MN State Fair 2011

(Written by Jack)

Today my parents brought me and Finn to the MN State Fair. They told me I've been here before, but I didn't remember it. My favorite part of the entire fair was the big yellow slide. I threw a huge tantrum when dad told me we were done riding the slide. But mom said that there would be more rides later on. We ate lots of good food. My mom had deep fried pickles for breakfast. Finn and I ate doughnuts. Then we saw a lot of animals. Finn loved the baby lambs. We laughed really hard when we heard them say "baaaa." Then we saw the cows. They were huge. We had to keep Finn in the stroller, because he would just run right up to them. Then we went on some rides. First I rode the bumper boats. Then I rode a lot of different types of cars. I threw another fit when mom said we were done with rides. My parents kept saying how big I was and that they were glad they didn't have to ride any of the rides with me. I kind of enjoyed my alone time anyway.

We had pronto pups and cheese curds for lunch. Finn loved the cheese curds. Mom kept saying they will fatten him up. I don't know what that means.

When we got into the car to go home I was crying. I didn't want to leave. I keep wondering when we will go back to the state fair. My parents keep saying next year, but I don't know when that is. Hopefully it's tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from the day.

Love,

Jack

Notice Tom's hand going in for the kill.

Tom and Jack walking up to the top of the slide

These are the type of people you see everywhere when you go to the MN state fair. Classic.

My boys are getting too darn big

And here are two videos of the slide. The first one is Jack and Tom. The second is Finn and Tom.

Playing with the sheep:

Fun Videos

When we were at the cabin a few weeks ago, Jack was obsessed with this loon call machine we have up there. Now Jack's new favorite thing to do is imitate the loon call with his voice. It's quite hilarious. Also note Jack's backpack. He wears it around the house 24/7.



Every time we play outside, the first thing the boys do is head over to the radio and turn it on. Yesterday it happened to be on KDWB (barf) but the song TGIF by Katy Perry was on. My boys LOVE this song. Every time it comes on in the car, they both start chanting "T. G. I. F." So when this song was playing yesterday, they were excited. However once I turned on the video camera - they both went mute. Of course. But Finn's dance moves are quite comical.

Picture Time

I feel like it's that time of year again when we know about 100 people who are pregnant and about 50 people who are due any day. Obviously I'm exaggerating - but doesn't it always happen in waves? This past weekend I got to help take some pictures of one of my best friend's sister's baby. Got that? Elissa's sister Jill had a beautiful baby boy, Noah. Elissa is an amazing photographer but since she lives in VA, she hasn't been able to get her hands on him yet. I gave Elissa and Jill copies of all 200 photos and hopefully they can perfect them with all of their mad editing skills. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure:

My boys have been really funny lately. They either have a blast playing together, or they scream at each other all day long. Finn is definitely starting to talk A LOT which is so much fun. He repeats practically any word you ask him too and he is just too cute for words. He's getting his last teeth in and they are a huge pain. He has massive diaper rash from nasty teething diapers. But on the plus side - I think he's having a growth spurt. Today everyone slept until 8 AM, which is HUGE considering last week we were up around 6 AM every day. And he's been taking 3 hour naps. Ahhhhhh gotta soak this up while I can.

Tomorrow night Tom and I have the parent preschool orientation. In less than three weeks Jack is going to start two day a week preschool. We got him a backpack, a yellow one of course. Because yellow IS his favorite color. I refused to get a character backpack, call me a mean mom - but this one will last much longer. Kids grow up way too fast I'm starting to realize.

I'll leave you with a few random pics:

Happenings

It's hard to get good blog posts and pictures up here when the weather has been so nice. Sometimes I feel like I get too caught up in the techno world. It's nice to step back and take a break.

In the last few weeks I've finished two books!

Heaven is for Real is a good quick read. And leaves you with a lot of questions - is this for real? How could a 3 year old boy make this up?

And I just finished this book yesterday:

The second book, I've had on my kindle forever but had a really hard time getting into it - so I kept putting it off. I kept hearing from so many people how great it was and I just needed to get through the beginning part. Holy moly, it got good. It's a suspenseful book that I loved. And I now want to see the movie. And also read the other two books.

Forecast for tomorrow is 82 and Sunny. Perfect day for the 3rd Annual Brendan Loney Golf Classic.

Friday Mish Mash

I've been so bad about taking pictures. But sometimes I want to actually play with the kids outside instead of snap pictures of them. I was just going through some pictures on my computer and was looking at pictures from a year ago. Check out this picture of Finn...

HAHA. He has no neck! This makes me laugh really hard. I miss him being so babyish. But then again I don't.

The other night after I put the boys to bed (Tom was at a work dinner), Bailey started barking like crazy. I was yelling at her quietly because I just thought she was barking at people walking past our house. But when I came upstairs - I saw this outside our front door:

This deer was eating my tomatoes!! And the weird thing was when I went outside to try and shoo it away - it wasn't scared of me at all! In fact we had a staring contest for like 25 seconds. I was so mad. But I was too scared to actually get close to it and force it to leave. Then it stood in the middle of the street for a long time. I was really scared it was going to get hit. Soon it ran off, probably to eat someone else's garden.

Our kitchen chairs get filthy from the boys' hands and sticky food. So we brought the chairs outside and power washed and scrubbed them. We actually had a lot of fun doing this. Tasha even helped us out too - ha ha ha.

This humidity in MN has been insane this summer. So insane that it's turned Finn's hair curly! This pic was taken after he had been swimming, but still - check out those locks.

Happy weekend-ing!

Silly Jack

The other day I was cleaning up the kitchen and Jack went out on the deck. He was on his motorcycle and he yelled "Mom, Tasha just texted me. I'm going to go and pick her up" - Ha, what?!? Kids sure do say the darndest things.

Jack's skating lessons are almost over. We had a breakthrough last lesson.  For the last month or however long he's been going to lessons, he gets on the ice, crawls around, stands up, crawls around, etc. It's really frustrating to watch. Actually, I've felt like it's been a waste of money. And I see Jack on the ice being his stubborn little self and that bugs me even more. He's not even TRYING to skate or walk.  But after every lesson, Jack screams out "I had SO much fun at skating lessons" - so it's not like the kid doesn't like the ice. Tom and I thought maybe it would be a good idea to bring him to an open skate where Tom could skate with him and show him how it's done. So that's what we did. Tom brought him on Friday night to open skate and Jack was actually walking/skating and turning. He was so excited. So we got him all pumped up on Monday night to show his teachers what he could do. Of course the teachers were blown away - like, where did this come from?! Tom and I both knew Jack was capable of skate-walking on the ice on his skates, Jack just needed a little boost in doing it. On Monday night this is what Tom texted me:

Tom: Jack just skated all the way across the ice without falling
Me: Wow!!!
Tom: Seriously. It's unbelievable. He doesn't fall at all anymore. It finally clicked and it just looks natural
Me: That's so great!
Tom: Scholarship


HAHA.
The teacher who was helping Jack skate across the width of the ice rink asked Jack if he wanted to skate to the boards (like 10 feet away). Jack looked at the teacher and then looked all the way across the rink at the opposite end and said, No - let's skate down to THAT board. The teacher was like, let's try this board first. It took awhile for Jack to make it the 10 feet, I can't imagine how long it would have taken him to get down to the opposite end.

It's just so wonderful to see your kids happy and excited about things. Tom said the look on Jack's face after skating was priceless. And the he asked Tom, "Can we do that again tomorrow, Daddy?"

A Good Laugh for the Monday Morning Blues