Tuesday, October 20 - Kid's Fun Fair at School

Tonight I mustered up some energy and took the kiddos to their Annual School Fun Fair. Since I was by myself (Ed was working), Jaren stayed back with G&G Palmer, aka... his 'other' set of parents! :O) I also invited my friends to join us but two of her kiddos were sick so I offered to take her oldest, who is four! I knew he'd LOVE to play the games, but I forgot how much energy four-year-olds have as well!!! Oliver was GREAT and helped me out with keeping an extra eye on Cullan. It was like he was an adoptive big brother for the night! It was seriously so sweet to see how they interacted with one another!

Ollie and Cullan waiting in line to play some games in the gym.

My friend, Brenda, is the PTO president this year and her two boys were sick at home and her husband was out of town so she brought her little girl, McKenzie, who I used to babysit, along with her. She asked if she could hang out with us for the night while she made sure the fun fair ran without a hitch! She even gave us an extra punch card for games for each of the kiddos! How sweet was that?! I didn't mind since McKenzie and Eden are good friends, so they had a ball together!

First, we went to the cake walk and Cullan WON the very first cake!!! We all cheered for him but then he got very shy and didn't want to choose one. I chose one for him which was a green cake with a large spider on top and ran it out to the car so I didn't have to carry it all night long! We walked through the school playing the games, getting tattoos and jumping on the inflatables. They all were having so much fun!

The hockey game. The boys loved this one!

Eden playing a game.

Cullan playing the ring toss game.

We took a break to have pizza or hot dogs for dinner in the cafeteria. It was nice to get off of my feet for a bit! We did the cake walk again and this time... I WON! I've never won a cake at a cake walk! Oliver was the one that drew my number, too!!! HA! This time, Cullan wanted to choose the cake so I let him choose and we swapped cakes later! He chose a green one with spiders all over it! It was funny because Oliver's teacher, Mr. Galloway, made both of the cakes that we chose! ;o)

McKenzie and Eden during dinner. Goofy girls!

I still can't believe that I won a cake! I was like, "I'm cravin' me some cake tonight!!"

In one of the rooms they had a "Musical Petting Zoo" which the kids LOVED! They had an array of instruments laid out for the kids to try. They all loved trying the violins!!!

Oliver getting a mini violin lesson.

Eden trying it as well!

"Hey Mr. Tambourine Man... Play a song for me..."

Ollie trying to play... hehehe...

I'm glad that I was able to feel well enough to take them so they could have fun. I feel like they've been missing out on alot with me feeling crappy all of the time. I'm glad we went! It was a really fun night!

Memories of MAY...

Let's see here... oh, yes... May started out with Jaren's first three day stay at the hospital for his respiratory problems. He's definitely following in his older brother's footsteps. We think he's allergic to milk and wheat so far. He's probably got allergies like the rest of the males in this family, go figure! The kids had fun visiting brother and playing in his "cage"!

Jaren was released on our anniversary, Cinco de Mayo. So we've been married for 8 years now. Good news... we STILL love each other. We never got to celebrate it, but we do fun stuff together every now and again anyways! I love you, Stinkyface! Thanks for the beautiful flowers!




Krista, Tiona and I celebrated Connie's graduation from UNI at the Olive Garden and let me tell you, we were just roaring with laughter! Congrats again for a wonderful achievement!!! "Outer Darkness Cheese"... I'll leave it at that!!



I helped the girls with a craft this month. They were studying about "Things that Grow": babies, animals, chicks, plants, etc. We made a little nest with some chicks in it and they LOVED it!




We also crashed the Lou Henry Elementary "FUN FAIR" (well, my mom teaches there, so we really didn't crash it... ;) They go all out for the fun fair! They have a petting zoo, dunk tank, blow ups to jump in and all sorts of games and yummy food. This year the kids won two gold fish a piece, so after we left, we bought a little tank. Yeah... fish die fast. Not a great pet for the kiddos. I've also found out that if a pet does NOT make noise... it doesn't really get taken care of... the squeaky wheel gets the oil... ya know what I mean?!


Here are some pictures of Jaren trying to keep on standing next to the couch. He eventually toppled over, but was a tough little tot and didn't even cry! He's also just too cute when he flashes me his cute smile when he plays with his toys.






I took the girls to the Arboretum as well this month. Here are some pics of that:




At the end the month, we had a Book of Mormon Ward Activity which I'm glad I took the kids to. They had lots of fun going to the different stations and having hands on activities. Good job to those who made it possible, the kids had lots of fun!

FUN fair? I think not.

Okay... last night was the fun fair at Ollie and Eden's school and I must say that I was not very impressed. I know that it's not a high class, high income school, but I would suggest a few changes.

*First, the games... no prizes immediately after you play the game. No little candies or cheap costume jewels for the girls... nothing. (They can turn their card in at the end and pick a "bigger" toy, but it seemed like something was missing...)

**Second, the lollipop tree game... usually there is a cardboard cutout of a tree full of dum dum suckers. A child picks a sucker and if there is a mark on the bottom of the stick... they get an "extra" little prize. If it's just plain white... they keep the sucker and move to the next game. Well... they could ONLY keep the sucker if there was a mark on it. Eden didn't have a mark on hers and so she had to give the sucker BACK!!! She was broken hearted and started to cry! I'm like... WHAT!? C'mon people! Give the kids a little treat! Don't let them take it and give it back again!!! Craziness!

***Finally, I think it would be neat to have a "BOOK WALK"... like a cake walk, but obviously with... books. At a different fair I attended they had the kids write one sentence about their experience at the fair and then they could choose a book from a large table. WAY good idea!

****I'm on the school's PTO, so I will be commenting on these things at the next meeting! Of course there were good things, but some things need to be tweaked a bit!

I also volunteered for the last hour in the tattoo room! PRUNE FINGERS! I think it may be time to cut my fingernails because I believe that I was scaring some of the kids! I was putting a tattoo on a kids forehead and when I went to gently take the paper off, he kept inching away from my nails... like I was going to claw his face all up or something!!! It was too funny! I don't want to cut them because I am a nail biter by nature and if I cut them... I may start nibbling away at them again. Nasty habit, I know... I don't even realize when I'm doing it! Anywho... an interesting night.