Take Me to the Fair

 

We all trotted out to the fair last night and had the best time I remember having.  We were there a little less than two hours.  We had a pretty small agenda which made the time we spent very relaxing.

First off we got a demonstration in gold panning.  This kind of stuff is has Djeryd written all over it.  He is, at this very moment, panning for gold with a cereal bowl in the backyard.

Djeryd and I both entered handiwork in the fair this year.  Djeryd built a model of the iconic van from The A-Team.  He won third place in his lot.

I just scrabbled up some things I had made over the past year or two on the sewing machine.  I entered eight items and all but two of them earned ribbons.  That is not anything to be impressed with, however, since most of the categories only had two or three competitors (or in the case of my blue-ribbon-winning flower-power capris – only one).  ;>  If you look really close in the picture above you can see a little tear running down my face.  So as cynical as I may sound, seeing my little creations up there literally brought tears to my eyes.  I am already dreaming about next year.

Erik astounded us all at the Army booth doing the push-up challenge.  This little guy did THIRTY Army-style push ups!  He tied the record for little kids.  All of the Army guys were so impressed they told him to wait while they rounded up a t-shirt.  We were ridiculously proud of Erik and bragged about him to everyone we saw for the rest of the night.

Little Miss Annabelle got her wish.  All she wanted to do was see the pigs.  Anna loves to snort (a very unladylike trait I did NOT teach her).  She wanted to go snort with the pigs.  It was hilarious.  I should have had Sean videotape it.  She would walk up to a big pig that was awake and snort at it, then wait for it to snort back at her.  Then she would snort some more at the pig and burst into giggles.  I’m sure they were telling each other little piggy jokes.  ;>

I think one of our goals for next summer will be for each of the kids to enter something in the fair.  Anna is begging for a sewing machine for Christmas so she can stitch up some “t-shirts, socks, pants, and skirts and tights”, and the boys are already coming up with new Lego designs for an impressive display in 2012. 

Oh!  And one more note to myself – the 4-H hall was amazing!  I was astounded at the work and craftsmanship produced by little fourth graders all the way up to high-schoolers.  I am definitely planning on looking into 4-H opportunities for the kids this year.

Yea for the fair!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

Sean and Djeryd spent a week at Scout Camp and returned last Saturday to cheers and shouts of joy.  The littles and I had a great week together, but it was sure nice when Daddy  and Djeryd came home. 

The kids waited on the front lawn for the van to pull up.

Djeryd carved a little something for both Erik and Anna.  You can’t see it, but the end of the stick has the name of the Boy Scout camp they went to carved into it.

We made a poster and yummy things to eat and had a pizza and movie party to celebrate the night.

Within a few short hours of Sean being home, Anna talked him into taking off her training wheels and heading out to the track for a test ride (she still needs her training wheels).

Sean graciously and sweetly steadied her all around the track until his back could no longer bear the hunch.

Anna and Alyx could not get enough of that sweet man.

I do not have very many pictures of Djeryd because he was not very excited about the camera that day.  He was so very happy to sleep in his own bed and play with his Legos and “take a shower!!”  We are so glad they are both home to stay for another year.

Lazy Summer Afternoon

On August first summer finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest.  Halleluiah!  I am generally not very good about making the most of lazy-daisy summer afternoons, but I am working on relaxing with my kids during the day.  I am usually so worried about all that has to be done and running here and there that I miss out on the enjoyable part of child-rearing.  So today, after I put Alyx down for her nap and all the kids trickled outside, I set aside all of my “shoulds” and headed out to sit under the sun umbrella and simply hang out with my children.  It was wonderful and I highly recommend the exercise.  Here is a little snip of this afternoon’s activities:

Djeryd made a movie, complete with a crashing-down-waterslide scene and rain.

 

Erik painted a really cool geometric picture (which I personally believes rivals plenty of pieces I’ve seen in galleries and textbooks).

And little Miss Anna painted and painted and painted, mixing all her own colors (I love that green on the rainbow).

I was a lazy bones and simply browsed a cookbook from my little chair in the shade.  (Now my baby is SCREAMING and I have to go be a mommy again – the not-fun-not-relaxing part.  Of course evening snuggles with my sweet baby girl . . .mmm . . . doesn’t get much better than that.)