Our State Fair is a Great State Fair!

On Saturday, September 11, our family went to the State Fair. It really never occurred to me (living only an hour or so away from where it's held) how lucky we are to be able to attend our State Fair. I guess I never thought about the fact that for some people it's 3-4 hours away - something they might never make the drive for... I don't really know what made me think about it, but it made me grateful for the times that we've gotten to go. I LOVE going to the fair!

It was really exciting (and a little nerve wracking) for the 4 of us to get to go. It was a beautiful day, so the Fair was absolutely PACKED! We talked with Ira about what to do if he got lost (not something I even wanted to think about, but something I figured it would be smart to talk about nonetheless.) We also put a piece of paper in his pocket with our names and my cell phone number and told him that if he couldn't find us, that he should give that to an adult at one of the booths. Again, scary to think about, but you can never be too careful!

Luckily, he did a very good job of staying close to the stroller, and we had an AWESOME day. We got to see my friend's band play four songs in one of the arenas. Ira was positively enamored with the whole band set-up. And Ruby, well, I think we have a music lover on our hands. She spent the entire time we were there jumping on my lap. I was afraid the loudness of it all would scare her! Not a CHANCE, she absolutely LOVED it!!! We often joke that Ira and Ruby are going to have a band when they're older. Now wouldn't that be cute?

After seeing the band, we went to see the exhibits. The buildings were really crowded, but we went through enough of them to get Ira loaded up on tattoos, pencils, and bookmarks. (That was always my FAVORITE part of the fair when I was a kid.) After the exhibits, Ira got to get inside a real Army tank. He thought that was pretty cool, for sure!




Then we saw that the National Guard had a FREE Jousting Moonwalk thing where 2 people could joust each other while standing on pedestals. Ira really wanted to do it, but of course, he didn't really have anyone to do it with. Being the goofball that I am, I told him that I would joust him. I think the National Guardsman thought I was a little crazy when he asked who Ira was going to fight and I said "is it alright if I fight him?" It was a loads of fun and I'm sure hilarious to anyone watching to see a 6'1" woman fighting a 40" little boy. Oh well!

This was Ruby's face while Ira and I were jousting

We ate some yummy gyros, then decided we'd let Ira pick one ride to go on. He picked the "Fun Slide" Seriously... who, with all those awesome rides at the Fair, picks the fun slide?!! My son does, that's who. So we let him do that. He slid down once, then just picked up his rug and started walking back up the stairs. He was halfway up the stairs before the ride-operator told us that you only get to go down once. He (the ride dude) was nice about it and said, "he got me!" And let him go down one more time.


After the slide, Ira kept telling us he wanted to go in the haunted house. We told him how scary it was, but he continued to tell us that he wasn't scared (rrrriiiiiight...) Well, as we were walking past it (to go to some more exhibits.) We saw two guys in costumes standing outside the haunted house "greeting" people. So I carried Ira over to tell them hi. He was okay with the dude in the scream mask, but then he saw the guy in the ogre mask. At first he just looked at him, then (as if it took a second to process) he got terrified and started crying. I was definitely glad that I was holding him! And you know, as hard as it was too see Ira so scared, I'm kind of glad that he had that experience. He's been a little cocky lately and I think this was a good, hard lesson to learn about being too big for your britches.

Ira was really good the rest of the afternoon and evening, so we surprised him by letting him pick one more ride to go on. This time he picked the hot air balloons. He thought it was pretty cool stuff to get to go on a ride all by himself.




Ruby did an awesome job just catnapping in the Ergo carrier throughout the day, and when we finally left the fair at like 10 o'clock, she and Ira were both asleep within a few blocks of the fairgrounds.

It's hard to believe that when we (hopefully) go to the fair next year that Ruby will be 18 months old! (I remember going last year with her in my tummy!) Time just flies by so quickly!

Story Hour II

On September 9th, Ira started his second year of story hour. A little town nearby has a really awesome Story Hour program that I talked about last year here.

Ira couldn't wait for Story Hour to start back up again, and especially with him reading now, I was really excited for him to get to check out new library books each week. He checked out "Hop on Pop" and was able to read every word to me.

I don't even want to think about the fact that next year these front door pictures will be for his first day of kindergarten!!

I thought the first one was too funny not to share. Andy says that we'll pull it out for the Senior Slideshow here in about 14 years. We seem to have a lot of those kind of pictures in this house... (I smell a blog post!)

Movin' & Groovin'

So holy cow - the day after her 6 month birthday, Ruby decides that the Kleenex on the floor next to the trash can is worth CRAWLING to! Aaaagh! I cannot believe that my 6 month old is CRAWLING! She definitely seems to be running on the early end of all those gross motor skills! Let me guess... she'll be pulling up by 7 months...

I know that a lot of parents aren't too excited to have their little ones mobile (especially that early) but you know what, I'm excited about it. And I'm excited for her. It warms my heart to see her crawl over to Ira and start playing with him and whatever he's playing with (and he is such a good sport about it too!) It also amazes me to watch her spot something and try to crawl for it. We had tried to keep things pretty baby-proof when we moved in (hoping that we would have another little one) so there hasn't been a ton of adjusting in that sense. Mainly, we just have to be better about putting things away and not leaving them on the floor (shoes, plastic bags, crayons, etc.)

So in case you hadn't put it all together, the week surrounding Ruby's 6 mo. birthday was a big one. In that week, she managed to: learn how to go from laying down to sitting, took a bath in the big tub without her bath chair, wore pigtails for the first time, ate solid foods for the first time, and crawled. Wowza! What a week!

She eats!

On her 6 month birthday, Ruby got to try eating solids for the first time. We started her on rice cereal and boy did she take right to it! I think she probably ate several tablespoonfuls her very first go at it! Ira is thrilled that she's eating baby food now. He loves to help feed her and LOVES having her sit in the highchair next to him at mealtimes. It is just so precious to see their sibling love growing and growing!

In her first week of eating, she's already up to eating rice cereal in the morning and in the evening. On 9/10 she even "refused" to nurse at lunch time (even though I knew she was hungry) so I thought I'd put her in her high chair and see if she wanted to eat. Sure enough... she just wanted rice cereal... Ah girls... why do I not remember Ira being this opinionated at such an early age. It is really amazing to see the differences in their personalities already! She is still nursing well too. I can't imagine what her growth will be like over the next month! Now if she'd just start sleeping through the night...

Piggies

Little Miss wore her first pigtails on 9/4/10. I managed to not get a picture of them that day though, so I put them in again on her 6 month birthday. Thought you'd enjoy the cuteness!

Ruby 6 month stats

I absolutely can't believe that my little girl is 6 MONTHS OLD!! Where has the time gone?!

Anyway, here are her stats:

Height: 26"
Weight: 17 lbs. 3 oz.

At 6 months, Ruby:
-is insanely close to crawling (She'll move her hand one stride forward but then she falls down)
-despite not being able to "crawl" she is crazy fast at scooting/army crawling to things that she wants
-can sit herself up from laying down on her tummy
-sticks her tongue out
-chews on her gums
-wakes up 2-3 times during the night to nurse
-sleeps about 12 hours at night
-takes 2 (sometimes 3) naps during the day
-is ready for bed around 7:30
-has found her pterodactyl voice (she must have inherited it from her brother!)
-babbles "d", "n", "da", and "eh"
-does not like to lay still for diaper changes
-gets upset if you take something that she was playing with (shoes, newspaper, underwear...)
-still likes to be swaddled for naps and bedtime
-blows raspberries when she is tired (crazy, but true!)

Good friend, good time

A dear, dear friend of mine just returned home from a 5 month mission trip to Bolivia. So of course, I couldn't WAIT to get together with her when she got back. We decided to go to the Zoo so that we could blab and Ira could have something to do (other than be bored to tears by "grown up talk".)



We had an amazing time catching up. And we also got to see some really cool things at the zoo! We watched the river otters eat lunch, the gorillas getting fed, and the coolest thing happened in the Apes and Man exhibit. For one, there was a (just shy of) 2 month old baby chimpanzee. He was the tiniest little adorable thing! He was the seventh baby for his 40 year old mother. He had quite the curious personality (sounds like a little boy I know) and the zookeeper told us that he has fallen off of his mama's chest more than once because he's too busy gawking around and forgets to hold on!


The zookeeper was absolutely fascinating to talk to. She told us a lot about the mama chimp and also about another female chimp who positively loves babies. She (this other female chimp) happened to wander over to the glass where we were talking to the zoo keeper, so my friend held Ruby up to the glass for the chimp see. Then the chimp put her hand up on the glass where Ruby's hand was! It was just absolutely amazing to watch. It's no wonder the chimps have always been my favorite thing to see at the zoo.


After about 5 hours at the zoo, we finally decided to call it a day! We went to Sonic afterwards and got half price drinks (2-4 happy hour!) Brianna introduced me to Strawberry Vanilla Limeades. If you've never tried one - do next time you're at Sonic - they are positively delicious!!

Gasp... I'm a soccer mom!

I am actually excited about that title. Not that I always dreamed of being a soccer mom or anything, it's just crazy and amazing to be at "that stage" already.

Our little town has a great low-key soccer league that runs for 3 weeks: 2 practices, 6 games - my kind of involvement! Ira had shown an interest in soccer since his birthday when he got a soccer goal and ball from Andy's parents - so when we heard about this league, we thought it sounded like something we might want to let Ira do. So after talking about it for a few days, we finally asked Ira what he would think of being on a soccer team. He was SO excited! It was really sweet to see him get so excited about being on a team!

The games are absolutely a RIOT to watch! Really, just picture eighteen 4-5 yr. olds running around. Every once in awhile the ball pops out. What's really funny is that very few of them(including Ira) actually understand kicking the ball towards a particular goal. They mainly just kick the ball in the direction that it's going... whether that be straight out of bounds towards the fence, or straight into the other team's goal... whatever... they just kick the ball straight! They get a little better each game though. And you know what, they all have fun, which is really all they need to do at this point!

This is what Ira did when Andy told him to "look like a soccer player." ummm.... okay....

Ready for his first practice!

Go Red Crush!

2nd Game: Inbounding the ball

Well bowl me over!

Since about January of this year, Ira has had a chore chart. His chores are not anything spectacular, mainly just "getting around and ready for the day" type jobs: gathering his breakfast dishes, getting dressed, making his bed, etc... He was allowed to play once he finished his chores... well... that works if your kid is motivated by playing. Mine on the other hand, was plenty satisfied dawdling around ALL MORNING doing his chores. I'm still not exactly sure how that happens, but let me tell you, it happened all the TIME. And I was sick of it!

So I thought and thought about what I could do to get Ira to do his chores faster. Problem is, the kid doesn't have a lot of fluff in his life (tv, candy, video games, etc.), which translates to: "there is nothing that I can take away from Ira to make him do his chores faster." And stumpedness followed for a few days...until I got to thinking that that would be negative reinforcement anyway, so I tried to think of something positive to reinforce getting chores done more quickly. Again, not real into the fluff in our house, so I didn't really want to reward him with candy, dessert, videos, etc. So finally (I believe I was in the shower - you know, the one place where mamas occasionally get to spend a few minutes by themselves... sometimes...) I thought of a solution!!

I decided that I would set a timer for 25 minutes for Ira to do his chores. However many minutes were left on the timer when Ira got done with his chores was how many pennies he got to put in his "Ira's Bowling Money" jar that I made for him (an old baby food jar.) If the timer ran out before he was finished with his chores, we used a timer that counts up and the number of minutes on it when he finished was how many pennies he had to pay us. The first couple days I put more time on the timer so that he could build up a buffer of pennies in case he had to pay us. You know what, it has worked AWESOMELY!!! Sometimes we pay him, sometimes he pays us, but he always gets his chores done in a prompt manner now, so I am THRILLED!

Now I have to take a second to share a cute story. One morning, I was nursing Ruby in our bed to lay her down for her first nap of the day when Ira finished eating breakfast (which is when he does his chores.) He came in and whispered that he was finished, so I whispered back to go ahead and start on his chores. (I figured I'd be nice and let him get a head start, then start the timer for 25 minutes when I finished nursing Ruby - you know, a little reward for if he really did start his chores.) Well, he leaves the room and I hear "rrrrrrrrrr" (chair dragging across the kitchen floor) "beep" (timer starting.) Then he comes in again whispering, "I started the timer, mom." Me: "Thank you, Ira. How long did you set it for?" Ira: "It ends in five." Me:"Twenty-five?" Ira: "No, NINETY-FIVE!" I could hardly stifle my laugh! Seriously, what could I do? I let him keep the 95 minutes on the timer and when he finally got done with his chores he earned 66 pennies! I think he told everyone we saw that day (and we saw a lot because we went shopping) that he earned 66 pennies... it was just too cute! He needed the boost anyway, it takes a lot of pennies to fill a baby food jar!

The point of this whole schpeel was so that I could share pictures of us BOWLING! After a month or six weeks or something, Ira finally filled his penny jar and we all went bowling!

I can read!!

Despite (or maybe because) of my background in teaching, I have NEVER wanted to push the issue of "learning" at home. In my opinion, the only "education" that kids need in their 5 years at home before schooling begins is the education they get from playing. That's not to say that we don't read to our kids and that we haven't talked to Ira about letters and letter sounds (when he's shown interest.) Because we certainly have, it's just never been anything formal.

That approach, coupled with a very smart kid (if you ask me) led to this proud August day when Ira read "Put Me In the Zoo" all by himself. Now just so you know, I don't think we've ever read this book to Ira (do you know how many hundred books we have (thanks to my background in teaching!)) So he really had to actually read it. I am SO PROUD of my little boy who is getting to be bigger and bigger every day!

Just in case...

Just in case you hadn't noticed, or were wondering... my blog is about 2 weeks behind. I have found that it works best for me to write up several blog posts and schedule them to post every other day. It really works great for me, because then I don't have to daily or every-other-daily make time to blog. So anyway, just keep that in mind - they're chronological - just 2 weeks behind.

Pretty little miss!

I've been trying to practice taking better pictures lately (it's not like I lack in material!) When I saw the clear blue sky one day as I was holding Ruby up, I couldn't resist trying to capture it in a photograph. And no, those are not my hands, they're my hubby's...obviously... how else would I take the picture...


I couldn't resist snapping a photo of Ruby with the flower that her daddy and brother picked for her!

Trying...

This montage is dedicated to all who have ever tried to get a good picture of 4 kids, aged 4 and under. Good times!

What Ira likes to do

It's interesting... since I packed up 4 barrel-fuls of toys (I've yet to decide whether I want to rotate them or just get rid of them completely) Ira has found the most creative ways to entertain himself. He is slightly obsessed with bowling (it all started with a bowling set from his little sister for his birthday.) So this is what he does a lot of the day many days of the week. I just love it!

Bean Bag

For as long as Ira's been alive, his nickname (given to him by his daddy) has been "Bean Bag." So it seemed only fitting to make Ira a bean bag toss game.

I don't have a sewing machine, but I do have "No-sew" iron-on hem tape, so I used it on some extra fabric I had and filled them with lentils to make bean bags. (they (the lentils) are a PERFECT weight - not heavy enough to do damage to a baby sister if misdirected, but heavy enough to fly nicely through the air.)


Then I cut up one of our bushel boxes from the orchard to make an angled "board."

I drew numbers on the bottoms of 3 different sized containers (a blue cheese shallow one worth 3 points, a sour cream tub worth 2 points, and a cottage cheese container worth 1 point) and put them into the top of the bushel box.


I must say, I was pretty thrilled with how it turned out. Ira and I have been having LOTS of fun playing bean bag toss lately. And as an added bonus, Ira has gotten LOTS of practice doing simple addition! Who said math isn't fun?!

So a canner can can, can he?

You know that exceedingly canny canner? The one who remarked to his granny about being able to can anything he can can? Well a canner can't can a can, can he? But let's just pretend he was going to.

Would he:
-need to add lemon juice
-have a proven, tried and true recipe
-have the right kind of pectin
-have exactly the right amount of every single ingredient
-have the right number of the right size of jars
-need to boil the can
-need to sterilize the jar to put the can in
-need to leave 1/4", 1/2", 3/4", or 1" of head space
-need to remove the bubbles around the edge of the jar
-need to wipe the rim of the jar
-know to tighten the band finger tight or more (and whose finger are we talking about?)
-have to process with an inch water on top
-have to add water to maintain the inch
-know to add 5 minutes to the processing time to allow for the extra altitude of the area
-know to leave the jars sitting in the canner for 5 minutes after processing
-know not to tilt jar
-need to leave one inch of breezeway in between jars
-know to not touch the jars (or the water on top of them) for 24 hours
-listen for the pop of the jar sealing
-observe the concave lid that cannot be removed
-remove the band to store the canned can
-say "Screw this, I don't want to kill my family of botulism" and decide to store everything in the fridge anyway

I don't know. I'm definitely not the exceedingly canny canner...