A few more County Fair pictures

 

We love the fair!

The kids had so much fun this year even though it was the HOTTEST week of the entire summer!

 

 

 

 

My Future 4-Her's!!!!!

 

We've started taking a picture in front of the sign every year.

I can't wait until they are posing with their livestock in front of it!

 

New this year was a Little Hands on the Farm area.

We loved it!

 

They shelled corn for the animals.

 

They milked a cow.

 

Then they fought over milking the cow. ;-)

 

They love taking pictures in these scenes with the head holes!

We even made Grandma ride the horse!

 

Preston had a lovely time digging in the dirt all week too.

 

We had a great week!
Next up, the State Fair!!!!!

She read 100 Books!!!!

Peighton is an awesome reader.

 

And she LOVES to read!

 

 

At the end of Kindergarten we decided we'd try to read 100 books this summer.

 

 

 

Last week we read our 100th book:

 

 

I am so proud of Peighton and the wonderful reader she has become!

 

 

She picked out a HUGE lego set as a reward for making it to 100.

We are still working on putting it together though.

That might get it's own blog post when we accomplish that!!!!!!



My Super Clover Kid!

Peighton started Clover Kids this year and we have had so much fun!

 

She got to do a couple projects to take to the fair.

 

 

She chose a magnet board and a decorated plate.

 

 

Her adorable magnet board that she did mostly on her own!

 

 

 

And her decorated plate that she can't wait to eat on after the fair!

 

 

Her favorite part?

The RAINBOW ribbon!

Can't wait for many more years of 4-H fun!!!!!!

He needed a new sandbox...

We had a tiny plastic turtle sandbox that we bought a few years ago for Peighton.

It was clearly not big enough for this boy.

 

So, Daddy built a new one and there's plenty of room for anything he might need to do in there and lots of room for friends too!

 

Grandpa ordered a dumptruck of sand to fill it for us....I think we might have enough. ;-)

 

He was so excited to climb up to the top of the mountain of sand!!!!!

 

We had A LOT of sand.

Dustin had to move some to the cattle and put some in a pile in the driveway.

There were a couple of TONS too many in that dump truck!

 

He has Daddy's old tractors for all the farming he has to do in there.

 

 

He LOVES it!

We have spent a lot of time out there.

He is one happy boy.



Our "Bucket of Junk" project

We entered the "Bucket of Junk" contest at the fair this year.

 

10 participants were all given a bucket of junk and had to make something out of it!

A very fun challenge!

 

This is what we started out with:

 

Looks like a pile of junk to me!!!!!

We decided to make a 4-Her (with pigtails!), a pig and a fence with flowers.

 

We started with the pig.

 

Mike did a lot of the welding for us.

It was a whole family project!

 

Some of the small pieces.

We did lots of flowers and even a 4 leaf clover.

 

The beginning of our 4-Her!

 

Katy and I were told quite often "HOLD THIS!"

 

 

Our cute 4-Her coming together!

 

One of my favorite parts of the whole thing is this little bug.

 

 

There were lots of "discussions" about the correct position of things.

 

Almost done with the welding!



 

 

And our finished project:

 

 

Our pig got a purple ribbon!

 

 

 

The pig even has a curly tail.

 

 

We ended up with 3rd place at the fair.

There were some really cute entries!

We had so much fun we're going to do it again next year.

I now have my own welding helmet though and will be learning to weld!

 

 

Silly Cake CHAMPIONS!

Peighton and I had a lot of fun making another Silly Cake for the fair this year.

 

 

 

 

 

We looked at some pictures on Pinterest for our inspiration.

 

She thought a bait bucket with worms coming out the top looked like a fun one.

 

It turned out super cute!

Peighton is becoming quite a good helper in the kitchen.

 

We took it to the fair Monday night and got it judged.

 

 

 

She got a blue ribbon and $10!

She was pretty happy!



Preston is THREE!

"Bubba" is officially 3!

 

He had a great day filled with all the things he loves:
Sausage for breakfast

Candles in his waffle

McDonald's chicken nuggets for lunch

An Oreo stacking contest at the Fair

Animals at the Fair

And Fair Food!

 

 

He woke up to a huge train table just waiting for a little boy to play with it.

And he played with it almost ALL DAY!
He loves it!

 

Sausage and waffles are his favorite and candles make it even better.

 

He got some new legos.

 

And a bit of John Deere fun!

 

 

Oreo stacking at the fair...not officially old enough but when Grandpa is in charge it's ok!

 

 

 

Last, but not least, or annual bear picture with Scruffy!

 

 



Cabela's, Friends, IKEA and Mall of America!

We spent a few days at home after our trip to Des Moines and Omaha and then we hit the road again!

 

 

 

Dustin was headed to Minnesota (and staying right across from the Mall of America!!!) and asked if we wanted to go along.

Of course we said yes.

 

 

 

For this trip we left after lunch and Preston slept part of the way!!!!

That was really nice. ;-)

 

Dustin had to be on a conference call and didn't want to listen to the noise coming from the back seat...so he dropped us off at Cabela's.

Not really my favorite place but we did end up having fun!

 

 

Peighton and Preston liked looking at all of the animals.

Peighton told me these animals were much easier to find than some of the animals at the Omaha zoo...

 

Nellie enjoyed her time at cabela's as well.

 

I have to admit it was pretty cool seeing the elephant and other big animals up close.

 

After we had been through all the animals (more than once) I wanted to check out the shoes.

The kids found a very fun rock wall to climb on.

This kept them busy for quite awhile!

 

 

After an hour and a half Dustin FINALLY came back in to get us and we headed the rest of the way!

 

 

 

We got to spend Tuesday with some of our favorite friends who are back from Malaysia for the summer!

What a fun day we had swimming, eating, and catching up!

 

 

Peighton loved the diving board.

 

Then the girls got creative and made their own slide.

 

The slide was quite popular!

 

Preston was a bit overwhelmed by all the girls and finally chose to hang out with Justin for a bit and talk tractors.

Out of the 9 kids there, only 2 of them were boys!

 

 

 

 

 

We had yummy pizza by the pool!

 

These two were born only days apart when we all lived in Indy down the street from each other.

They have turned into awesome little girls!

 

 

Then we were off to IKEA and the Mall of America.

We had to swing by the hotel to get Nellie-she couldn't be left out!

 

Peighton was nice enough to ride a few "baby rides" with Preston so I didn't have to squish in there!!!!!!

 

We even found some more semi trucks!

 

That night Daddy joined us after his meetings and we did a few more rides and a little more shopping.

 

They both loved the Swiper ride.

Preston kept yelling "Wiper no wiping!!!!" Just like in Dora!

 

 

We had lots of fun!