Homeschool field trip to the Apple Orchard

We took our first field trip of the school year! Center Grove Orchard had its first homeschool day. We met up with three of our homeschooling friends.  The orchard had three area's that offered demonstrations. We only made it to one because they have so many other fun educational things to do.

Apple Sorting
The girls with one of their friends, Olivia, learned all about Center Grove's apple sorting. They explained how they have only one man who picks ALL their apple. They have 6000 apple trees! They showed what he used to pick the apples, how he transports them, the machine that helps them sort them into small, medium and large sizes, and the huge drive in refrigerator that they store them in. They explained what they do with the "bad" ones; make apple cyder, apple sauce, etc. The girls got to go into the huge refrigerator where it was very cold and smelled of delicious apples!

We spent time jumping on the giant pillow, driving big and small pedal tractors, going down the huge slide, playing in the hay maze, checking out the animals (goats, pigs, sheep, horses, turkeys, chickens), playing in the corn pool, climbing in the spiderweb, milking the "cow", and taking a hayride out to the orchard to pick our 6 free apples! Whoa what a day!

We snapped lots of fun photo's too!

Their Alice in Wonderland set up was so cute.

Looking like a little country girl

I was a chicken so the wonderful Rachel helped the big girls go down and held Kayla on her lap

faces of pure delight

look at the wind in her hair!

apparently Kayla's hair was blowing in the wind all day long

silly faces

there were four of us mom's that planned to go together and we ended up meeting up with two other homeschooling mommas from our church, so fun!

such pretty girls

My favorite month, July!

The month of July is always my favorite, it holds two very special days. 
One being my sweet 6yr old's birthday!

This year we decided to have a joint party for the girls but I wanted to make sure to make Kiara feel special on her actual birthday so I tried this fun pinterest idea, after she fell asleep I added these fun streamers and balloons to her bedroom door. She LOVED it!

We also took her out to her favorite place, chuck e cheese.

I haven't done so well with keeping my camera on hand these days but I did manage to get one shot of the girls and their cousins at there Rock Star party. 

And one of cupcake time! The party was lots of fun and full of entertainment. They played sit on the balloon which provided some serious laughter for the adults. And the kids even put on a little show with their new blow up guitar, saxophone and microphone. 

Must give a shout out to my friend Stephanie Birmingham for the amazing strawberry lemonade cupcakes! AMAZING! Thanks Stephanie!!!

And the other being my favorite holiday, the Fouth of July! I've never really put my finger on exactly why indapendenc day is my fav. It could be because of a number of things, the fireworks, the sparklers, the cute red, white and blue outfits, the wonderful summer weather or the traditional holiday vacation. Who knows really?

This year we were unable to take that tradional holiday vacation with our families due to all that came with becoming home owners. But we still enjoyed our celebration with our church family at the large camp Walnut Creek owns, with food, volleyball and of course fireworks . 

Kayla just loves these girls

We all had some fun with Kiara's light up headband!

Kyle rocked it best

Sweet friends

she is my brave girl, didn't even flinch at the shooting sparks

Erin knows how to handle her sparklers!

Here's a few more photo's of our adventures in July...

Day at the new splash park a few blocks from our house, with my sister, two nephews and Lauren and her little man Corbin.

Lots of fun in our new backyard!

I've been memorizing the Beatitudes these past few weeks and trying to make sure I'm living them out in my daily life. 

Matthew 5:3-9 says

God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

God blesses those who mourn for they will be comforted.

God blesses those who are humble for they will inherit the whole earth.

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justic for they will be satisfied.

God blesses those who are merciful for they will be shown mercy. 

God blesses those whose hearts if pure for they will see God.

God blesses those who work for peace for they will be called children of God.