Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center

 

On Friday, the boys and I took a trip to the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center. If you don't know Punxsutawney, it's the town of the famous Groundhog's Day. And they are PROUD of little Phil. This 101-year-old former US Post Office has been transformed into a kids' weather museum. They did a beautiful job at restoring the old building, and everything looked new and pristine.

We met up with one of my favorite friends, Briana, and her three little sons (who we don't get to see often enough!). All five boys had a blast in their hands-on experience learning about weather. Take a look!

 

We were alone in the center, so we had a personal tour guide to show us the displays.

Peeking at baby RJ!

The boys' favorite part of the center was this "tornado" twister slide which let them crash into stuffed blocks.

Ephraim was a big fan of climbing up the stairs to the slide and then clogging up the line by refusing to go down :)

These tornado-simulating pop bottles were a popular toy. So much so, that I bought one of the connectors in the gift shop so I can make one at home.

All the buddies! 6 months, 21 months, 2.5 years, 4 years, and 5 years :) They make a perfect height chart! They also look like cell-phone signal bars.

They're standing in front of a green screen as pretend meteorologists. This was a really cool feature of the museum!

The beautiful entryway, still retaining its early twentieth-century post office charm.

There were activity bags full of (at least) an hour's worth of learning fun.

 

They had a room set up as Punxsutawney Phil's cute little home.

 

But, where is Phil? 

And then it was my turn to play weather girl. I may need to change careers. ;)

After the museum, we walked down the street to the ever-fancy McDonald's. The boys filled up on chicken nuggets and chocolate milk before it was time to head home. 

They didn't want to smile for this photo because of the bright sun and the distraction of the white rocks on the ground. Ephraim had a hard time falling asleep for his nap, and later I found one of the white rocks in the back of his onesie. No wonder it was an uncomfortable ride home, haha.

So thankful for this amazing friend! Can't wait for more adventures together with our troop of boys :)

On THURSDAY, Astleigh and I are doing an Every Girl Link-Up called DAY TO DATE! We want to see how you make a work-appropriate outfit ready for a special night! (Or in my case, how to go from extra-casual mom to fancied-up wife.)

Pumpkin Farm Love

 

 On Saturday, we finally got to my October wish of going to a pumpkin farm! Though there is a pumpkin patch closer to us, Becky wrote me a sweet email detailing her favorite farm, and I knew we had to trek out her direction and see it for ourselves! When we got there, it was buzzing with families and shoppers. I don't believe the doors leading into the farm's store ever stayed shut for more than 5 seconds. After walking around the many sections of the country store, we found a playroom full of corn, and Nolan and Ephraim were excited to jump right in.

When they were done playing, we headed back outside and rode a tractor-pulled wagon out to the pumpkin patch! The ride was a bit chilly, but we were grateful that the rain held off the entire time we were there.

 

The view of the blue hills and color-speckled trees was gorgeous!

MorMor and Papa Don joined us on our pumpkin excursion. Ephraim got a big kick out of jumping over all of the pumpkins :)

 

 

 MorMor and her little buddy.

Back at the store, we bought a peck of juicy Honeycrisp apples and a small tub of apple butter that I can't wait to try!

 

This farm has fruit year-round, and I am already excited to come back in June for pick-your-own strawberry season!

I'm thankful for the fall memories made this weekend, and I hope my boys will enjoy this pumpkin farm tradition for years to come! 

Hope your weekend was fabulous!

Friday Favorites

 

Happy Friday! It's been one of those weeks when it snows way too early, we find out the dog has fleas, the whole family has sore throats and runny noses, and the to-do list is never-ending. But, we push on, and we hope that this last week of October will be much better! I am ready for the weekend and some adventuring with my three guys!

If you noticed this week, I have a new domain name! You can still type in floralandfudge.blogspot.com and get redirected here. I hope it's not confusing, but floralandfudge.com was unfortunately not available. So I went with the next best thing, my name :)

I attempted to make these adorable Frankenstein Marshmallow Pops from here, but they were not so easy! Mine didn't turn out well.  At least Nolan still thought they were cute! He heard me say that they looked more like the Hulk, so he kept asking for "another Hulkenstein". :)

 

I was a bit behind on blogging this week because I spent four nights glued to the TV while the Cubbies played the Mets in the National League Championship Series. And it went BADLY. The Cubs lost all four games. But I have so much hope for another great season next year!

 

On Wednesday, I shared some projects that Nolan and I worked on this week--all SPIDER themed for this Halloween season. It was so much fun to do these with him! My favorite is the spider made out his handprints :)

 

In yesterday's post, I reviewed Korie Robertson's new book Strong and Kind, which comes out next week! I love watching Korie on Duck Dynasty, so I knew that her book would be a great one. It's an all-encompassing parenting book about raising kids of high character. It's full of personal stories from their own family, and the values that they hold dear. You'll love it, too!

At the bottom of yesterday's post, there's an opportunity to win a copy of Strong and Kind! Check that out here.

Have a great weekend! I'm still hoping to make it to the pumpkin patch! :)

Are you following me on Instagram? @floralandfudge.

Linking up with Andrea, and Erika.