Sate Fair 2012

Last week we went to the Utah State Fair. I love the fair. I love almost everything about it. I love how random it is, I love how horribly bad the food is for you but for some reason is delicious, I love the strange characters, I love that there are animals and fine art and rickety rides all in one place, I love the big yellow slide, I love that it is something to look forward to in September, I love that Scott grew up going to fairs so he likes it as much as me (maybe not quite as much) 

Dinner! Don't worry that your stomach hurts afterwards, that is part of the charm.

Olive wanted to see all the animals but wasn't as on board about touching them. These calves were sure cute though and we convinced her to brave it. She told me it was very soft but kinda smelly.

Look at that huge pumpkin. Someday I want to enter a gigantic pumpkin into the fair. My favorite were the mutation things that grew. I could totally just plant random stuff and see what it comes out and then win first place. I recommend you all do that too.

As we were walking to the fair (since we parked on the street which was a terrible, terrible terrible mistake since we got 2 parking tickets because of it) a nice old lady told us that we absolutely must see the lemurs. She was right they were so fun and entertaining. They were jumping around everywhere. Olive really like feeding them. They would grab it out of your hand. 

This mom brought her baby lemur (see it riding on her tummy?) right over to us. She must have known we were nice.

Olive desperately wanted us to find the guy who had made all the balloons that she had seen other kids have. When it was her turn she asked for an elephant much to our surprise. She actually got 2 because the first one came untwisted.  

Her other request (besides riding the pony which we didn't do) was cotton candy. You can't go to the fair without eating cotton candy! And funnel cakes (although sadly we forgot them this time!)

This picture was taken right after we convinced Olive to ride with Scott down the big yellow slide. It did not go very well. She cried the entire ride and then jumped up and ran over to me sobbing. Oops. 

But she did like the other kids rides so I think we made it up to her.

We had to show off our mad dance skills. 

Olive got a stable with horses for her birthday and she has loved it. When we walked past the horse stable she begged us to go in. Here she is also showing off her fan that she was very proud of. 

For years and years every time we go to the fair and see all the photos I always say that I want to enter a photo into the fair. But by the time you are there it's too late! So I when we set goals at the beginning of the year I said that this was the year and I was going to enter my photo for realsies this time. I was just excited to go try and find it hanging but much to my surprise it had won second place in the amateur division. Needless to say I was very proud! Yay!

Mr Milo

Everyone calls Milo Mr Milo.

Milo is growing up so fast. I feel like things have flown by with Olive but with Milo is seems like it has been in a flash. I sometimes forget how long he has been with us.

Having Olive in preschool has been good because it has given me an opportunity to spend one on one time with just my little guy. I had felt like that was really being neglected. It has made me notice and appreciate little things about him that when both kids are together I don't notice.

Milo is a real sweet heart. He doesn't let you cuddle him very often but he does like to sit in you lap (for a moment).

These past few weeks he has started saying a lot more. For awhile it was just the same 5 signs but now he is actually speaking! I can't tell you how happy this makes me. He has a soft little voice that is my favorite things ever. He can say: cheese (for pictures), uh oh, yeah yeah yeah, bubble (that one is really adorable), mama, dada, hot, wa wa (water), roar, ruff, meow, baa, and moo. He can sign eat, drink, please, more, milk, bye bye, thank you, and all done.

His little sign for please is so cute. The sign is supposed to be rubbing your hand on your chest in a circle. But with Milo it usually involves food so his sign is rubbing his chin.

He also will give you hugs and kisses if you ask him (and he is in the mood).  He also likes to blow on his hot food.

My favorite thing though is that he can answer yes and no. He shakes his head to answer if you ask him something. It is so cute and very clear, he knows what he wants! You can ask him almost anything and he will answer yes or no. Do you want me to open it? Yes. Do you want to take a nap? Yes Do you want to take a bath? NO! Shaking his head yes and no has also become a fun game. He likes to go around shaking nononononono!

I am still working on him saying up, and open because those often seem like what he wants.

He is as curious as ever. He loves keys, mostly keys with buttons. He set off Scott't car alarm if he ever finds Scott's keys. He loves to plug and unplug things from outlets. He loves to open and close things, put things in and take them out. He love anything that you can screw on and off. He notices the strangest things. He loves the door bell and insists on ringing it anytime we walk through the door. He also always wants to switch lights on. He likes balls and cars. He can also make the vrrrooooommm sound.

He's a little climber. This kid has serious determination.

See that cord he is carrying around? Yes he carries cords around. He tries to plug it in where ever he can find some kind of hole. This is also his favorite because it has a button on the other side that he can push to his hearts content.

Milo has a second mommy. Olive really likes to take care of him and does help out with him a lot. She is so cute when she tries to read him stories. He just adores her and this morning yelled "YAY!!" and clapped his hands when she came upstairs. That isn't to say that there isn't a fair amount of crying because she is being too good of a mommy to Milo. She sometimes frustrates him. Mostly though, he thinks she is wonderful and funny and follows her around. 

Milo loves to belly laugh and thinks daddy is hilarious. He also likes to dance. It mostly involves him spinning in circles or fist pumping in the air. He can give high fives and bones if you ask. 

We are counting down the days until he can go into nursery and we can enjoy church again. We have been taking him quite a bit lately because there is nothing else to do other than go home. 

Olive's About Me Bucket

This year for preschool each child got a chance to take home a bucket and fill it with things that represent them and make them unique. Olive was so excited when it was her day to fill and bring the bucket. It was fun to be clever about what is important to Olive and could still fit in a bucket.

Olive was excited to see us there. See her hamming it up?

 

When it was her turn I went and recorded her presenting it to the class. I was floored by how poised and confident she was. We had practiced before her class but still! It didn't phase her one bit. I was not that way at her age. I would have been nervous and shy. She is such a Patterson in that way (thankfully!) She even answered the class' questions afterwards. 

She also carefully laid out each thing on the rug in a nice line so everyone in the class could admire her items. It was adorable. 

Here is the list of items that filled Olive's 4 year old bucket:

-A microphone because she likes to sing (she also demonstrated how it worked and sang a whole song for the class)

-Her dress up princess shoes because she loves to dress up

-An Auroa polly pocket doll because she loves princesses and to play with Polly Pockets

-A My Little Pony because she likes to watch the tv show

-A picture that she drew of pizza and fruit because she is obsessed with eating them

-An alligator art work that she made because she loves art and is very smart with her ABC's (we had made it for letter "a" week the week before)

-A Fancy Nancy book because she loves books and to read, especially Fancy Nancy

-A princess Minnie Mouse dressed in pink because it's her favorite color

-A cheerleading outfit because she loves cheerleaders and roots for the Aggies 

-Her gymnastics leotard

-A necklace because she cares very much about the clothes she is wearing as well as what accessories

I would say those things sum up Olive!

Back to School Party

A few weeks ago we had a Back to School Party for some of the kids in the neighborhood. It is probably the teacher in me but I LOVE back to school time. I have not done the torturous supplies shopping and such, so it might be that one day I will dread it. To me it is the time that you are ready for the weather to cool down, to pull out your boots and sweaters.  You get to buy new clothes, and school supplies (working with office supplies for years in my college bookstore I have an unnatural affinity for pencils and markers and such). But most of all I just love a reason to party! 

Everything was apple themed, they could make an apple gift to take to their new teacher.

There were also questionnaires about what was in store for them this school year and a sticker game full of fun things they did this summer. 

Olive and Bo making apple puppets.

We of course had to get out the bounce house! I am so happy that it is back to school time. And while I still love it I am going to revel in it! 

First Day of Pre-K

Olive was very ready to start school. She felt like she was the very last person ever for school to start for. She would have loved it if school would have just continued through the summer and into fall and never had a break. Since we were going back to the same preschool with the same teacher she didn't have any apprehensions. 

 

My big 4 year old preschooler!

We had to actually do a lot of school shopping for Olive. NONE of her clothes fit her anymore. These past 3 weeks she has just grown like a weed. I'm not even kidding. She would put on dresses that fit fine a month ago and they were way too little. I also had to document the only time these new shoes will be this white. All of her school shoes we had to buy 2 sizes bigger than the sandals we bought her at the beginning of the summer. I told you, she has grown so much!

Olive helped me make some yummy zucchini bread as a "back to school" present for Ms Jani.

She was so excited that she didn't want to stop for any pictures. 

Run Olive Run!

Giving Ms Jani her present. Olive was so excited to see her. What will we do when we don't have Ms Jani anymore?!

The Night Before School

I wanted to start some traditions for getting ready for school. A blog that I stalk does a cute thing where they do a "back to school feast". I was going to make it so the kids could pick whatever they wanted for dinner for their feast. I was planning to make their request but on the day things were crazy and we were out of food so we asked Olive what she wanted for dinner and she said "PIZZA!" Of course! We went to our favorite pizza place to try and make up for the "feast". 

Then Olive laid out her new clothes that she wanted to wear the next day (although she changed her mind on the actual morning)

We set some "school goals" and wrote down the things Olive was excited for and anything that she was nervous about (which she couldn't think of anything). Then we read some books about going back to school. We finished off with a cute book my mom made for me when I was 5 and very nervous to go to all day kindergarten. After books it Scott gave Olive a father's blessing. 

I asked Olive how she wanted her hair and she said "curly". I didn't have any foam curlers and I had seen this trick on pinterst so I thought we would try twisting it and sleeping on it. 

The next morning when we took it out it looked like this. I couldn't stop laughing. It was a huge afro and I couldn't even come through it. 

As you can tell Olive wasn't thrilled with the result. So we had to take a quick bath and wash her hair out. Ha! I still think it is so funny. 

Camp Fire Dinners

We realized one tradition that we hadn't done yet this summer is cook something on a fire and making smores! Blasphemy if you ask me. To rectify that we went up the canyon with our hobo dinners (they were pretty deluxe thanks to Pinterest.) and had a delightful evening.

The kids kept "hiking" up this slope. 

Look at these cute boys. We were a bit unprepared in the "tools to get your food out of the fire" department so Scott nearly lost an arm a couple of times. Also we were majorly lacking in the flashlight department and so it was quite the adventure once it got dark. 

We were by this nice stream.

Nothing like throwing stuff into a river. 

We went on a flashlight hike, Olive is using Scott's phone. 

Our kids were FILTHY when we got home. Like caked on blackness everywhere. It was kinda incredible how a few hours could cause so much dirtiness. Well worth it though. 

Yay for camp fire dinners!