Summer Lovin'

Last week my sis-in-law Lurlyn and I took our kiddos to the Clark County Fair. I think I want to start making this a tradition every year because the kids have so much fun! All the animals are fun to look at and they loved the rides. It's so expensive though... ugh. Why does everything have to cost so much? Especially when you want to do something fun with your family. One of the fair workers was trying to entice you to come play their games by saying, "only $3.50, that's cheaper than gas."

The pictures pretty much speak for themselves on the fun factor. Beware, it's a picture overload. Always hard for me to choose just some when they are all my favorites. ;)

p.s. I wish I could have a fair in my backyard for my future photography business. I love the backdrop of bright colors and smiling faces.

Ok... here we go. First we started off looking at the sheep, the chickens/roosters, and bunnies. There were some crazy cool chickens! Who knew. Quiz: one of the chickens wanted to peck my eye out and one of them are called "show girls". Can you guess which ones? 

Now we are on to the goat exhibit. This one was the most fun for the kids because goats like to be pet. They even poke their heads through the wire for more. My little Timmy especially loved this exhibit. I loved the 2 pics of Aubs below... isn't she growing up too fast?!!! :'(

Warning: we are onto the reptile exhibit. Not for the faint. (you probably saw the snake pic before you saw my warning... sorry. It was a cool pic. I had to include it.)  The kids loved this exhibit. I think we spent the most time here. They also had a baby skunk, a baby tiger, and a crocodile. Ooooh!



I love this pic below of all four kids.


This year they had a bird show on a pirate ship. It was actually pretty cool. The guy mostly talked about the birds to educate people not to buy them unless they know exactly what they are getting into. The little kids sat thru the first part and then we had to go... too many ants in the pants. I thought it was cool that he trained his birds to collect dollar bills from the audience and then they delivered it to the dish on the stage. Impressive.




On to the rides. Lurlyn started off giving her little Sophie a pony ride. Isn't she cute?!


So Timmy and Sophie were too small to ride the kid rides this year but the guy that ran the cars let them on. They loved it! If you notice in the pics all of Timmy's expressions. Yeah... he loved it so much that when it was time to get off, he threw a huge fit and clawed my face and pulled out a chunk of my hair. He wanted back on really bad.







The train ride. Also a favorite.


And the airplane. An adult had to ride with them... sorry Lur. She doesn't do too good going round and round in circles but she sure looks good. ;)

Burning Something...

The kids and I made it to Washington just in time for the 4th of July with the Hubby! We missed him too much!

We had a great weekend visiting with Dana and her family in Yelm and then down to Battleground where we did fireworks with Lurlyn & Leif and the kiddos! I love when all the kids get to play together! They get along and don't get along perfectly. I love it!

We went to a block party of one of Lurlyn's friends. It was really cool. All the adults were hanging out in their lawn chairs, meanwhile all the kids were running around sharing sparklers. When it got dark enough, the adults let off the grown up fireworks. I don't mind sitting around watching other people burn their money. ;)

I got some great pics of the kids enjoying themselves!

Tiger loved the sparklers... so much so, he grabbed his cousin Sophies. :'( Poor little man... it hurt for a second but then he wanted to grab them again. All boy.

This is Aubri's cousin Leify. aka her best buddy. aka my boyfriend. Funny story... I was standing in the street watching all the kiddos with their sparklers and Leify comes up to me, wraps his arm around my leg and says, "mommy, I want to burn something!" I got a huge laugh out of that and proceeded to let Lurlyn know she might have a pyromaniac on her hands. ;) Lol!

This is Aubs letting off a Roman Candle with her dad. She loved it and normally she isn't very brave to do things like that. She begged to do more.

This is sweet Sophie! She is a pure doll and spit fire wrapped up all in one. I love her. She calls me mama Cole. :)

Picture overload after the sun went down. I couldn't just choose a couple. I like them all, so I'm sharing them with you.

Already 1!!!

My adorable little man turned *1* last Wednesday (the 8th of June)! I can hardly believe it! The year went by in a blink of an eye! I still remember the day he was born vividly... here's a pic to take you back in time really quick...

He was so tiny and perfect and really really quiet! I remember that! Now he is full of personality. But I must say, there is still something quiet and reserved about him. Its so fun to see how much he's changed in a year. The following are a few things about our little guy:

1. He's been walking since 11 months and almost runs. (Aubri loves to try to get him to play tag and he happily obliges) 

2. He can say ball (bah), ba ba (bottle), tinti (stinky), and baby. Mostly he loves to jibber jabber.

3. He loves to play with balls, and anything else that has wheels attached to it. Yep... he's your typical boy. 

4. He loves to play with his big sister. However, he's starting to get to the stage where he will get upset if he gets a toy taken away. Sharing is starting to get harder.

5. His favorite food is PANCAKES! The boy can put them away like its nobodies business. He also really likes grapes, strawberries, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, bananas, blueberry nutrigrain bars and cinnamon cheerios.

6. He loves to sing and dance.

7. He loves to read books. He'll sit and babble while looking at one of his books. It's so cute!

8. He hates his face touched. He'd much prefer a messy, sticky face with boogers. Typical boy.

9. He likes to sleep half way through the night in his bed and the other half with mom & dad. Yeah?!

10. He loves to be held/snuggled. 

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Timmy was spoiled two days in a row. Lucky boy! We have some friends (The Mickelson's) whose little boy Aaron, turned 1 the day after Timmy. Melissa (Aaron's mommy) and I decided to have a combined birthday party for them. It was lots of fun. We originally wanted the party outside but we've had lots and lots of yucky weather here in Montana, so we had the party at the church. 

I stayed at the Mickelsons house the night before until midnight, decorating the fondant for the cupcakes and smash cakes. It was lots of work, but they turned out so cute. I also made the boys little party hats. We went with a jungle animal theme. It was lots of fun and the boys loved it!

Excited birthday boy before the cake smashin! (he's so nice and clean)

Both boys!

Making short work of his cake!


 He ate half of his cake!!! Aaron only ate the little bit of frosting off the edge of his cake. Here's a side profile of the cake so you can see how much he devoured it! Yikes!

Looking a bit sugar high in this picture!

And... we're done!

30!

Yesterday, I turned 30! CRAZY!!! So I thought it was going to feel like a big deal... but it wasn't. Now that I'm out of my 20's, I'm going to embrace the fact that I'm getting older. Because getting older, you get wiser... right? Right.

I really have so many things to be thankful for. I feel so blessed to have the life that I have. It hasn't always been easy, and its had quite a few ups and downs, but its made me the person I am today and I love who I am. I'm just only going to improve as a person from here. At least I'm determined to. So... that's what I have to say about turning 30. It's not bad at all! :)

First of all, my hubby wasn't here for my birthday. He's accepted a position working for the King County Transportation in Seattle, WA. He will be working on the electrical side of the Light Rail. So he has gone on ahead of us, trying to find a house for us to live in while I hang with our stuff in Montana until further ado. I'm sure I'll keep you updated on the move. But we are very excited to be going back to Washington. We miss the green!

My big day started out interesting. My Aubri is so sweet to me. She sang me happy birthday first thing in the morning and insisted that I make myself a birthday cake so I can make a wish and blow out my candles. Well, Aubs really likes electrical tape and she wrapped the pole by the stair case with it. So I took a knife and was trying to get it off and sliced right through my finger! Ouch! The cut was so deep I was trying to determine whether or not I needed stitches. But, I opted to stick a bandaid on it and go about my day.

So, I made myself a birthday cake and Aubri had fun decorating it for me. Isn't it pretty??? hee hee!

Here's the view from the top. It happens to be the prettiest part of the whole cake. She was VERY serious when adding the sprinkles. If you look really hard, you might be able to make out some kind of animal. Ha ha! I love my Aubs!

While I was watching Aubri decorate my cake, my little man pulled a whole container of cornmeal out of my baking cupboard (whoops!). He had a blast grabbing handfuls and throwing it all over! Thank goodness for my Dyson!

And because I really like to train my kids young... they were kind enough to wash the dishes for me on my special day. 

My night concluded having dinner and games with a group of women I'm friends with here in Glasgow. One of my favorite games we played was Apples to Apples and I NEVER win. I always play the silly cards. But somehow I ended up winning! Go me! It was so much fun and we all had a great time laughing and sharing funny stories! I'm really going to miss them! Most of them don't know about my blog, but thank you Connie, Melissa, Meghan, Leta and Kathy! Melissa made me the cake below. It was so pretty and delicious!

Overall, I had a great day! I get to celebrate with my Hubby later, but my kiddos made me feel really special! I'm one blessed Mommy! How could I not have a great day with all the love I get?! I love my kids so much!  ( The below pic I took with them to remember my day. I'm starting to embrace my crooked smile. It's taken me 30 years... but now I realize its part of what makes me, ME.)