Fair day!

Yesterday we spent a long, hot day at the state fair. Or maybe it was just a hot enough day that it seemed really long. Whatever the case, here are some pictures from our day.

Waiting for the shuttle bus.

Excited that we got a school bus for our shuttle (instead of a city bus). Notice how they had their hands. I think they may have been a little nervous about the bus ride.

We spent a lot of time in the machinery grounds ...

like a whole lot of time in the machinery grounds.

We actually could have just stayed home and went down the street to the implement dealer.
What's that you just asked? Why, yes, that is indeed a playground on the other side of the backoe. We played there for a little while. But then decided it was much more fun to hang out inside the backhoe's bucket.

When we finally left the machinery grounds, Evan found a spiffy playground to climb on.

No, wait. Not a playground. It was a bale feeder. And it was adjacent to the machinery grounds.

We forced the kids to walk away from the machinery grounds in order to fulfill Evan's request to visit the Little Hands on the Farm.
Ready to farm, Daddy!

Kendra got a little carried away with the shovel and dirt when she was planting.

And she can't steer a tractor to save her life.

But to even things out in the steering department, Evan steered his tractor around the corner perfectly even though he was watching behind him to see where Kendra was.

Still farming.

While waiting in line, I attempted to hold the camera out and get a picture of Chad. I halfway succeeded (no, really, this isn't cropped. I actually got exactly half of his face). He picked on me. I think it's a spiffy picture anyway.

For their treat from the farm, Evan and Kendra both chose a banana. No Twinkies. No Bomb Pops. No cereal bars. Just a banana.

Three of us made our first-ever trip down the Giant Slide. Evan loved it and wanted to go again. I'm glad I didn't watch him go since the flying leg action in this shot led to him laying down sideways for part of the ride down. But he loved it anyway.

I loved it a little less than Evan. I may be smiling in the picture, but I think it's my oh-my-word-I'm-going-to-die-on-a-slide-and-take-my-daughter-with-me smile, which wouldn't be so much of a smile really. You may think Kendra's smiling, but I'm not sure. She might just be making that face because her mommy is squeezing her too tight. I didn't know you actually leave the surface of ths slide when you go over the bumps. Shouldn't they post signs about things like that?!?

Oh, look! We made it back to the machinery grounds for one last sit on every single tractor (or so it seemed to me) before we headed for home.

Acting a little goofy on the shuttle ride back to our van. This time we got a city bus. They were pretty excited that they got to ride in both kinds of bus!

And this concludes our Fair Day recap. For those of you who noticed the lack of Laura in the pictures, she stayed with my mom for the day instead of subjecting her to the heat and the "injustice" of being strapped in a stroller all day.

Upon rereading this post, I fear I sound a bit negative. Maybe I should have waited for the sunburn to heal a little before I wrote this. Or maybe I should get over my childhood aggravation about having to spend hours upon hours upon hours in the machinery grounds. Silly me, I wasn't going to force my children to spend entire days at the fair talking to tractor salesmen. Yet, that's what they choose to do anyway.

Happy (late) birthday, blog!

Just thought of this afternoon that I started my blog about a year ago. I was a few days off, as my blog had it's "birthday" about a week and a half ago. Seems hard to remember my pre-blogging days now. And it's funny to think about how nervous I was to tell Chad that I had started one. Now he's my most faithful reader and (nearly the only) commenter. Thanks, Sweetie!

If any of you lurkers out there (lurkers are those who read but don't comment) want to "come out" in celebration of this bloggy birthday, feel free. But, honestly, I don't expect much... :)

Happy birthday, blog!

The post that should be titled "Wait, back up"

This morning, Laura scrubbed ... wait, back up.

When I got off the phone, I hollered for the kids ... wait, back up.

While I was on the hold, I put toothpaste on ... wait, back up.

Did you know you can be on hold for nearly 12 minutes with the children's hospit ... wait, back up.

Lately, I've been scrubbing a lot of ... wait, back up.

Massive amounts of laxative can ... wait, back up.

Back, back, back, back, back.

When Kendra was not quite a year old, she started having problems with constipation. (I hadn't really planned on writing about this, but if you stick with me, you'll see that it's necessary for this post, which is totally worth it in my opinion.) We have fought with her constipation and tried everything we could think of for 2 1/2 years to rid her of this problem. Finally, we took her to a pediatric gastroenterologist a couple of weeks ago. We found out that, and this is a direct quote from the doctor, "she's full of poop", and we needed to get her cleaned out to start the recovery process. Now, let's start back where we were at the beginning of this post (but at the end of the list, if that makes sense).

Massive amounts of laxative can make for several very messy days.

Lately, I've been scrubbing a lot of underwear. We have a designated toothbrush that is specifically for scrubbing dirty/stained clothes. And, yes, it is kept (mostly) out of reach.

Did you know you can be on hold for nearly 12 minutes with the children's hospital? This morning I called the GI doc's office to clear up a scheduling error and was on hold for 11 minutes and 56 seconds. Not that I kept track or anything.

While I was on hold, I put toothpaste on my toothbrush, got my floss out, and set them on the bathroom counter, on top of the basket of Kendra's clean underwear.

When I got off the phone, I hollered for the kids to tell them we were going to my brother's house to play with his wife and kids. They all came running. Laura wanted picked up and gave me a big hug. I thought, "she smells so good after I brushed her teeth... wait, I didn't brush her teeth. And she smells like my toothpaste". Off to the bathroom I go and find my toothbrush is now toothpaste free, Laura has minty fresh breath, and there is a pair of Kendra's (clean, still folded) underwear sitting in the sink with toothpaste scrubbed in to them.

This morning, Laura scrubbed a pair of Kendra's (clean, still folded - I find that part very important to emphasize) underwear with my toothbrush and toothpaste. That means she has been paying a lot of attention as I've been scrubbing underwear lately. I'm just glad her confusion led her to scrub (clean, still folded) underwear with my toothbrush instead of brushing her teeth with the scrubbin' brush.

Just Smurfy

This afternoon, Evan and Kendra were supposed to be napping. Normally, they don't nap. But based on Kendra's (and therefore most everyone else's) lack of sleep last night and Evan's behavior this morning, naps were definitely in order. Naps also definitely didn't happen. But, they were excellent while they should have been napping. They played happily and quietly with nary a scream or a fight.

As I was e-mailing a couple of people I work with via computer that Evan and Kendra had been perfect during "nap time" (other than the not napping, of course), I heard Evan saying, "no, Kendra" and Kendra replying with a laugh, repeated over and over. I finished writing and sending the e-mail about my well-behaved children and went to see what was going on.

I found Evan holding the dishrag that had no white left showing; it was completely blue. As were his hands. And I found an equally blue Kendra coloring the table with an overhead marker while Evan washed it off with the dishrag as fast as he could.

They had been doing number and letter write-on/wipe-off books, but Kendra must have decided the table would be more fun to write-on while Evan did the wipe-off.

I spanked Kendra's hand for coloring the table. I told Evan thank you for trying to fix the problem but that, in the future, someone coloring the table is probably something he should get Mommy to handle. I washed Kendra and gave her a wet paper towel to start washing the table. I washed Evan, who then took the very blue dishrag to try and clean his book so it would be ready to use again. (Evan really was very good throughout this whole thing.)

After wiping the table off several, several many times, it still turns a rag a faint blue color. After washing Evan and Kendra, they are still a more-than-faint blue color.

Did anyone catch the irony that all this happened while I was writing an e-mail about how good they were being?

Sleeping advice

Last night was a rough night here. I was venting to a friend via e-mail, asking her for advice on how to get Kendra to stay in her bed and sleep at night. While her answers weren't exactly helpful for the sleeping problem, they did at least make me smile. So I'll share them with you. Enjoy!

Here are the answers. They may not pass muster with child services though....

1. Buy earmuffs and sound machine. Wear them yourself.
2. Move to a hotel under an assumed name– don’t tell the family where you’ve gone.
3. Enter the witness protection program without your family.
4. Become an alcoholic so you pass out and don’t notice the chaos.
5. Get a reality TV show about your family so you can move into a mc-mansion and hire nannies to handle this crap for you.
6. Pretend you don’t hear anyone speaking to you. Stick your fingers in your ears and say “la la la la ...”
7. Put Kendra in a rubber suit, in a sound proof room.

Hope this is helpful!

Lately

I feel like lately I've been causing this look entirely too often

because of things like this

and this.