The fair comes rollin' around again!

I just love this time of year. There's a crispness to the mornings and evenings, a buzz in the school with the anticipation of the fair, and two sweet little boys who are amazed by anything and everything. They truly are becoming the best of friends!
They love to play together and have a blast. Ari's been loving being able to drop off Jax at preschool for a few hours and coming home and having Kodee time and time to get ready for the day.

Jax is adapting to preschool well. We think he's already speaking better and understanding communication a lot more. He always comes home with cute little art projects that he's very proud of. The downside to preschool has been his behavior at home. With big changes in his life, comes big attitudes. He's throwing more and more tantrums and thinks he's too old for naps. Then by about 5 he's ready to pass out and can't make it all the way to bed time. If he falls asleep, then there's no hope in getting him to wake up and then he won't go down till 10 or 11. It's a little frustrating.
We're thinking he may become a drummer.

Kodee is our little smily, bouncy baby. He's definitely got the rhythm and dance moves of the two, and always feels the beat and is aware when there is music playing.
He's saying more words like: bye, hi, daddy, hey, more (with the signing), and waving bye bye really good. He's a big waver and likes to shake his hands. He's also scrunching up his nose with his cute smiles and it's heart melting!

Ari made these AWESOME cinnamon rolls for conference weekend.


Kodee is now officially weened (he was biting Ari too much with all those teeth he's been getting.) We love how he holds the bottle.



One night Ari and I were lying in bed contemplating how we could get some extra cash and we thought- let's enter our artwork in the fair! So we went around each room and found something we had made. We ended up submitting 5 pictures we had cross stitched and one that I did with pastels (a Thomas Kinkaid copy.) It's funny because we've done these over the last three years, and my pastel was from my senior year of high school, but I had never entered it. . .so I did.


We got all blue ribbons except for one red. Luckily it was mine, I didn't want Ari to get any second places because I didn't want her to feel bad. Then I was surprised when I did, because I thought my cross stitch was much better and more complex then the one that got the blue. Oh well. . .next year I think we'll have about 5 more cross stitches to enter!! Hey, each blue ribbons 3 bucks, so we have definitely arrived. :)

I was asked to judge the instrumental and vocal competitions at the fair this year. It was a blast! I loved being able to decide who was the best with the other judges, cause we all know how picky I am. I hope the instrumental competition can one day be what it used to be. It was a little sad this year. The vocal comp. was incredible! Almost 40 kids signed up, and the competition was steep! Jillian Innes (Ryan's little sis) rocked it with a rendition of Cowboy Take Me Away. I was so proud of her, all of the judges thought she had an amazing instrument!

My Taste of Sounders did awesome Saturday night as well. They performed their fall set that they will be doing in the concert in about two weeks. The reaction was great from the crowd, so I think this fall show is going to be historical! The boys doing Newsies is a real treat. how often do you have 12 teenage boys who can really sing and dance that can put on a great show! It's so much fun to work with them.

We of course took Jaxon and Kodee around to see the animals and exhibits and also ride a few rides before the show. Jaxon was not so daredevilish to begin.

The car ride he road really freaked him out cause the corners were really fast.
He loved the choo choo of course, I was impressed he got up the nerve to go down the Super Slide with mom.


I held my breath when they were at the top cause I could just see him toppling over the edge, but that didn't happen. He rode an airplane ride with me,

He then impressed us both by riding the huge ferris wheel with me.


Here he is looking over the edge.

I was much more scared then he was. In the middle of the ride he crossed over to the other side of the cart and was looking over the edge! That crazy kid, he wasn't scared of how high we were at all.


Here he is with mom on the carousel. He chose the bench? Huh?

We're lucky to still have Jax with us. . .Saturday night during the Taste of Sound performance, he was quite a handful. We had a teenage girl helping us watch him. I of course was swamped with the show, Ari was watching Kodee, and this girl was watching Jax. Well, as the quartets were performing I started hearing stomping on the roof of the grand stand stadium. I thought, "that can't be Jax." I tuned it out, and tried to focus all my energy on the show. Well, later I found out it was indeed Jaxon ON THE ROOF of the stadium. He climbed up a staircase in the back, went under the railing, and out on the roof over where everyone was sitting. One side is about a 25 foot fall, and the other is probably close to 50 I'm guessing. The roof is sloped and ridged too, so we are so lucky he didn't trip and slide off either edge. I just CRINGE thinking about it!

Oh we're not done. . .after the show was over and I was packing everything up Jaxon toddled off with some hispanic family back towards all the rides. A friend of ours found him close to the ferris wheel with this family and they asked, do you know who his parents are? Luckily Cindy grabbed him and returned him to us! How freaky is that? How does that even happen? Oh Jaxon, you're going to give us a heart attack. We seriously will have to bring a leash with us wherever we go.

Here's one of the cross stitches I entered in the fair. Glad we have it back for our festivities of halloween. The smaller one on the bottom is one I did in Ari's labor room while she was having Kodee last year. I pretty much cross stitched the whole night while she was contracting. Fun times. Glad we can enjoy it on the wall this year!





This Saturday's the boys birthday party so I'm sure we'll have many an adventure to talk about! Till then. . .