Little Lambs

About a month ago we had the chance to go to Idaho and spend a weekend with both sides of our family. It was an awesome weekend! At the end of our trip we were able to spend about a day and a half with my sister and her family. Our kids are always so excited to get together to play with each other. This year they have been on the adventure of raising sheep and goats. We got there in time to help feed about 70 bum lambs and boy did my kids think it was the best thing EVER. They were squealing with delight when they'd have about 10 lambs come up to them at a time sucking on fingers, the bottle or nibbling on their pants.
This little girl was besides herself. She was the highlight of my weekend. She would pack these babies around that were just slightly smaller than herself, laughing and squealing with delight. "It's sucking my fingers!" she would laugh with her whole face lit up. She was always the last one out of the barn. The next morning when we woke up the first thing she said when she walked in the room rubbing her eyes was "feed the cows?" "the lambs you mean?" I replied. "Yeah the lambs. Feed the lambs?"

At the last feeding before we left, we were getting ready to leave the barn when she picked one up and started carrying it to the door. "Take it home?" she'd ask. Jeremy would have let us, if we thought we could have raised a sheep in our tiny backyard in the city. We told her we had to leave it here. "It sad," she declared with this sad hopefully expression. "No Mommy, or Daddy." Boy could she melt your heart right then and there. We tried to explain that it would be even sadder if it came with us because it wouldn't get to be and play with all the other lambs. She felt like that was a good enough answer, and didn't break down dad enough to load a lamb into our car for the 4 hour drive home.
It's times like this, that I am sure I don't want to stay in the city forever. I want to be able to have some animals, and have my kids learn to take care of them and learn how to work, even though it would loose all it's excitement and fun after the 2nd or 3rd day. But how can you look at these pictures, and faces lit up and not want some land to run around on get dirty in, with a few cowboy hats to wear, animals to feed, and live a bit slower paced life than in the city.

Since we couldn't convince dad to bring any lambs home... maybe we can still convince him that we need a few of these since we are allowed a few with our city ordinances. :)