August Adventures

As per usual, the month of August came and went in the blink of an eye. I was looking through pictures on my digital camera and was reminded of the many fun things we did last month as a family and thought I would allow the photos to do most of the talking as I bring you up to date on the adventures of August. The boys and I attempted to do the State Fair by ourselves one hot August morning...it was not an overwhelming success! Highlights of the day included meeting Cherrylynn, Ethan, and CJ for a brief moment by the piglet races (!) and randomly running into Aunt Mal-Mal! We ended up spending our time with Mallory and her friend Jessica. The boys enjoyed the Little Hands on the Farm exhibit once again this year. Ben LOVES pretending to be a farmer and following all the instructions at each stop along the path. Joe, quite frankly, was a pain in the butt. The terrible twos have officially set in at our house and he was not a fan of waiting in line and loudly (very loudly) voiced his protests. The cutest thing, however, was how Joey insisted on following the directions to the letter. So, when the lady told him to feed the pig, while most kids correctly just deposited a bag of corn in the bucket next to the pig standups, Joey painstakingly fed each individual kernal of corn to the pig! This was our first fight of the day, however, when I encouraged him to move along and stop holding up the line. He was not amused. Can you say perfectionist just like his mommy?! Ben was such a good boy and a big helper during our trip to the fair. The other hightlight for both boys (and me) was the yummy fair food. Joe had a hot dog, Ben had a corn dog, and I had a walking taco. The boys had sno cones and we all split a lemon shake up....well, Joey had a lemon shakeup and Benny and I had sips whenever we were able to pry the giant cup of sweet goodness from his grubby little paws! We did make it back to the fair a week later with Daddy and that trip was much more successful. For the most part it has been a very mild summer, but we did have about 2 weeks in August of very hot temperatures. We took advantage of the heat for some hillbilly fun in the backyard with plastic swimming pools, slip and slides, and lots of sprinkler action. Ben always complained that the water was too cold, but Joey played in the water for hours...or until his lips turned blue, whatever came first. Joey has also conquered the swingset this summer. He can climb up the rock-climbing wall on the side of the swingset and catapult himself down the slide. We have had one incident when he chose to jump the 4 feet down (after giving himself a countdown "1,2, 2" of course). I was not amused, but Ben was very impressed. Fortunately this feat has not been repeated...yet. The boys are beginning to really be able to play well together. One of their favorite things to play is hide and seek. Here is Ben's best hiding spot ever...Dean hid him in his basket of stuffed animals in Joe's room. Joey was thrilled to find him! The boys are both excited for college football...their daddy is a terrible influence on them! And finally, these are actually September pics, but I will share them anyway. Benny was diagnosed with pneumonia last week (poor baby) so he has been doing breathing treatments. He takes them like a champ now and wanted me to take a picture of him so he could see what he looked like. He thinks he looks like an elephant! We don't get to see baby Brookie near as much as we would like, but that will soon change when we start watching her once a week beginning next week. Wahoo! Sissy and Brookie stopped by for a quick visit yesterday and Joey was impressed by her big girl sitting skills. He really loves her and I think it will be fun to see them interact as she gets older.