We start off our recap with Presidents' Day. Chris and I had off from work but Bennett's daycare was open. We took advantage of that and took a trip to Ikea. Then in the afternoon I finished sewing a bonnet for my costume.
Bennett and Daddy later had lots of fun racing some cars down a ramp made of Ikea boxes.
One day while in the car Bennett drew a picture of our cat Tony. We didn't see what he was doing as he was drawing, but he mentioned legs, a tail, the head, a collar, and a heart shaped tag. Considering most of his drawings are still indiscernible scribbles, we were rather impressed when we saw this.
On the 22nd Bennett had his last skating class. They gave him a ribbon indicating that he had passed Tot 1, but we're pretty skeptical about that. We had decided to hold off on signing him up again though because he spends a lot of time on the ice just people watching and doesn't seem all that interested. So maybe next year he'll be back?
The other exciting part of our weekend was that Chris and I along with Andrew, Gentry, and 9 strangers participated in a Dinner in a Country Village at OSV. Sturbridge explains it best:
Enjoy a unique opportunity to prepare and eat a meal as early New Englanders did. Participants gather in the Parsonage, where costumed interpreters oversee the preparations, but the guests do the roasting, baking, and mulling. Roast meat using a tin reflector oven, fire a brick bake oven, and mull spiced cider over the hearth before sitting down to enjoy the results, all by candlelight.Chris and I had gone to one of these events last March and knew we wanted to do it again. Andrew and Gentry agreed to join us, and Andrew also suggested that I dress up, so for the past two months I've been busy sewing. I'll get more into my costume at a later time, but for now here are a few pictures from the dinner.
While we were out Bennett spent the night with Nana. He had lots of fun baking, playing in the snow, etc.
On Sunday we picked Bennett up from Nana's house and went back to OSV. Yes, it's official. We're crazy. I showed a picture of my costume to one of the interpreters and her first thought was that I was Victoria. (Woo hoo! My costume was a success.) She then asked me why I didn't work/volunteer at OSV.
It was a good visit with a couple of baby animals. Button had her calf, a girl, earlier in the week Button and the calf were in a mostly private barn but one of the interpreters snuck us in to take a look. Button apparently wasn't too thrilled because she pushed the door closed on us. The message was clear- stay away from my baby.
There also was a baby lamb.
Perhaps the most entertaining part of the afternoon though was the running of the sheep. Typically the sheep are kept in a pasture at one side of the common during the day, and in the afternoon they run down the common to go to their barn for the night. At first that's what we thought was happening, but then we realized that none of the interpreters were around. Turns out the sheep had broken through their gate. Unfortunately the gate by the barn was closed so there were a number of confused sheep milling around. We thought about opening the gate for them, but soon a couple of interpreters arrived.
Bennett quickly turned a toy cow/ox/calf that he had received in January into Button's calf for use on his farm. "Shhh, my Button's calf is sleeping."
Continuing with the weekly pie, we once again had a Pork and Apple Pie.
Moving on to this past week...
Here I am rocking my baby while he rocks his baby
On Saturday morning I wanted to make my pie and Chris was busy with other things. I let Bennett watch Cars, but since I also wanted him to eat some breakfast (he chose cheese and crackers) I set him up on the couch with a tray. This worked rather well for containing crumbs. Otherwise he would have been up and down from the couch or would have forgotten about eating.
And speaking of pie, I found a new one in one of my cookbooks called Fruit Salad Pie. It had banana, pineapple, and strawberries with tapioca as a thickener/binder. It was ok, but I'm not sure that I would make it again.
After the pie came out of the oven we headed out to Sturbridge. Knowing that Button was going to have a calf soon we stopped at the gift shop and picked up a toy calf for Bennett so that he would have it when the time came. A few minutes later we learned that Bonnie had had her calf the night before. And it was a boy! The hope is now that Betsy will also have a boy so that they can be raised as a pair of oxen. If Betsy has a girl then this boy would be raised for about a year and then it would be sold.
We suggested to Rhys (the interpreter in charge of all the animals) that this new calf should be named Bennett since we come so often. We'll have to see if that happens. As it is, Button's calf still doesn't have a name. Rhys gave Bennett and I a sneak peek at the calf and later he brought others into the pen as well, but we lucked out with a much longer look. Since Chris had been in the cooper shop when Bennett and I saw the calf, he joined the line of people to get the quick peek. I had Bennett go with him and I gave Bennett the new calf. He proudly showed the calf his Bonnie's calf and Rhys asked if that was the calf for his Freeman Farm.
Bennett had also brought his Doc and Blue with him and of course had to show them to the real Doc and Blue. Here we have Blue giving Doc a bath.
After Sturbridge we headed out to Agawam. Luckily Bennett fell asleep quickly in the car, but it was still a shorter nap than we would have liked. Oh well. He had a blast playing with the other kids (he excitedly told us about their dance party). I'm sure he frustrated them a bit given that there's a bit of an age difference, but they were pretty good about it.
On Sunday we had a relatively quiet day. We visited Mimi and then ran some other errands.
