Arlington Carnival

Who doesn't love a carnival?  Kayden sure does and we were so happy to take him when we got the invitation from some friends of ours.  It was a perfect size carnival for the littles and for us.  It wasn't very big, but there was plenty to do with the kids.  Our friends daughter is almost four, and they have one year old also, and we were pleasantly happy to see just how many activities there were for our kids. 

First up:  The Goliath Slide.  I wish I captured a similar picture to this with Kayden going down the slide with his arms in the air, fist pumping.

Kayden would have been happy setting up tent at the fishing pond and throwing five dollars at the worker for another chance to fish, but we had to move on and find things that accepted his ride bracelet instead.  We got the opportunity to fish twice, the first time he didn't want to catch a fish too soon because he knew it meant putting the pole down and finding something else to do.

 Ellie was happy to fish also.  She was quick on the trigger and caught one quickly.

 

It was a catch and release pond and in exchange they got to pick out a stuffed animal.  Ellie quickly picked out the blue frog, while Kayden got a zebra fish.

 I just might print and frame the picture above.  It is one of my favorites from the day.

 Kayden is a roller coaster junkie and would be happy if they only had this one ride.  Ellie is a little more on the cautious side, but didn't want to fall in the shadows of Kayden, so she did almost everything he did, given enough time to warm up to the idea.

She was happy to ride the carousel, while he, on the other hand wanted to be back on the roller coaster.  But when he got off he had a smile on his face, so the pouting was over.

 Ellie was an accurate water gun shooter, the kids played three games and she won two out of the three times.

 Meet handsome, Brody, his favorite of the night...eating graham crackers.

Ellie was happy to stand back and watch all the kids slide down Goliath, but she was talked into going down with dad, then we couldn't keep her off.

We had a nice time at the carnival and the size of it was perfect for our kids ages.  Enough of a variety of rides, while not being too overwhelming for them.  It's these kinds of days that makes me love being his mama.

Fourth of July

I am a few weeks late posting about the Fourth of July, but better late than never, right?  Right.

So, we had a shindig at Jim and Cindy's house and we took over the cul-de-sac.  And it was awesome.

A friend of mine had a great idea of having the kids decorate their bikes and then have a parade, so we did just that.

Originally I was going to keep the parade to the cul-de-sac, but the kids had so much fun that we took it to the neighboring cul-de-sac.  It was cute, we had people coming out of their houses for pictures and to watch the kids.

This little man was happy to play in the rocks and crawl around the grass.  He was so little last year and now he is over one, how time flies.

No Fourth of July party is complete with our family until there is a silly string fight.  A friend of mine thought I was crazy because I headed to the store to buy more silly string after her generous 12 can donation.  She hadn't witness a silly string fight at our house before.  After the fight was over, she understood.  Total silly string count: 42 cans and they were all used up in about four minutes! 

 The kids sitting down listening to the rules.

 The cans were a little difficult for the littles to use, their hands weren't quite big enough, but they all seems to make it work, one way or another.  It was fun to see the adults get in on the action too.

 Collin happy to be throwing pop its.

The same friend that came up with the idea to do the parade, also had the idea to make these cute hand print flag t-shirts.  I really loved how they all turned out.

We had a really great time on the fourth.  We had lots of family and friends around and the firework show was awesome, before and after being issued a ticket!  We hope to have another awesome party next year.