To Market, to market to buy a ...

Last Thursday I met up with my friend Juanita and her children at the St. Jacob's Farmer's Market. I just love the sights and sounds of the market and it's such a fun place to take the kids (as long as it's not busy). Almost all the vendors are indoors in the winter but a few brave produce folk continue to sell outside. The kids always love to peer in the windows of the cattle auctions and watch the farmers bidding. There's something about being around farmers and animals that makes me feel close to my roots. The smell of the barn brings me quickly back to reality, though :) Oh and the food, I love the smells of all the different foods. I skipped the apple fritters this time and had a doner (pronounced "dawn air ") for lunch. They are pitas stuffed with beef, vegetables and sauce and served warm. It was great to catch up with my friend and we both said we ought to do this more often!

Looking down the market aisle.

Outside by the produce stands.

Delicious looking apples.

Beautiful fresh flowers.

The gang all bundled up.

Buggy parking :)

The latest imagination game at our house has been Little House on the Prairie. I recently borrowed the first season of the Little House shows on DVD from the library. This is pretty much the first real movie the girls have watched. They usually only watch things that are very childish and have no real characters as they get scared pretty quickly. They were all thoroughly impressed with this 'new' style of show and quickly began playing it out in real life. Our lives were transferred into Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura and Carrie; poor Silas, there's no character to represent him. Anna solved that problem by naming him Charles after Pa's real name. So here I am driving Anna to the bus and back and the whole time she's referring to me as Ma, Naomi as Laura and Bethany as Carrie. It was quite cute and they kept this up seriously for quite some time. Anna even went as far as saying they were sitting in a horse and buggy when they were in the van, and that I was holding the reins by holding onto the steering wheel. Quite the imagination that girl has! I couldn't be more pleased though, as I believe that childhood should be full of imaginary play. It fosters such healthy fun and the kids learn to play on their own instead of being entertained by something or someone. It also helps that all three of the girls like to play together (for the most part) and so they have the help of each other to keep the fun going.

Here's Naomi proudly holding Silas. So far she is the one who takes the most interest in him and talks baby talk to him. She even interprets his cooing as words and then says, "See Mom, he just said 'OW' (or some other funny sound) as his first word!"