What does the farmer say?

This parody of "What Does the Fox Say?" is cracking me up this morning!  Ainsley's even enjoying listening to it as she dances around my office, asking me to play it again and again.  I think I laughed out loud a few times, because I'm pretty sure some of the things were written into the song especially for Joel.

Here are some of my favorite lines:

"Working nights and dirty clothes." 

Ugh!  What farmer's wife doesn't get sick of both!!!  Finding corn and beans in my washer and dryer are wonderful.  Let's not even mention the cow poop that goes through my washer.  Yuck!

"Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn" and "Wave, wave, wave, wave".

Yep, that's a farmer for you.  Joel waves to everyone, just like every other farmer I know.  We'll be in the big city driving down the interstate and Joel tries waving to everyone.  How impossible is that?!  Okay, maybe it's not THAT bad, but around every small town, you wave to everyone.  I'm really not complaining, because it is one of the nice things about living in a small town.  Can you imagine if someone in New York City tried waving to everyone and the looks they would get?!

And, my favorite that is my husband through and through....

"Arms are tan, legs are white, pliers on your side"

Holy moly!  If that's not Joel, I don't know what is!  The only thing the need to add is the "hat tan line" and it would be complete. 

Some other things I think should have made the cut:

dirty fingernails, greasy hands, stinky pickup truck, broken down equipment, and early mornings

Of course, they missed one of the main things a farmer says (or at least my husband).  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!  Every time I try to call Joel, that comes out of his mouth at least once during the conversation.  If he's in the combine or tractor:  Shit!  He's hit a hole or dumped some corn/beans.  If he's at the shed:  Shit!  He's trying to work on some equipment and dropped a tool.  It never fails.  I'm always a burden when I call!

Trip to the zoo

I've been wanting to take Ainsley to the St. Louis zoo for awhile, but Joel was always too busy to go.  Since Joel's in the fields, Kathleen watched Lily and Ainsley and I headed to the zoo with Mom, Mark, Elizabeth, Rowdy, and Taegan (Elizabeth's brother).  I forgot how big that zoo is.  It took us half of the day to get through it and we didn't even do everything.  Ainsley was beyond ready for a nap, and we saw everything the kids wanted to see so we called it a day.

I love Rowdy's pose!

These two were in their matching penguin sweaters and were not happy when the penguins weren't there!

Ainsley was excited about seeing the monkeys, and she quickly found Uncle Tanner!

 

She said that one was Uncle Tanner...

It was so fun to watch Ainsley's face and hear what she had to say about the animals.  She loved the monkeys, bears, giraffes, lions, elephants, and zebras.  There was one animal that was pretty much a glorified cow, and when we left them she kept saying how the cows were stinky!

Ainsley would look for baby animals every time we would stop.  She wanted to hold every single baby animal.  She would hold her hands out and say:  "I want to hold baby elephant", etc.  We didn't go into the children's portion of the zoo, so she didn't get to actually hold any of the animals, but she sure would have loved it! 

 

As soon as we walked into the zoo, Ainsley heard the train.  She was finally able to ride the train at the end of the day.  She didn't even get scared when we went through the dark tunnels.  All she would say while we were going through them was:  "Mommy, it's gark".  Yes, that's a "g" in "dark".  It cracks me and Joel up when she says it!

She also got to ride the carousel and picked to ride "Uncle Tanner"....the ape!

Ainsley was asleep within 5 minutes of getting in the car on the way home and Rowdy didn't last either.  We wore them out!

 

It's NOT my party and I'll cry if I want to...

I mentioned earlier that Ainsley cries every time we sing "Happy Birthday" to someone.  Well, she didn't let us down the other night.  I made a cake for Rita's birthday and as soon as we started singing, Ainsley lost it.  Here's the video! Ignore our wonderful singing abilities!  Why in the world does she cry while we sing?! 

We bought flowers for Rita's birthday and Lily was eyeing them all day.  She would reach over for them and then would make the most terrible face and start crying when she couldn't reach them.

She was much happier when I finally scooted her over so she could actually touch them.

Apple Orchard

You can't beat a Saturday morning trip to the Apple Orchard with your best friend!  Ainsley was so excited to go pick apples with "Ha-yee". 

I'm still kicking myself that I didn't buy some of these mums that morning.  They were beautiful!

Broom's was having their apple festival last weekend, so there was lots of things for the kids to do.  We got there shortly after they opened, so the girls had the bounce house and slide to themselves!  Of course, that's the only reason this over-protective mother let Ainsley bounce.  The girls didn't care for the actual bounce house much, but the slide was a different story.  They couldn't get enough of it!  It was so much fun watching their faces as they went down the slide.  Ainsley even took Hadlee out after going down one time.  Here's a video....ignore our talking in the background and give the girls a few minutes to climb back up the ladder to the top!

 

The petting zoo didn't grab Ainsley's attention, but the ponies sure did!  She couldn't wait to get on the white one.  We walked along beside the girls as they rode.  It didn't look like the ponies were going very fast, but we were getting tired by the time they finally stopped.  I don't know how much longer I would have been able to keep walking and I wasn't even the pregnant one!

Somehow, we were able to convince the girls to bypass the playground equipment and sand box and head over to the apple trees.  The girls knew exactly what to do and wasted no time sinking their teeth into some apples!

 

 

I think both girls had fun pulling the apples off the tree and running around with each other.  They didn't even fight, and if they did, there were no tears involved.  I call that a success! 

 

We loaded up the wagons with our girls and apples and made our way over to the pumpkin patch.  The girls were getting tired at this point, and didn't really want anything to do with the pumpkins so we decided to call it a day.  We're headed out to the pumpkin patch this weekend for the pumpkin festival!

 

A ponytail and guacamole?!

I didn't think the day would ever come.  The day that Ainsley let me put her hair in a ponytail.  She's refused for the last year, and every time I would even start to gather all of her hair in a ponytail or mention putting her hair in one, she would give me the nastiest look followed with:  "NO!"  If I was able to wrestle her down and actually get her hair pulled back, she would pull it out within seconds.  It wasn't worth the fight.  That is, until last week!  I was in the bathroom putting my hair in a ponytail and told Ainsley I was going to go downstairs to work out.  I asked her if she wanted to work out with me, to which she replied:  "Yes".  I asked her if she wanted her hair in a ponytail like Mommy's and to my surprise she replied:  "Yes, in a mi-mi (Minnie) ponytail".  She has some ponytail holders with Minnie on them and ran into her room to find it.  Sure enough, she sat still while I pulled her hair back.  I couldn't believe it!

On a side note:  I'm determined to lose these last 10 pounds.  I started working out last week with the Biggest Loser dvd's and Ainsley is right there beside me.  I don't know how much of the dvd I actually followed on the first night because I was too busy laughing watching Ainsley try to do jumping jacks, crunches, and lift the dumb bells!  She would do a few and then fall down on the floor, panting, saying:  "It's too hard!" 

I made guacamole one day for lunch and Ainsley couldn't get enough of it.  She's such a picky eater, but I always offer her everything we eat.  She dipped a chip in and was hooked.  I don't know how many chips she actually ate, because she would just use the chip as a spoon.  She would get some guacamole on the chip, eat the guacamole off the chip (without eating the chip) and then dip it again and repeat. 

Dr. Ainsley Freeman has a ring to it, right?!  It sounds pretty good to me, because, you know she's going to be one smart cookie and get all her schooling done before she marries and has kids, which will include medical school.  Ainsley loves her doctor kits and will walk around the house carrying them calling herself:  "Dr. Ainsley".  It's so funny!  If I mention that anything hurts, she's quick to look at me, run into the other room to grab her doctor kit and run back into the room yelling:  "Dr. Ainsley"!  It sure would be nice to have a doctor in the family!

Dr. Ainsley checking out Uncle Tanner

Lani was a good patient

For the longest time, Ainsley didn't want anything to do with Lani.  Thankfully, she's finally starting to warm up to her and they've started playing really well together.  Lani still doesn't rank up there with Jack yet, but I don't think she's far from it.  I don't know why, but Ainsley always asks to go to "Jack's house".  It's never Uncle Jeremy, Aunt Kathleen, or Lani's house, it's always Jack's house.

Playing house and babies

We took Ainsley to the Chinese buffet one evening.  Let's just say we had the wild child that was running all around the buffet carts in her boots to find her Dad, but it was the Chinese buffet, so who really cared.  We fit right in!  Following in her cousin Jack's footsteps, she absolutely loved watching herself eat in the big mirrors that line the booths.  I'm pretty sure they both got that from Jeremy!!!

If I'm doing laundry, and Ainsley's home, I always have a helper.  She has to put every article of clothing in the washer and take every article of clothing out of the dryer, shake it, and then hand it to me to fold or hang up.  Laundry takes three times as long as it should, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Daddy's socks are her favorite

Playing hide and seek!

Ainsley always asks to play tractors.  She never asks Joel, it's always me.  I don't know the first thing about "playing tractors" and try to convince her to play baby dolls with me or train, or something else, but she refuses.  It's always tractors. 

Another new thing she's recently started asking is to play "cards".  She has some alphabet cards and will sit and play with them for an hour at a time.  I line 3 or 4 cards up on the floor in front of her and ask her to show me where a specific letter is in the line up and she thinks it's just the best thing!  She's getting pretty good at identifying (some) letters. 

Little sister is always watching big sister.  Always.

She's hooked on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Easter dvd right now.  Pete forgets to say:  "Miska Mouska Mickey Mouse" during the episode and the clubhouse disappears.  Here's Ainsley telling me what Pete forgot to say.