coconino county fair

This weekend is the Coconino County Fair. I really wanted to check it out, I have fond memories of the State Fair and the Maricopa County Fair. I love the scary rides, although I haven't ridden one probably since high school. And how can anyone resist fair food- anything deep fried and on a stick?!
Yesterday I had to pick up Reed early from school because his head hurt and he had a temperature. All afternoon he complained that his head hurt (but not bad enough to lay down and get some rest). This morning he woke up claiming his head hurt again. I told him to eat some breakfast to see if this helped. It didn't help too much for him. I sent him to lay on his bed and told him when he felt better that I would take him to school. After checking on him a few times, I could see that he had no intentions of going to school. I pulled out my bag o' tricks. I told him that it was too bad that he wasn't feeling well, because I wanted to take him and his brothers to the county fair after school(not that it mattered if he went to school-we were going to the fair whether he went or not, I just wanted to see if he really did feel sick). Before I could turn to leave the room, his head miraculously felt better. After taking him to school a little late, I felt bad wondering if he really was sick and if I was going to have to come back and pick him up once the Motrin he took at breakfast wore off. Lucky for me, this wasn't the case. He gets home early on Fridays and as soon as he was off the bus, we were off to pick up our friends for a great afternoon at the fair.


(left to right) Tate, Blue, Livia, Reed, Beau(he had about as much fun as one two year old could handle within the first hour)


Reed chose a frozen lemonade over ice cream. When all we found was nonfat frozen yogurt, I'm glad he had lemonade so he could share with me.


Blue didn't seem to notice a difference between ice cream and nonfat frozen yogurt.


Beau would have fed the ducks and chickens the entire time if I would have let him. Even when he was all out of food he just stuck his hand in the cage. I thought for sure a rooster was gonna peck his hand right off.


I was a little nervous about letting the boys ride a not-so-kiddie ride. I had visions of the operator having to stop the ride to let my boys off because they were scared. Apparently, I worry too much.

remember when

Remember when getting high meant swinging at the playground? I think the swings have always been my favorite part of the playground. I love to see how high I can get, it is thrilling for me. I remember seeing how far I could jump off the swings, and even sometimes flipping backwords on the swings. My boys enjoy it as much as I do, especially since I am doing all the work pushing them. The look on their faces always tell me if it is tickling their tummies. I have to say the one of the things I love about Flag is their AMAZING parks. Tons of grass everywhere, tall trees, and great playground equipment. Last night we grabbed a Little Caesars pizza (can't go wrong with a $5 pizza for dinner) and went to a park. Talk about a perfect evening. Perfect weather, perfect playground, and perfect company- my little family.

On a side note: There is a skate/bike park next to the playground. We went to watch some of the "sweet" tricks for a little bit. Reed was amazed that these teenage boys could ride their bikes and do tricks without training wheels. Doncha just love a kid like that?

restroom at the park

This morning I took Blue and Beau to a park near our house.

Don't mind the chocolate covering their faces. We went to the grocery store just before and since they were good, well mostly good, they got donuts!
It has the old school metal slides and they were kinda hot so we didn't stay too long. But Blue noticed a sign for the restrooms and he asked what the sign meant. I told him that it means there are restrooms at the park.

Since we don't use "proper" language at our house (a restroom is called a bathroom), Blue thought I meant a "rest" room. He studied the sign for a little bit and then said, "Whew, mom I think I need a rest. Man, was he disappointed when he realized what a restroom really was!

blind hunting

Yesterday I had my first experience blind hunting, not hunting without seeing the animals but hunting without the animals seeing me. Here are a few things I observed while sitting for 13 HOURS waiting for a decent deer to come within range:

*Bring a hoodie even if your outfitter/husband says you won't need one. I should have known better, Colby is NEVER cold.

*Bring toilet paper. Who doesn't remember the toilet paper...a man.

*Bring more than two books. You'll have time to finish them all.

*Snacking/eating is kept to a minimum. The animals might smells the food, no matter what it is. Every time I would eat something Colby would spray down the blind with some sort of de-smelling spray.

*Drinking is kept to a minimum also. This may cause the need to go the bathroom, which in my case would not be fun since there was no tp.

*Talking is only aloud if you whisper and even then it must be kept to a minimum.

*No ipods allowed. How are you supposed to hear the animals coming? Duh!

Now even though it sounds like I might have had a better time sticking hot pokers in my eyes, I am going to give it another shot. Mostly because I am competitive and I know if given a chance, I a pretty good shot with my bow. Oh, and I get spend quality time with the one I love, minus the quality.

in case of emergency

Today I was reworking our 72 hour kits. I am in charge of a booth for RS next week all about 72 hour kits. I pulled out our kits that I assembled about two years ago, yes it has been two years since I have even thought about them. I will post what I have done later. Anyway, Blue was asking what all the food was for. I told him in case of an emergency, we would have food to eat. He asked, "Like if something happened to our house?" "Possibly", I said. A couple of minutes later Blue wanted to know when we were going to move into our tree house. I don't know where he got that idea but I guess that was his solution in case of an emergency. In fact, I discovered that he had added a few more items to his 72 hour backpack, such as his alphabet flash cards, his best lego ship creation, and he wanted to put in Kit Fitso(his latest star wars purchase-see entry from August 15). Did I mention that we don't even have a tree house? I guess we better get on that.

help!

( first day of school)

We are finishing up our first week of school and already I feel like Angry Mom. Reed dilly-dally's the morning away and has no sense of urgency to get ready for school. So I end up becoming Angry Mom and using my angry voice to get him to pick up the pace. Because he is so tender-hearted, he usually ends up with tears in his eyes at least two to three times a morning. I'm not sure what to do. It's not like our routine changes every morning. I just feel so bad dropping him off at school after I have yelled at him all morning long. I usually pull over right before he gets out of the car and let him know that I love him and I think he is a great kid but that we need to work on our morning routine. But nothing has changed all week. HELP!

This is another picture from the first day of school. Beau wanted to get in the action also.

star wars, the clone wars

In honor of opening day of The Clone Wars, I am going to give you yet another glimpse of how obsessed my boys are with Star Wars. If Colby were in town today, you can bet your bottom dollar that he would have taken all the boys to this movie. But since he is not in town today, he promised them that we would go for FHE on Monday night. I am trying to contain my excitement. Now for story time. Yesterday while shopping once again at Target, for the supplies on Reed's class list, we happened to peruse the aisles of the toys also. Blue found a Star Wars galactic hero that we don't have, which is actually a surprise to me since I could swear that we have them all if not doubles of some of them. Anyway, he handled the let down of not purchasing the galactic hero on that shopping trip pretty well. But when we got home, he wouldn't stop talking about how worried he was that there wouldn't be any left the next time we went to Target. So I told him if he would do some jobs around the house he could earn his own money for it. He was all over that. He helped me clean the loft, the theater room, and his room. When it was time to go to bed, he started to complain and I told him if he didn't obey he wouldn't get the Star Wars toy. He looked at me surprised and said, "You didn't tell me I had to obey also". As if obeying was just one of the terms for the toy and not an everyday thing. His expression told me that if I had told him earlier about this term, he might not have wanted the toy as badly. It took him literally an hour and a half to finally fall asleep. He was so worked up about going to Target right when it opened to get this toy. This morning he comes in and wakes me up at 6:am. "Guess what today is?" He was still so excited. He was ready to go by 6:30 and totally disappointed that we wouldn't be leaving until 8:00. Finally in Target he practically ran to the toy section and was so relieved to find that there was still two packages left. He has played with it all day long and even took a bath in the afternoon with it... I guess just to see how the galactic hero would handle the water.

first of first

Yesterday was Reed's first day of first grade. I took pictures but cannot find my cord to download them. So you will just have to imagine the innocence and excitement that he was. He woke up at 6:30 and was ready by 7:00, which was so unlike last year. He even made his own pb&j sandwich for his lunch. We walked him to his new classroom but the minute he saw one of his old friends from kindergarten it was hello friends and good-bye family. I so glad that he enjoys school and has made some good friends there. After school he told me that his first grade teacher was just as nice as his kindergarten teacher. Who knew that he would be so lucky to have TWO nice teachers :)

procrastination in a small town...

is not a good thing. For the past month Reed and Blue have been begging for the new Star Wars, The Clone Wars backpack at Target. I have held them at bay, telling them every time we went to Target that we would get it the NEXT time we went to Target. Well, tonight(the night before the first day of school up here) we finally took a trip to Target specifically for this backpack. I think part of my procrastination happened because I was trying to decide if I was going to have to buy TWO of the very exact same backpacks or if I could get away with just buying one and making them share it. You know, Reed would take it to school for one week then it would be Blue's turn the next week. But Heidi informed me that I was being too cheap and not to mention mean! So, to avoid being cheap and mean, I finally gave in to making a purchase of twin backpacks. Before heading to the back to school section I fed my boys a very healthy dinner of pizza hut pizza and icees in the food court. I started to get a little nervous as I saw how many other mothers with school-aged children were procrastinating just like me. I kept thinking, "Please, please have at least one more Star Wars backpack for my boys." Yaaa, no such luck. There was an abundance of Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, and Speed Racer backpacks but no Star Wars anywhere. Thank heavens my boys took it really well. There were no melt downs coming from my shopping cart. I just hope I don't forget to order it online now (you know, it might just get in the way of all my blogging time).

a new beau

Today I got my first bow, not Beau, but bow- as in bow and arrow. This afternoon the whole family went down to the archery shop here in town. That was quite an experience! With all three boys chasing each other around the store, touching everything, and nearly knocking over tri-pods and buckets of arrows, Colby thought it would be a good idea to just put them back in the car and let them watch a movie while I got all "set up". Good idea. I gave Reed my cell phone and set it to Colby's number and told him that if there were any problems with Beau to press the green button and that would call Dad's cell phone. He was as proud as a peacock holding that cell phone. Now back in the store, I must say I was a little disappointed when I couldn't pull back a regular size bow. I ended up with a youth bow. I'm such a wimp! At least Reed will be able to use it...probably in just a couple of years.
Tonight, Colby and I got a babysitter and headed to the outdoor archery range. After a couple of trial arrows, I got the hang of it. I think the competitive side in me came out, which I almost forgot that I even had a competitive side. It was shining brightly tonight though. I was determined to hit each and every target in the "kill zone". I did pretty good, if I do say so myself. Archery season opens next weekend. We'll see if my one day of practice is going to be enough...Now if I can just get a babysitter for opening day...Chea? Mom?

mourning

Today we lost a dear member of our family. He never left Blue's side. He came to church with Blue, he slept with Blue, and even bathed with Blue. Earlier today,Blue came down the stairs hysterical. After spending about ten minutes calming him down, he told me how this tragic accident happened. Blue went to the bathroom and was holding Yoda in his hand when he flushed (apparently, he even took a leak with Blue). Yoda slipped out of Blue's hand and into the swirling water. Blue couldn't react fast enough to save Yoda. It has been a pretty grim day for Blue.