Homestead Heritage

Our family LOVES Homestead Heritage.  It's been our tradition to go to the Children's festival every year after Thanksgiving for the past fifteen years.  The first time we went, Mary Susannah was two weeks old, and I carried her in a sling all day.  I was so delighted with my new baby, and I think that first outing with her forever sealed Homestead Heritage in my heart!
So yesterday, we braved the cold and traveled the hour's drive to El Mott.  My family group grows smaller every year as my children grow up and move out, and Bill elected to stay home and watch football, so it was me, Mary Susannah, Beau, Angel-Leah, Luke and Tommy.
They made us park FAR away, and we had quite a trek to even get to the festival part.  They added new buildings this year, but we bypassed those and went straight to the children's singing.  This group of people are amazingly musical, and the singing is by far my favorite part, although the children don't enjoy it near as much as I do...
So to make it up to them, we went straight from the singing to the petting zoo:

The petting zoo was really crowded, and they didn't have enough animals to go around, so we did what we could, then we went got ice cream - the homemade kind, made with pecans, milk and other things they grow right there on the farm, and we headed for the hayride.

The hayride is my second favorite thing at Homestead Heritage.  And the crowds weren't so big this year - Bill thinks it's the economy, but I'm sure the cold weather and that football game helped - and we didn't even have to wait!  We sat on hay bales in a wagon pulled by enormous horses, and ride around the many acres.  We see where some of the people live, a guest cabin built by the people who live here, and they take us to a beautiful outlook point.

After that fun time, we headed over to do some crafts.  I didn't get a picture of Luke making a boat, Beau took him over there.  He was so excited that the first thing he did when he woke up this morning was take a bath so he could play with it, and he even shared with Tommy and let him take a bath with it next.  I took Angel-Leah and Mary Susannah to the herb garden, where they made wreaths.  Angel-Leah plans to give hers to a very special lady for Christmas, guess I'll keep who a secret until then, but she was quite proud, and they both did pretty good jobs!

We spent time in the crafts pavilion and sampled jelly, then went to the book store where I bought three children's books and a tape.  I saw a homeschool math curriculum that I want SO BAD, but I was running out of money.  I can go get it after Christmas, so that's my plan.  They do have a store on the property that you can visit all year, and I'm pretty sure the homeschool curriculum's are there, if not, they'll be at the book fair in Arlington in May.
We got really close seats for the first time for the evening singing.  The concert was so amazing, and a perfect ending to the day.  Even though we had just gone through a big bag of doughnuts and apple cider - not to mention the kettle corn and ice cream, Luke thought he would perish from hunger before we could get home, so we bought corny dogs.  We had to wait while they cooked them, and to say they were good is quite an understatement...
So I guess with our visit to Homestead Heritage done, our Thanksgiving is officially over.  It was good this year!