Idaho State Fair

I absolutely LOVE fairs, and I really wish they would have them more than once a year. They are so much fun and there's so much to do there! There's the rides, the booths, the animals, the showcases, the food (scone nuggets, funnel cakes, and cotton candy-YUM!!), the music, the horse races, the kids areas set up-I love it all! We took the kids and went to the fair on Tuesday. It was the perfect day to go weather-wise, which made it even more great. A sweet 68 degrees-not too hot, not too cold. Parker had a lot of fun. His favorite parts were of course all the animals, the petting zoo, and the John Deere tractors (I know, very hick-ish, but he loved them!). Here's some pictures that we took.

Parker feeding a goat

A cute little puppy that Parker loved (even though he's actually really afraid of dogs)

Ben with the kids at the petting zoo

Maddie munching on a cracker while Parker checks out the animals

This horse was hilarious. It really really wanted Madisyn's cracker, and she was just so shocked that it kept getting so close to her. It was quite funny.

Parker having a blast on "his" tractor

"Don't worry guys-I got it. I'll just back it on up over here."

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend, my cousin (Brooks and his wife Megan) had their baby blessed and we all got together for that at my Aunt Joann's house. We were all going to go to the Idaho State Fair on Monday, but we got a huge cold front in, and the high for that day was only 57 degrees. So we didn't go. But Ben and I and the kids ended up going yesterday, so I'll have pictures of that to come later. Here's some pictures of my cute little first cousin once removed in her blessing dress. :-)

Anya Meuzet Haroldsen

Maddie checking out Anya

Maddie with her second cousins: Sammy, Audrey, Aiden, Alyssa, & Kenya

On Labor Day, since we didn't get to go to the fair and since it was a little cold, we took the kids to an indoor play place.

Parker going down the slide head first

Maddie going down the slide

Maddie at the top

Parker climbing the rock wall-he was really good at it!

Parker climbing the wall

Here's a funny picture of Maddie. I was folding laundry and she was "helping." I looked over, and she was trying (somewhat successfully) to put one of my shirts on. It was really cute!

Last cake class

My cousin Esther, my Aunt Joann, and I had our last cake class on Tuesday. It's been a really fun class and we're going to take more, but have to break for now. Here's some pictures of some flowers we had made from royal icing the week before, and then pictures of our final cakes.

Some flowers we made just for practice

My cake, Esther's cake, and Aunt Jo's cake. You can't see much of the detail and other decos besides the flowers, but oh well.

My cake

I've included a random picture of the kids, since I don't actually get many of them together. We had gone to Burger King for some "fancy" dining (that's what you consider it when you're poor :-)), and Parker was totally attached to his hat. This was about a week ago, and he still wears it around the house. I even had to take him to the store in it the other day (not that I minded, it was just funny). Maddie didn't really like hers, but Parker really wanted her to wear it, so we snapped a quick picture of her in hers too.

Future Ballerina

Madisyn is ALWAYS on her tiptoes. Whenever she is standing, jumping, walking, or anything like that, she is always up on her toes. I don't know if she'll ever learn to walk flat! So I think she's going to be a ballerina for sure. I guess time will tell! Isn't she funny?!

Yeah! Medicine time!!

Madisyn got her first ear infection. She's on amoxicillin, but it's not the usual pink stuff, it's orange. And she loves it. Every time I give it to her she licks her lips and smacks them. Of course she didn't do it until the end of the video this time, but she always makes me laugh. I think it's so histarical! So enjoy!

Ward Party

Our church had a get-together/party the other day, and it was tons of fun. We had dinner and then lots of activities. They had rockets to shot off, giant bubbles (the kids stand in the center of a hula-hoop that is submerged in a kiddie pool of bubble solution, and the hula-hoop is raised above their heads forming a giant bubble around them), two big parachutes, softball, and more. One of the other things was that they rented one of those big blow-up jumping things, and Parker loved it! We didn't get pictures of the other things because we forgot our camera and had to run home for it, but we got some of the 'jumping castle.' The pictures didn't turn out that great since Parker was moving constantly, but the videos are cute.

Cake class

My cousin talked me in to taking a cake decorating class with her and my aunt. She gets asked to make wedding cakes, and wanted us to learn more with her. We have taken course 1, and then we skipped to course 3 (which we're taking now). So here's one of the cakes I made just the other day. I thought it turned out pretty good and was amazed that I could make something look that nice! :-)


Another recent accomplishment was that we pulled our car into our garage! Since we moved here 2 1/2 months ago, it's been used as storage. It still is, but we've finally gotten it cleaned out enough and organized so that we can pull our car in. Of course it's still really hard to get our doors open so we'll have to do more, but it's looking hopeful for us to be able to put our car in there during the winter. Wa-hoo!