September in a Big Fat Nutshell

THE FAIR 

We had our annual fiddle performance at the fair and this year Warner got to be up on stage to sing and jump for the pop's in Pop Goes the Weasel.  Liv did awesome on her Boil the Cabbage solo. She looked so cute up there with her little braids, and cowboy boots. 

So, we kind of have a love/hate relationship with the fair, because A. It's SO tiring, and B. it has this miraculous ability to turn our otherwise pleasant children into little greedy monsters who want everything they see, which brings me to C. we just have to say "no" over and over again to all the copious amounts of colorful things that they desire, i.e. cotton candy and big fluffy purple unicorns etc etc. 

This year we told them we could do two rides each and then we just went and checked out the animals. I think next year, we will skip the four dollar-30 second thrill rides and just head straight for the show horses and piglets. 

 The little petting zoo was Buster's little dream land. 

 

 

He found this little goat, and just stood there by him for about ten minutes. It was the funniest thing. The goat stared at him, and Buster stared back. And neither moved a muscle.  The moral of the story is, if you need to calm your wiggly, little two year old down, purchase a goat. It works like magic. 

 

 

I felt a little empathy for this Mama pig, and a little jealous at the same time. Empathy because I too know what it's like to feel like a beached whale who just doesn't want to move. She looks like she couldn't use those legs even if she wanted to! I felt jealousy, because all that her little ten or eleven piglets require of her is milk, and she doesn't even have to move or get up to give it to them.  She just lies there eating bon bons, while her ten little piglets sporadically approach her, nuzzle in and find their food source.  After they eat, she cleans up no mess, she just continues lying there, and with out so much as a snort or a shove, they scoot along merrily back to their little crammed pig pen with their other siblings.  What a life. What a life. I think I'de have ten kids too if that's all it took. 

  

 

DAY of SERVICE 

Another annual: Our day of service. It usually is on Jaron's birthday, but luckily this year it wasn't. The kids had fun helping rake leaves and putting their shoulders to the wheel.  

The face of a true servant. And by true servant I of course mean one who helped by finding rolly polley's and digging holes in the dirt, and generally just entertaining himself so that Mom and Dad could actually work.  

JARON'S BIRTHDAY

We celebrated by going to the skate park with the Sooscrew. We surprised Olivia by picking her up from school and letting her skip for the day. She was pretty excited to get to celebrate Jaron's birthday with us. 

It was so fun to watch Jaron skate, and was such a gorgeous day. I'm glad he does things like this to keep himself young and healthy. I was impressed by how good he has gotten in the last year at skating. 

It was such a nice, hot day that after the Skatepark , we grabbed some comida and headed straight to the beach to swim. It was so gorgeous. We all five of us swam out to this doc that had bird poo all over it, but it didn't matter, cause we were all there together.

 

A TRIP TO THE ZOO

On another day in September, when Jaron was out of town I took the kids to the zoo. Watching the big grizzlies is always my favorite. When else can you watch such a huge, powerful, and terrifying animal from that close up with out fear flowing through your veins? It's fascinating to watch them. They really just look like big cuddly teddy bears. Really BIG cuddly teddy bears. 

 

 

The main highlight for Liv was seeing the baby giraffe whose Momma, named Olivia, is only six years old. Liv thought that was pretty ridiculous that she would have a baby so young.  

BUSTER PUTS THE MOVES ON

On another fine September day Buster decided to go in for the kill with little Emmy.  

Smooth Buster. Smooth. I just noticed Warner in the background puckering up. Ha. How funny.  

WARNER's FIRST DAY OF PRESCHOOL

And for the most exciting part of September; drum roll please, someone had his very first day of school! He was so excited. And I swear he was the cutest little pre-schooler I ever did see, but I might be a little biased. Look at that face.  After the first day of school he said "Mom. I love Miss Laura". I'm so glad he likes his teacher and likes pre-school. I think he likes feeling a little independence. It makes him feel big and grown up. Which makes me kind of sad/happy, but him really happy, so, it's worth it.  

BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR TEDDY

Warner and Buster got invited to their first-ever teddy bear birthday party. Yes it was a birthday party for a little teddy bear. And all I can say is, don't knock it til you've tried it, because it was so stinkin cute and fun.  

BAKING WITH BUSTER

Buster helped me make 15 loaves of zucchini bread for a primary teacher training. He mostly helped by being moral support and dipping his finger in the dough every once in awhile to make sure it tasted right.  

It was this face that got me through all that baking. 

GETTING READY FOR HALLOWEEN 

Some of us are more ready than others. I've now told Warner he can only ask me once a day how many days it is until Halloween.

We had this great idea that we were going to have Dorothy, a Lion, and a Tin man, but Tin Man refused to play the part. So, it looks like we are going to have Dorothy, a Lion, and Captain America. Se la vi. 

Oh and I guess he is going to be Captain America gone fire fighter. 

JARON's FIRST TOUGH MUDDER RACE

And this has now become the longest post in the world. For the last picture (this actually happened in October) Jaron and his good buddy Sam, an old roomie from our BYU-HI days, and Sam's buddy Dave, all ran in the Tough Mudder race. 

The course is an 11 mile obstacle course challenge. As a participant you jump over big logs, climb up big half pipes, army crawl up muddy tunnels, run through electric wires, and run in the mud for 11 miles. Why any one would ever pay money to run through electric wires is quite beyond me, but I figure it's just a testosterone versus estrogen difference there. I'm just happy that this race got my boy back into running. He was made to run. Seriously. Look how tough they all look.

The end.
Whew.
Time for bed.
Happy October friends.