Why I Had Children

Today our church hosted an event at a farm outside of Stuttgart called Der Sonnenhof (www.dersonnenhof.com). We got a little lost as someone, all right--it was ME, didn't get the correct address entered in the navigation system. Eventually we turned up at the farm and found the event in full swing. The church had a nice tent set up with tables, heaps of great food and drinks, crafts for the kids, etc.

There were pony rides. It was hard to control myself and not run over and jump on for my ride. The pony looked very sturdy, I think he could have handled a heavier load than a four-year-old. Somehow I maintained my dignity and stayed behind the lens of the camera. Annika rode first, two laps and then Josiah did his two laps.

Side note: as I was reading the junior fiction shelves at the library this morning (volunteer time), I ran across an entire shelf of Marguerite Henry books. Remember "Misty of Chincoteague" and all of those horse books? I remember poring over them while I was going through my horse phase. God, I wanted a horse. I really, really wanted a horse. Anyway, I had forgotten about Marguerite Henry.

Back to Der Sonnenhof. After pony rides, we had a little snack of bratwurst and brownies, then we went to check out some of the other animals. There was a nice fat sow and her six little pink piglets. Check out the picture of her nursing them...talk about annoying. Six rambunctious piglets switching from nipple to nipple to nipple, jumping all over her and trampling each other. And she's covered with flies. Sweet job, motherhood. I should hang that picture up somewhere and look at it when Josiah and Annika start driving me crazy.

We also did the corn maze. Annika led the four of us and wow--she did a really good job. We didn't meet any dead ends. Or maybe the maze was ridiculously easy--solvable by a 2-1/2 year old. I don't know, but we didn't get lost. See the nice picture of Josiah in the corn maze. I just don't know where he gets that facial expression!

After the corn maze, it was back to pet some horses. Josiah still had his cob from the corn maze, so of course, the horses loved him and wanted to eat him up. Just as we were about to leave, Josiah slipped and fell under the bottom rail of the fence into the sweet combination mud/horse manure. He seemed disappointed that I didn't take a picture of it. Don't worry my son, there will be plenty of opportunities to document your embarassing moments in the future.

We finished up some more craft projects...Josiah painted a cornucopia and a little indian boy black. All black as pitch. I guess it's an evil cornucopia or something. The horn of evil plenty. We carved a pumpkin.

We had a lot of fun on a beautiful day. This is why I had children. For harvest fairs and pumpkins and oohing and ahhing over piglets and ponies. It's the best! Enjoy the pics.