

Queen for a day...or may be just a moment!

Before we left, the kids requested to play in the Wonders of Water room again. Standing inside the big bubble was a must-do since you've already seen that Molly loves bubbles!

We decided to have one more family fun activity while G'Mom and Grampa were in town, so we headed to the National Aquarium. Molly loved it, and got excited about almost everything we saw. She just kept running up to each enclosure and exclaiming "Mom, look, more fish!"

We made sure to hit the newest exhibit, Jellies Invasion. There were so many jellyfish!

One of the highlights of the trip was the dolphin show. It's not Sea World, but it was good stuff.

Molly decided that she wanted to use the map (like Dora does).

Molly's checked out some very large sea turtles in the "Animal Planet Australia: Wild Extremes" exhibit, though she wass so close to the glass that we got two pictures of her.