UW Dairy Cattle Center

Today we went with my Mom's Meetup group to the UW Dairy Cattle Center. One of the gals had arranged a tour for us. (Note: If you go, park in Lot 36. Parking is the main thing that holds us back from any campus activity. We parked way the heck away which wasn't too bad of a walk, but with 3 tired kiddos, the walk back was dreadful.)

Anyway, I knew the university had a dairy and we love going to watch them make ice cream and the cookies and cream is literally the best I've ever had, but I had no idea that there was a cattle center on campus! As we were walking over the bridge Claire asked, "What's that SMELL Mom?" -Cows. The gent that did our tour was so great with our littles. We had a handful of 2-3 year olds and then Claire got to come today, too. We started in a lobby area where we slipped on some shoe covers which are meant to protect the cows more than anything. He talked to us about the different cows and buildings and gave us lots of general information before we started the tour. None of us moms came from an agricultural background so we were clueless.

We walked in to where the cows are weighed when they arrived. All of the little girls liked running on the ramp. Then we got to see the cows. The University actually has 80 cows on campus. There are 700 cows in total, but most are kept at other study locations. Tiegan LOVES cows. She was so excited and squealed a lot. He talked to us for a while in front of the cows, but I can't remember what he said. I was too busy trying to keep my children from playing in their food.

Then we went and saw where they get the food and he talked about that for a while. It was super fascinating. He told us about food and it turns out the preparation has a big effect on how much milk the cows will provide. (Grinding vs. chopping) The cows are milked twice a day, and each gives off about 10 gallons of milk per day.(80-90 POUNDS of milk.) One of the gals gives 22 gallons per day.

Then we got to walk past the cows again and into another room where some of the cows are involved in different studies. And then we got to see where and how the cows get milked. You can actually come in at 4:30 to watch the cows get milked. They have a great viewing area, and since you aren't walking around the cows you don't need booties. They get milked from 4:30-5. He talked to us about the milking process and the system that scans their chips and will tell the students how much they weigh, how much milk they'll give, and how long it will take to milk to ensure the cow isn't over or under milked. He said it takes anywhere from 5-8 minutes to milk a cow.

We were a little short on time, our guide had a meeting right away, but usually he lets kids stick their hands into a cow's stomach and talks about the anatomy and how their stomachs work. I doubt any of the girls would have done it anyway. Maybe Aoife.

At one point during the tour, I thought Claire was sucking her thumb and I told her to stop. Turns out she was plugging her nose and whined a little when she stopped. "But mom, it's kind of stinky!"

It's so cool that the University has so much for kids and is so willing to give tours and show us all of the cool things! They didn't have any baby calves at the time, but he gave out his card so we'll be checking in and will definitely be back with those little babes arrive!

Frogs and Science.

It's been an eventful week. Earlier this week we caught frogs in the backyard. Aoife spotted the little guy and I quickly scooped him up. Everyone took turns holding it and loved it. Well, everybody except Claire. Towards the end she was in tears begging me to let it go. She was scared of it. Aoife was so tender with it and almost kissed it. Tiegan only squished him in her fist twice (He survived.) And eventually we let him go despite Aoife's pleas for a pet. It was the second one we've caught in our yard!

The next day we captured two caterpillars. Claire was the first to hold those and she proudly announced that caterpillars are her favorite animal. We had one fuzzy one and one squishy green one. Having a backyard is basically the greatest thing ever.

This morning, Aoife and I did some science together. She had a really hard time when Claire went to school. One day, Aoife was downstairs talking to me about breakfast because "I hun-gee Mama". Claire was upstairs getting dressed for school and made some comment about how excited she was to go to school. Aoife clenched her fists, stomped to the bottom of the stairs and yelled, "SHUT UP CLAIRE!!" She just misses her buddy and wants to go to school so badly, too.

Luckily, Mama Loveland was on top of it. She sent the girls a few outfits earlier, School outfits for Claire and some for the other two so they weren't left out. But later on she also sent a package just for Aoife. It had an opposites puzzle/matching game and a rainbow science kit!

 I love science. I've been saving it till the weather wasn't so awesome, but I couldn't hold off anymore. We broke out the kit this morning. We made rainbow milk, some colored paper, colored bubbles, and used a pipette to make lots of different colors. The kit has a ton more experiments for us to do later. Aoife especially loved using the pipette to measure and mix. She's very mechanically minded. I don't think she cared too much about making new colors so much as getting to squeeze it.  Honestly, it was a little frustrating. I wanted to do the experiments correctly and precisely and Aoife just kept reminding me, "I do it my SEWLF!"I suppose I can just play with it after the kids are in bed one night or something. Overall it was super fun and she seemed to really enjoy it. Whenever I was away cleaning up the previous experiment and getting the tools ready for the next she was singing an experiment song she made up. I'm sure when we pick up Claire later she'll say that we did experiments without Claire. We'll still working on not bragging and being kind.

Model Rockets

I love Amy Poehler's Smart Girls.  It's something I stalk and just can't get enough of. Earlier last week she had posted about two girls sending a homemade ship to the edge of space. Aoife loved it and had the video on repeat.




Seriously, how cool is that?! It reminded me of making rockets with my dad when I was a kid and launching them. I decided it was time to introduce my daughters to rockets.

Shopping is crazy enjoyable with only two littles, since Claire is in school. Aoife and I ran to Hobby Lobby where I've scoped the rockets before. We picked out a kit that had the base and two rockets, grabbed a few different engines, the packing paper, and some plastic cement.

After we got Claire for school and had lunch, we set to building. I can only kind of comprehend how much excitement was packed in their small bodies. They were bursting and impatient, but we survived and built some cool rockets!

We're pretty pumped to blast these bad boys off, but we'll probably wait until tomorrow evening so Ross can join in. Hope these littles can hold out and wait till then!