A sleepover for Brendan

Friday, September 14:  I had a sleepover with Brendan Friday night. I picked him up from school and traffic was SO harsh, it took us an hour to get home. We ate a good meal together, read a bunch of good library books, and I listened intently to the lifecycle of the mealworm (as told by Brendan). I have a video of it on PhotoBooth, but evidently it was too "long" to load here. It WAS four minutes of Brendan explaining every single detail of a mealworm's life, repeating it in various ways. Brendan is very expressive. I was able to load it over on Facebook at least.

We got ready for bed, got the sleeping bags out, positioned my video screen appropriately, popped some buttery flavored popcorn, and settled down to what a movie Brendan had picked out from Netflix about the "buddies" and Christmas. Brendan loves movies about animals, and he had evidently seen this one a number of times before (!!), so he could tell me when the "good" parts were coming up. 

I just enjoy being with Brendan, no matter what ... he is a sweetheart through and through. He slept very well, probably being asleep by about 9:30. Good thing I decided to sleep as well, because he was up WAY before the sun was Saturday morning ...

Saturday. September 15:  It was somewhere around 5:55 when I heard Brendan saying that one of the stuff animals had been sleep walking on his face and woke him up! I did what I could to encourage slumber for a little while longer, but by about 6:30 I gave it up and we turned lights on and read some books for awhile. We had homemade banana bread, cantaloupe, and french toast for breakfast! Brendan was super pleased.

We decided to pay Schwallier's a visit a little after 9:00. I've taken all of the kiddos here at one time or other and it is always a good time. I had just been here two days prior with Kaitlynn!

Brendan wanted to go to the farm that he goes to now every Thursday after school. Brendan told me that this farm is a horse farm. The children can learn to take care of horses and other farm animals on their visits each week. He is very excited about this.

 Schwallier's, however, is NOT a horse farm. Brendan liked it anyway and did remember it from last year.

 I took a LOT of pictures of Brendan and this little kitty. I couldn't help myself!

 This is one little boy who should have a pet ... a kitty or a puppy ... perhaps a kitty would be easier, except they just don't stay kittens for very long! Puppies don't stay small either. But Brendan has a huge heart for both cats and dogs. He loved this little kitten so much.

 It had rained during the night, so everything was dripping wet ... including the hay. That didn't stop Brendan from enjoying himself though.

 Did you know that Brendan is 6.5 now?

 We played with the rubber docks a little bit too ...

 And we even road the cow train! The cow train only runs on weekends, that's why Kaity and I did not ride it. It's a very bumpy ride, but not too bad for $2 each.

 It's beautiful out here on the Ridge ...

 There is a pretend milking station. Brendan showed me how to milk a cow. He was quite good at it.

 And then we went back to playing with the kittens ...

 I think the love here was mutual ...

 Brendan had his usual chocolate sprinkled donut ... and cider (but Brendan LOVES cider and drank all of his).

 We played for a very long time in the corn as well ...

It was a super nice day to be out at Schwallier's. Thankfully the sun was out, the air was warm, and the mosquitoes were not too terrible this time of day.