just some fair photos

Last weekend we took the Wardlings to the state fair. Oh the fun we had. We saw animals, ate, watched bees make honey, ate, fished, ate, and so forth. Just outside the dairy goat barn, there was a hand washing center. Penny loved the "widdle, widdle" sink, because it was "so tute."
We really like the goat barn. I reminded me of growing up. My family had goats for years.

As we were walking into buildings looking @ the prize winning quilts, projects, getting all stickered up from the Pro-life booth, we were stopped by some rangers to invite the Wardlings to go fishing. They all had fun catching these fish. On the back of the fish were the names of some state parks.

Just one of our babies.

And of us as we were leaving. We got to the Fair early, by 9:30am. By the time we left the fair, hundreds of people were crossing the street to wait in line to get in.

Here we are checking out the prize winning watermelon that Grammy told us about.

As I said we did alot of eating. Everyone loved the funnel cakes.

In one of the buildings there were the magnets and metal posters of Penny's favorite film, "The Wizard of Oz." Had they not been so pricey I would have been glad to have purchased one for her. As it was we found another vendor who was selling the Witch, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion for cheaper. P chose the Scarecrow stuffed doll. She was thrilled.

When we first walked into the fair there were competitive exhibits from the book, 'Where the Wild Things Are.' My wee men were excited to see if because the movie was fresh in their minds. As a matter of fact, P loves the book, along with the film. She even slept with it last night. "Let the rumpus begin!!"

Fun was had by all. Goodbye State Fair, our friend...until next year.

dedicated to the one i love

Fair food. Most of the Wardlings love to munch on fair food. This year Clyde wanted to have one bite of everything we bought this year. So this blog entry is dedicated to the one I love and all the one bites he took @ the fair.

honey stix
BBQ sandwich
corndog

dill pickle

fried twinkie

fried pickles

chips

funnel cake

corn on the cob

i'll get you my pretty and your little dog too

So we got suckered into taking another dog. This little guy was abandoned @ a daycare of one of Clyde's colleagues. He is a very sweet dispositioned fiest dog. We are thinking that he is about a year old or so. The Wardlings love him. Penny is in love with the Wizard of Oz and so we lovingly named him Toto.
He has even let Penny dress him up already.
Jacob is so sweet to watch with Toto.

This was his first day here...

Penny gets to play with him all day long. She is in heaven.

We were very nervous for Uno to meet Toto. We didn't know how she would behave. So we put her on a leash and then has some introductions. They did the usual sniffing...

It is good to know that they like each other. And yes, we had some 'splainin' to do.

(good thing Uno has been spayed and next we are off to 'tutor' Toto.)

you buzzard!!

Two Saturdays ago, we noticed that a bunny had been run over on the road in front of the brown house. Clyde actually stopped and was going to move the bunny, but there were intestines, so that was a no go. Last Wednesday, while P and I were waiting for Mrs. Lori, we saw this ginormous buzzard circling the road kill.

It was very cautious as it began to munch on it's meal. At one point, it was watching Penny and I and it began to hiss @ us. After speech, we were walking Mrs. Lori to her van and the buzzard flew away. It's wing span had to be 5-6 feet. I jokingly said, that thing could pick up Penny and take her away. Penny looked and said, "Me?? Me??" I think I scared her. She stayed close to me after that.

where the wild things are

Clyde has been looking forward to taking Josh to see the film, "Where the Wild Things are," since we learned they were making it. We love the book by Maurice Sendak. Clyde wanted to take Josh and Josh alone for the first time viewing it. This film was made for 9 year old boys and it just so happens that we have a 9 year old boy. Clyde said that he loved the movie and that he loved watching Josh watch it. On the trailer, the group Arcade Fire is playing and both Clyde and Josh are huge Arcade Fire fans. (They saw them together for an Obama Rally last year. Here is one of their songs "Wake Up," and another one, "Invervention," {this one is my favorite} and another one "Keep the Car Running.") We made a deal with Josh, that if he took a nap that Clyde would take him out when he got home from the school dance last night. It took Josh awhile to fall asleep, but once he did, he slept for 4hours. He needed to be well rested because they didn't get home until after midnight. What a wonderful experience for my fellas. Last night was such a memorable moment for them. Clyde is such a good daddy!!

star wars babies & a milkshake

Jacob still isn't up to par these days. He has missed this entire week of school. He will have good hours and then bad hours. He tends to be worse when he has woken up for the day or from a nap. I took him back to see our pediatrician today for a look see. Jacob's pneumonia is still there in the same spot, in his right lung. Our Dr. gave us another Rx to take along with the old Rx. She said that this was one of two things...either it is a viral pneumonia and there isn't much to do except let his body heal itself. or b- that this is a strong bacterial pneumonia that the original omnicef medication wasn't strong enough to zap it out, hence the new medication. However, if he still isn't feeling better by Monday then he'll need to have some blood drawn. Clyde and I discuss Dr.s alot. Having a big family there are times when they are necessary. Why wait and see? Why not order the blood work now, when he is already feeling poopy to determine what the best route is to take?? Yes, I know, blood work requires a needle and one miserable boy, but all that misery would magically go away with a new set of Star Wars babies and a milkshake. Seems like a small price to pay to know exactly how to treat him. Again, why wait and see???

hornets vs. bobcats

Clyde and our buddy JJ, went to the Hornets vs. Bobcats game last week. Clyde said that the game was bad and that the cheerleaders looked like "discount Hooters girls." He also said, "dem hornets sho am suck." I am happy that he was able to meet up with his good buddy. Fun times. It was also JJ that mentioned how he missed reading the updated blog, since it hadn't been caught up in a while. Well, JJ I have hopefully redeemed myself and spent several hours today updating. Enjoy!! (Tell L hello and kiss baby S for all us Wardlings!!)

princess party

Last week, Penny was invited to go to an all princess birthday party. She found one of her favorite princess dresses to wear and sported it hours before the party. She even wore it during her OT session that day. I had to cut the sleeves out of it, due to it being sooo loved, but it worked out just fine.

Cathy did an excellent job at making the party spectacular. Penny had a blast!

We took time to make her hair all princess-y. Thanks again Cathy and Emily for throwing such a fun party and sending me some pictures!! :)

Penny attends speech @ a local church, who has a big preschool. Every year they have a magnificient pumpkin patch. We were early one morning and so we stopped by the pumkin patch for a few pictures. I remembered to bring my actual camera, but forgot that the battery was charging. I totally had a brain fart that morning. I was so disappointed that I didn't have my nice camera. Hopefully the pumpkins will be there the next time we have speech.

(I must toot my own horn...this sweater I knitted for Penny fits her so well.)

lost that bloggin' feelin

We have done so much in the last few weeks and I have totally lost the urge to document on our blog. Mainly because for the past few weeks someone has been sick. It started a few weeks ago when Jacob had pneumonia & Josh had strept throat. Then Clyde caught something that lasted way too long...then Libby got it, then I got it and now we have come full circle, because Jacob has pneumonia once again and Josh has some viral throat thing. It has been a horrific 48 hours or more. Sunday night Jacob began to vomit, which he did 3-4 times. Clyde was such the trooper in taking care of him. Jacob wanted Dad and not Mom this go round. Then the fever started. Yesterday Jacob was home from school with a fever of about 101. He felt better in the early afternoon and talked about going to school today and then- like a flick of a wand, he felt like crapity crap once again. He was miserable. Last night around 8pm, he looked terrible and I took his temperature...104.6. I took it 3 times to make sure. I called the after hours nurses line and she gave us some instructions on lowering the fever. I had already been piggy backing Motrin and tylenol, so we did the lukewarm bath, pouring the water over his head for 20 minutes. His fever did go down to 103.1 and there it stayed until about 6am, when it got down to 102.5.

I took Josh to the bus stop, when he became upset about his throat. Since it is still dark that early in the morning, I had a flash light and I peeked in his throat. Red, streaky, and little puss pockets. lovely. So, as soon as I could call the pediatrician's office we did. Josh's strept test was negative, so his is viral. (At least it is for the next 24 hours...when we will get the 24 hour results.) Our Russian dr. listen more earnestly when checking out Jacob. Pneumonia again. We got a stronger antibiotic this go around. He will be out of school for a few more days to recover.

This has been awful. Clyde mentioned pulling our Wardlings out of school all together due to them being sick all the time. The scary thing is that we haven't really hit the flu/cold season yet.

{The above photo was taken @ Josh's last dr.'s appointment for strept throat. The nurses all love Penny, with the majority of them remebering her by name. Our nurse that day gave P some gloves to play with. I had to giggle because, her wearing them made me think of a prostate exam for some reason. Turn your head and cough!!}

no rules derby

This upcoming weekend is our ward's chili cook-off and no rules pinewood derby. Since there are no rules, we will be using the wooden cars that the wee Wardlings chose @ the farmer's market. They have spent several afternoons painting them for the race.

Penny wanted her wooden car to be her favorite color...'lellow' of course!

We still have to add a few finishing touches to complete the cars. They have had fun painting away.

switch-a-roo

Before school started we did a bit of changing. The boys got the girls' room and the girls got the boys' room. We had a queen sized bed for the boys to share, but as school got closer, we decided that they needed their own bed. They have had them in the past, but would end up sleeping together for one reason or another, so we thought that they would enjoy the bigger bed. Anyway, as we switched rooms, we assembled the extra bunk beds that we had for the girls. It was so cute to watch the wardlings assemble the beds. Clyde was such a good sport to have them help. Josh had learned about tools...mainly the difference between a phillips and a flathead screw driver, in scouts and was eager to assist. We held screwdriving races. Sounds dirty I know, but they had fun.

To make the switch official, I spent the weekend painting the boys' room. Along with cleaning, organizing, and trashing all sorts of stuff. I'll have to get an after photo. The room looks so much better.

I am not done decorating the Wardlings rooms. I have high hopes to get it all done in the near future. There are so many little projects that need to be done.

off to the farmer's market

General Conference weekend we headed to the farmer's market for some fresh air and veggies. Libby was under the weather so she and Erin hung out at home watching all the Hannah Montana, Suite Life of Zach and Cody, iCarly, and whatever Disney/ Nick shows they wanted.

We had fun looking at the veggies, along with sampling some of the Goat Lady's goat cheese...except for the unpasterized cheese. The little Wardlings each got to choose a wooden car from one of the vendors. I really wish that we lived closer to the market. We would frequent it more if it weren't across town.

These benches were so high!

Just some silly Wardlings...who who could it be??

This pumpkin was the biggest one that we saw that day.