Oranges and Independence

 

We have been so lucky to be friends with the Lamoreaux's who happen to have a little farm close-by that we sometimes get eggs from.  Mitch took the boys there on a bike ride and they got to come home with some "free-range eggs" and fresh oranges from the tree.  Last time we got eggs from them, they also shared home-grown broccoli with us which was actually the most delicious broccoli I've ever tasted, hands down.  The boys love to go there because they get to pet the bunnies and see the cows that Emmett calls "goats".  I loved hearing Tyson explaining the things to me he learned from the "girl farmer" on their trip. : )  It's so much fun.  You would think having oranges would seem like a common thing since we get them all the time from the store, but whenever the kids get ANYTHING from the Lamoreaux's farm, it turns into something EXTRA SPECIAL.

Emmett was my helper setting the table last night.  The first thing he did (all of his own accord), was set an orange in front of each chair--one orange from the farm for each of us.  Then I handed him plates.  He left the adult plates stacked, and put the kid plates out.  And finally he put the forks on the table...of course the adults ended up with the kid forks and the kids ended up with the big forks, but it was cute and he was happy to be setting the table by himself.

 We actually only ended up sharing one of the oranges at dinner last night because we had so much other food prepared, so this morning the boys wanted to eat oranges again.  Tyson, of course, asked if we could make orange juice from the oranges.  At first I didn't want a mess, and part of me wanted to say no, but you only live once, so we pulled out the juicer.  I'm so glad we did.  He was so proud of himself and beamed when he told me, "I cutted my first orange!"

 Team work

We finished juicing all the oranges. Tyson insisted on cutting them all on his own with a butter knife.  As you can tell...his skills didn't necessarily improve with each orange--they "halves" became less equal with each orange, but they still juiced just fine and he had fun!

The orange juice we made was SO SWEET!  I love fresh oranges--you don't have to add anything to them at all to have a delicious, tasty treat.  It tasted even better because of our kids' fun memories with the Lamoreaux's.  : )