Wordless Wednesday

Holy Sore Muscles, Batman!

{alternately titled: 'Who Let the Dogs Out' is stuck in my head forever!}

If you have a wii & you don't have this game...

...go buy it. Like, right now!

By far the best $35 I have spent in quite some time. My Liva Lou & I had an absolute blast.

This game is sooooo much fun. And it is a workout without feeling like a workout. I'm sore this morning. We played for like 45 minutes yesterday. It's kinda like 'Sweatin to the Oldies' - but more fun! ha!

FYI - I kicked butt at 'Step by Step' - NKOTB. This was probably because I completely remember the dance moves from that.

Olivia kicked butt at 'Who Let the Dogs Out' - we had to do that one like 4 times. It was a ton of fun!

YAY ME!!!

Let's take a look at this, shall we?!

What you are looking at, my friends, is 1 of the 2 new nightstands for my bedroom. They are pretty nice aren't they.

Oh yea...and I made these myself - without a man. Well, for the most part anyway. A nice young man at Lowes did some of the cuts for me, and my father-in-law did some more cuts for me.

"Holy Schnikes! Where do I start?!"

But the construction, that was all me. WOOT WOOT! I can't lie, the first one...whew! It took 2 hours. And I think the majority of that time was spent trying to actually start. The website I got the plans from said "start with the simple box". Well, the simple box wasn't so simple. I finally said "come on Grandpa, give me a sign - something to show me how to get this started." I took a deep breath & I got it done. I'm pretty proud of myself.

Not too shabby for my first attempt at woodworking. {pats self on back} I'm excited to finish these bad boys. I can't decide yet what color to paint them. I need to decide on new bedding first. So excited!

my "I like to think I'm a photographer" post

I love love love to take pictures of my kiddos. Albeit, they aren't the most professional photographs. But occasionally, I get a good one.

Dear Rachel's Hair,

Please grow. If you are not going to grow, please lay flat.

And in the morning, please don't look like this anymore.

Dear Rachel,

Sorry that your father & I compare your hair to Nick Nolte's mugshot hair. But come on, it really does kind of look like that in the morning. And when we slather sunscreen on your head for time in the pool.

The Festivus For the Rest of Us

This past weekend was the 26th Annual Kenney Fall Festival (aka: Festivus).

I ♥ the Fall Festival! I remember going every year as a kid. Well, I still go every year. It's nothing too fancy, just a lot of people from my home town village of 400.

I thought this year was going to be emotionally rough for me (like I said Friday). And I was right. Except, it was good too. I feel very much at peace. We definitely missed Grandpa a whole lot this
weekend. But we still represented...


I was surprised to see his sign, right there in the usual spot. This time, no woodworking for sale. Just my family with a canopy set up as a place for us to sit & visit. I definitely missed him a whole lot. As the cloggers started their tapping, I couldn't help but start silently crying. Then laughing. You know that full body shaking laughing. I call it my "church laugh" - you know when you want to be quiet, and holding in the laughter just makes your whole body shake. I knew Grandpa was looking down on us, & he was putting on quite the dancing show for everyone in Heaven.

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Now, onto the fun kid pictures.

The last several years there has been a bouncy house. Rachel {normally my weinie kid} was absolutely fearless. She was so into it. She kept yelling "I jumpin! Mama, I jumpin!"



In addition to the regular ol' bouncy house, there was a bouncy slide. I thought for sure, Rachel would not be into that at all. But once again, she proved me wrong. She loved it. I bet she went up & down that huge slide at least 50 times. It was my favorite when her & Olivia went down the slide together.


There was a clown who was painting faces for free.

If I recall correctly, her name is Sally the Clown...here is a little known fact about Sally the Clown. Two years ago Jarrett & I were sitting at my Grandpa's stand while everyone else was up doing something. Sally was set up right beside him. She was there for 4 hours painting kids faces. She was just closing up shop & was getting everything lined up in her tackle box of tools. Then, she dropped it & all the paints fell out. Before Jarrett & I could get up to help her, she dropped the F-Bomb. It was funny. Not that she dropped her stuff all over the ground. But the fact that a lady in a full on clown suit, with a red nose, rainbow wig, & big shoes dropped the F-Bomb.

Olivia got her face painted like a tiger.


She told me that Sally told her that if she didn't wash her face for 2 weeks it would become permanent. So when we got home that evening, she was very quick to wash her face. Ha!

Olivia also won on the cake walk. And this time, I told her before she started, "if you win, please do not pick the carrot cake". So what did she choose...brownie cheesecake cupcakes. Delish!

Saturday afternoon, there was a little bluegrass trio called "Kickin Grass" {clever name, huh} - they were so good. I loved it. So did my Dad. He is so into music, he had to go up to each of them & tell them how awesome they were. I think my favorite was when they did the theme song from Petticoat Junction - they got some audience participation & didn't even ask for it!

All in all, it was a really nice Festivus.

RANDOM UPDATES

Wow, I haven't updated in a while...haven't really been too extraordinarily busy & nothing really big going on.

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Olivia --- 1st grade is going well. She likes her teacher. She likes seeing her friends. She does NOT like getting up & ready at 6:45 am. She does NOT like riding the bus anymore. She is generally ticked off that Rachel gets to "play" all day long & she is forced to go to school. She cried this morning, I'm talking huge crocodile tears. "Please don't make me go to school." News Flash: It's September 10th; which translates to a VERY LONG SCHOOL YEAR if this continues. What can I say, she definitely gets her emotional side from me.

{Wow, that sounds like she is the "problem child". Which is certainly not the case, but I figured I just put that all out there.}

Olivia is also doing very well in school. I made her some flash cards & we practice her 18 basic words {I, have, a, an, big, little, yellow, red, blue, it, is, and, the, in, see, can, be, & my}. She is going to have a vocabulary test next week & we are confident that she will pass with flying colors. I am so proud of her. She is learning, & it is wonderful to see her grow mentally.

Oh, and she loves wearing that denim vest! Cracks me up! She is ever-so-much the girly girl these days. She wants to be Hermione Granger (from Harry Potter) for Halloween. I plan on making her costume - wish me luck!

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Rachel --- Still my sassaroon. She is hysterically funny. She is talking more & more every day. Her being very vocal is starting to crack me up. She threw her pacifier at me last night & it hit me in the nose. I just looked at her & she said "uh-oh Rachey hit, Rachey not nice" haha - hard to hold in the laughter on that one. Gotta love a 2 year old talking about herself in the third-person.

FYI - Rachel hates spaghettios. This is proof...she kept pushing the bowl away saying "it's a yucky, Mama, it's a yucky".

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Me --- I got to have a girls' night in with my BFF Haley the other night. It was so much fun! She has graciously offered to give me cooking/baking lessons. I'm pretty stoked about it. I ain't gonna lie - I'm not that good. I desire to be good at such things, which is why I want her to teach me.

I decorated the house for fall over the weekend & did some furniture rearranging. I love that kind of stuff. Jarrett always tells me "you always have big plans" that ain't no lie! I plan on squeezing in some work on the big project known as the mantle at some point this weekend too. Which means, a trip to LOWE'S - aka one of my favorite stores.

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This weekend is the Kenney Fall Festival. I'm pretty excited about that too. Not a tremendous amount of things to do, but it's my hometown, and I have to represent! The girls will have a good time. I'm hoping the rain in the forecast for practically all day Saturday holds off. Olivia is looking forward to having her face painted there. She wants to be a tiger. Rachel will freak out if we try - that's my prediction.

As much as I am looking forward to the festival, I'm going to be sad. This will be the first big "thing" where I will completely notice that my Grandpa is gone. He always had a stand set up selling his woodworking items. So, I'm fairly certain once I arrive and see his spot empty or taken over by a different stand, I will have a pretty hard time. But it's ok, I'm anticipating it because I know it will happen. I'm chalking it up to all being part of the healing process.

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That's all for now...Hopefully i will get some more posts ready to go for next week with some of the several pictures I have taken over the past couple of weeks.

2010 IL State Fair

Better late than never...
In August we went to the IL State Fair. It's always lots of fun. Good food, rides, & family time.

My 3 Favorite People



Isn't this little girl gorgeous?!

She is quite photogenic these days...




Olivia had a great time!







We rode the ferris wheel. She was a little scared...



Daddy & Rachel down below...




The octopus ride!



Always drawn to the farm equipment...

wordless wednesday