The G.N.Y.S. Fair

State fair highlights!  Any faithful reader has seen them all from previous years, right?  Same formula: make money at the county fair and blow it all at the state fair on baked potatoes and rides and chocolate milk.


Here's Cadence, more interested in her thumb than in the dancers leaving Turtle Mound in Indian Village.

Lucinda is a duck-lover of the first order.

Oh, look!  A baby!

All the girls and Zeke took turns on the player piano while John walked outside with Aidan and Millie stayed in the basement gawking at quilts and other fine handiwork.

...like this one.

 


The sand sculpture was kind of funny, mostly because our family has a running joke about Justin Bieber.

Here are poor-quality pictures of the butter sculpture, because I'd get kicked out of the Great NYS Fair Fan Club for not including the butter sculpture.

The butterfly tent has gone from being free of charge to 2 dollars a head!  They snared us with a several-year habit, though, so a few of us plunked down the money and went in, anyway.

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The slowest cow in the world was just fast enough for Aidan.
Good thing he doesn't know any better.

Millie was kind enough to use her free ride to keep Luci company on a high-flying elephant.
  It ended up looking really fun, enough that I wish I had done the same.

Susannah and Piper both chose the bungee/trampoline combination.

Piper enjoyed it loads more than the bungee workers did, as you can see.

Zeke wasn't 100% satisfied with the helicopter ride .  He said it wasn't high enough.  All the rides he wanted to go on required more inches than he had, though, so grow, Ezekiel, GROW.  (Just not too fast.)

Annika used her county fair winnings for a bungee jump, also, only she found a taller one than the one the other girls had used.

We had enough extra tickets that Piper, Annika, and Susannah were able to go on the Big Slide (capital letters required).  Millie got first dibs, but, again, she was kind enough to send a youger sister who was practically drooling with longing instead of sliding herself.
Man, it looked like fun.

And as long as we're on the subject of rides, here are the only pictures from our dip into a local Field Days festival.  Rides for the morning were only a little over a dollar apiece, so we each went on two, and my husband, the man who can't bear to watch the children and me in safe places like this, the one who lets me clean out the gutters every fall because I love to climb on the roof and he hates it, cheerfully enclosed himself in a rickety, metal cage with Annika AND Zeke, and spun and twirled upside down for a while.

Weirdo.  I'll take solid rocks and the roof any day of the week.

Practically Neighbors Again

(Don't we wish.)

We enjoyed two summertime visits from my cousin Leah and some of her younger children.  It was wonderful to see them, though we sorely missed you, Johnny, Noah, and Isaiah!  [Oh, and I guess we missed you, too, Scott. :) ]

I didn't take any pictures while they were here except for these few.

Sammy plays with the trains.

 

 

 

And then there's Luke, who's tied with Jessica for the title of Baby With The World's Longest Eyelashes.

 

Leftovers

 Some mornings, Monster and Mouse eat better than my children do.

Cadence is appalled by this admission.






Speaking of food, Ezekiel brought me this meal. He'd cut up the cheese slice I'd made for sandwiches eons ago to make grated cheese for a baked potato. Ah, well. A true chef doesn't always follow the rules.

I think I must do this a lot, and I highly recommend it.  Twice the crossing off = twice the satisfaction for no extra work.

This picture makes me sad.  Half-wild Fruity, whom we met when we moved into this house and who is the most perfect cat, has disappeared after seven years of showing us What a Cat Should Be. Our Supreme Rabbit Huntress, a faithful mama many times over, and proud owner of nine lives, she has apparently used her last, and we mourn her.

The letter "b": breastfeeding baby with breakfast in bed, bountiful books, and...banana box in the bedroom. (Why?)

Just another day of work and wheelbarrow rides.

Just another jolly outdoor supper with joyful children. 

So many books we want Mama to read!!!

A child's bouquet all lit up.

The scariest Hulk yet intimidates us with his hot pepper hat.

Evenings are for listening to records.

 

This one's for you, Alaskan cousins.  We awoke to every window decorated with monsters put there by visiting nightime pranksters (who, I ask you, WHO?!)   Aidan was using the binoculars to look for his monster, and it was right behind his head.

 

Becky, this is for you.  The dress you gave Millie now fits Annika, and we found one for Susannah in a bag of hand-me-downs this summer.  Nearly twins.

One of the children had my camera and used it very well.

I drank my morning tea overlooking a road of yellow-brick-pillows leftover from the night before.  When I'm an old woman, if I make it that far, I will miss these morning views.

These snakes like to bite.  Ask us how we know.

Peter Pan and sleep but no pixie dust this time around.

The old "let's scrape bacteria off our cheek" experiment.

Back in September, Cadence impressed all the children by beginning to creepy-crawl.

Nut Berry and her darling.

Those who heard about the older ladies at the church rummage sale giving us 10 gallons of ice cream should appreciate the one picture I took of the children having a 5-minute free-for-all in lieu of their long-overdue lunch when we got home.  My little barbarians.

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Two years today marks too long a time and no time at all, really.
I picture you like this, head bent, listening to someone answer a question.


Someday, you'll ask us more.

A Tool for Good (You'll like this one, Deborah.)

Brought to you by Spur-of-the-Moment, Real-Time Posts for the Betterment of the World at Large (i.e. Yes, We Have Internet Again)

Overheard at the top of the stairs a minute ago:

Millie: I'll let you go down once you give me the password.

Ezekiel: Ummm.  Debbie and Rundy kiss.

Millie: Nope.

Zeke: Debbie and Rundy eat soup.

Millie: Nope.

Zeke: Mama and PAPA kiss.

Millie: Nope.

Zeke: Ummm.  Mama and Papa kiss while they're eating soup.

With that gem, of course she let him pass. (And now you know the secret password, too.)

Happiness is...15

 

I've always preferred odd numbers over even.  Fifteen years!

I've learned to like even numbers nearly as well, though, thanks to us two walking down here together with our eight.  Key lime pie, my Heart.