MN State Fair

I do love the MN State Fair!  I look forward to it every year at the end of the summer.  Unfortunately, our weather did not cooperate this year on the day that we decided to go.  We had a short amount of time with sunshine and no rain, so we made the best of it :) 

Here are my little Gopher hockey players, all suited up!

Sweet Martha's Cookies are definitely a MUST at the fair.  We stood in the rain and chowed these babies down before heading home for the morning!

The BIG slide was closed down because of the rain, bummer.  He's still all smiles though :) 

Henry got one ride in before the rain started and they had to shut them down - he chose Monster Trucks, of course!

My favorite thing to do at the fair - Little Farm Hands :)  

They fed the chickens, gathered eggs, picked apples, planted vegetable seeds, and milked a cow!

Gotta drive that tractor around the farm :)

Lydia made it - taller than 2 chickens this year, yay!

The Alphabet Forest - another of my favorites at the fair.  There are so many "letter" themed activities  in this area for the kids to do.  

Here we are, on the bus back to our car, sad that we had to leave early because of the rain.  Lydia almost has that pouty face going with us :)

back to school

This year, Henry will be completing his final round of Pre-K before heading off to Kindergarten next year.  We switched him to a new school, just to change it up a little bit, as he's had the same teacher (who we loved, so it was very hard to leave her) the previous 2 years. 

Here he was, with all his school supplies the week before he started.  He probably pulled everything out of the bag 10 different times to admire it, then organized it just how he liked it back in the bag each time :)

September 9th, 2015 - off to Northside Christian School for Pre-K

August

In early August, we spent the weekend with good friends at their cabin in SoDak.  

Gwyneth is 4, Henry is 5, and Olivia is 6, so these three just play so well together.  Sometimes the girls fight over who Henry's "best friend" is between the two of them :)  He's learning at an early age that it's hard to please ALL the ladies, ha! 

It was a beautiful weekend.  The kids literally did not come inside from 9am until it was dinner time - boat rides, tubing, fishing, swimming, jet-ski rides - it was a great time!

Not a single fish was caught :(

Then there's Lydia and Reese, little BFFs, they're 1 month apart :)

Just like at the Dells, Henry and Olivia probably jumped off this dock about 400 times a day!

National Night Out is always the first week in August.  Here's the crew on our block.  Lydia was baby #31 (she's the youngest on the block), and since she was born I think we've had about 8 more kids move in.  

Oh my, Henry has sure gotten good use out of his car this summer.  He knows a clean car is a happy car :)

One night when Phil was gone, I gave them free rein to make a pizza as they wish.  They did it all, I just handed them the toppings - they spread the dough, sauced it up, dumped one big pile of cheese in the middle, and then loaded it with pepperoni :)

One Sunday night, we went to Running Aces for family night with a few of our neighborhood friends.  We placed our bets on the harness horse racing, the kids got their faces painted, we had dinner, and also did a little trout fishing (we came home empty handed there).

In late August, one of my bestest friends and roommate from college, Teri Ann, got married to a nice guy named Jamie in New Smyrna Beach, FL.  It was a HOT one in FL in the summer, wow!  Molly and I left our husbands at home for the long weekend - it was girls only!  It was so much fun to see all these ladies for a few days - it's been way too long!  Here we were at the house Jamie grew up in the night before the wedding - a beautiful view of the water. 

Here's Molly and I before the ceremony started. 

I gotta get a photo every time at the Children's Museum!  Look at their faces, checking themselves out in the mirror, ha!

We have had such nice days to play at the park in the afternoons around here!  Let's hope they continue for another month :) 

We made our annual trip to the Tamarack Nature Center (and crossed another item off our summer bucket list).  What a great place for kids to just explore the land - they can dig in the sand, play in the water, climb on the rocks, build a fort with sticks, water and weed the gardens - it's great!

When you really want to play hard in the dirt, just tuck your dress into you "unnies," right?!  The girl thought that every item of clothing that went over your feet were your "unnies" :)  In this case, her "unnies" were simply her cute little bloomers under her dress!