Hailey = Little Farmer

This morning I took Hailey to a class called "Little Farmers," which meets at Kelsey Creek Farm. I have mentioned this farm before, but it is part of our Bellevue park system (so it's free), and it is only a mile from our house. We go there almost once a week, because they have great farm animals to visit, and a great playground. Well, I have literally waited almost 2 years for Hailey to be old enough to take this class - it is all about doing farm chores and playing with the animals. She is as bonkers about animals as Drew is about his cars.

So, suffice it to say that Hailey was totally enthralled and mesmerized for the whole 90 minutes. We have 3 more classes, and today's theme was chickens. So, we started by feeding all of the chickens there (I swear Hailey went back to the feed bucket about 5x more than any of the other kids.) Then we got to go into the chicken coop and pick the eggs out from the hens! It was great. After that, we trudged into the back of the barn with our pails, and picked up shavings to then make new "beds" for the chickens to sleep in. Given how much Hailey "makes beds" for all of her stuffed animals, you can only imagine how much she loved this. She was in heaven...a real bed, for a real animal? Sign me up!

Then going with the chicken and egg theme, we actually cooked up the 11 eggs that we had gotten from the hens, and ate scrambled eggs for "snack time." (Not a snack you normally see at preschool events!). It was hilarious that I tried to give eggs to Hailey for b-fast this morning, which she refused, and then only 3 hours later, she was devouring them, and feeding them to me. Context is everything!

We also had arts-n-crafts time where we made "play beds" for these little tiny fake chickens; Hailey has been carrying hers around since we got home. Add a little reading time, puzzles, play-doh, and petting roosters, and it was a top-notch activity! Next week is goats!

Oh, and are you wondering what happened to the other 2/3 of my children? They were home with my nanny, in good hands. I just always try to make it a priority to do 1:1 activities with each of the kids, and this one was certainly perfect for Lil' Farmer Hailey.