#ISF14

Friday we went to The Great Iowa State Fair.  It was another fabulous year to go! The weather was perfect, the crowds were friendly and the food was out of this world!

The Big Animals:

 

 The Big Slide and Ye Olde Mill:

The Hot Beef Sundae:
(My sister says it looks disgusting, and maybe it's not the prettiest of presentations, but oh my is it good! Mashed potatoes covered with hot beef, sprinkled with cheese and topped with a cherry tomato.)

The Butter Cow:
(This year's theme was The Field Of Dreams)

 

Other Fun:

We had such a great, fun day!  We actually took our time this year which was such a nice change of pace. 

One of my favorite things about the whole day were the 2 breastfeeding/baby stations they now offer.  It worked out great that both times Tate was hungry we were near the stations. They offer rocking chairs, changing tables, give you a baggie and disposable changing pad as you go in and privacy.  It was so wonderful!  I walked in to both nursing areas to find other mommies in there with their sweet little bundles, it was such a feeling of community! I told Andy I wish I could just go sit and nurse Tate around other nursing mom's once a week.  I loved the feeling!  Thank you, ISF, for offering these areas for us mommies and our little ones, such an awesome service you have provided!  (For those ISF mommies looking for a clean, cool place to change, feed and rock to sleep your baby, these centers are in the live animal birthing barn on the north side of the fairgrounds and in the Walnut Center which is across from the horse barn.)

We are already looking forward to next year's trip to the Fair!

"Our state fair is a GREAT state fair! Don't miss it, don't even be late!"

If Only I Had The Time

 

I hit a blogging writers block this week and went out to a few ‘idea sites’ I have saved under my favorites tab.  They all had great ideas but none of them clicked with me.  Then I saw this idea:

What are the 5 things that make you most happy right now?

All I could think about was what I *wasn’t* doing that makes me happy.  That has led me to write this post.

1.) Scrapbooking.  It has been almost 2 years since I have done any scrapbooking.  Yes, I have made some cards here or there, but to sit down for a whole afternoon with my supplies, pictures and ideas?  That hasn’t happened since mid-November 2012.  I remember when it was specifically because I went to my sister’s house with my supplies for a day of scrapping and to finish up my Christmas cards for that year.  Then we lost the baby.  Then I got pregnant. Then I had Tate.  Throw in the regular tug and pull of the normal days and I just haven’t had time, motivation or the creative juices flowing to tackle it. 

It is a bit overwhelming to know how far behind I am on my scrapbooks.  I have yet to scrap Brennan’s birth and after.  The last thing I scrapped was Christmas ‘08.  I have a Pinterest board full of sketches and page ideas, if I could just find the time I’d hole myself up in my scrapping room and go to town.  That would make me happy.

2.) Date night.  It has been since well before last Christmas since Andy and I have gone out just the two of us.  I don’t even know what date night looks like anymore.  I wouldn’t have any nice clothes to even wear out on a date if we could go on one.  If we could just get Tate to take a bottle we’d be able to go out, just the two of us, without a super cute tag-along.

3.) Shopping.  I am not a huge shopper, I go on a major shopping day about 3 or 4 times a year.  It’s August and I have yet to go on one for myself this year.  I am in desperate need of new clothes, clothes that actually fit since I’ve lost all that weight, clothes that are trendy and cute and not t-shirts.  Shopping for some clothes that would make me feel nice would definitely make me happy.

4.) Cleaning. No, cleaning in itself does NOT make me happy – don’t love that task. But having a clean, organized house? That would make me happy.  No matter how many times I clean, pick up and try to organize it all gets destroyed.  It’s not just the boys, either, although they are the major culprits.  Andy and I live here, too, making our own little messes that can quickly turn into big messes.  I’d love to figure out how to keep the pile of papers under control.  It seems they get bigger and bigger, which totally overwhelms me.  I feel like I’m being buried. 

The toys on the floor.  They get picked up only to be drug right back out again.  Once or twice a week, depending on how often I vacuum, it all gets completely picked up.  10 minutes later there are toys all over again.  I just want a clean house.  Yes I have kids, but I have friends with kids who still have nice, clean, organized houses.  I want to be one of them.

What makes you happy? What do you wish you could do that would make you happy?

 

Pinterest Funnies

 

YES to this!!!  I seriously cringe every time someone says “I seen..”  No you DIDN’T ‘seen’, you SAW!  Erg!

 

This one is so darn cute it made me laugh out loud!

That one also makes me super excited for the State Fair on Friday because it means I’ll be having my annual Hot Beef Sundae from the Cattlemen’s booth.  Yum!

And this one, I should post this one weekly.  It pretty much sums things up for me.

Have a great Wednesday!

Learning New Tricks

Hey!  How was everyone's weekend?  Sorry I missed you yesterday, busy busy.  Swim lessons, lunch with Andy, then back to the pool to go swimming for the afternoon.  And I thought we were meeting friends at the park before the lessons only to realize after rushing around to get there that that's not until today - ha, go figure.  I woke up our sleeping little sweet tater to get there on time, too.

 

So after our lessons back in June I promised to show a video of the boys jumping off the diving board.  I've seriously been battling this dang computer trying to figure out how to make it work this whole time!  So irritating!  I finally decided to try loading it into a post through Blogger instead of the program I use to type my posts.  Voila!  Finally got it!  Who would have thought to try Blogger before? Ha!  So here's one of the videos of the boys jumping in off the board.

 

 

 

Yesterday Brennan started learning how to dive off the side.  His instructor had him sit on the side and taught him how to put his arms and then how to lean over to 'fall' in.  He picked it up right away!  Aiden's not even been taught how yet.  Brennan took care of that at the pool in the afternoon.  Cracked me up to watch him teaching Aiden from afar. 

Tate has learned a new 'trick' over the past week - he's started eating cereal!  We started last Tuesday after we got home from Chicago.  I mixed him up a batch of runny rice cereal and he took right to it!  He was so ready to start solids.  He sucked the cereal right off the spoon then waited somewhat impatiently with his mouth wide open for the next spoonful.  I have been trying to give him a little bottle with it, he is not taking to that as well as he did the cereal.  He might get 1/2 an ounce out of the bottle but then realizes what he's doing and quits.  Stinker.  I'll keep trying.  I'm thinking I'll add some applesauce into his mealtime this week, see how he likes that.  I need to get to the store and stock up on baby food, the 4 containers of baby food applesauce I got won't last long the way this boy eats!

Don't mind the cleavage and don't mind the mess behind me -- we'd just gotten home from Chicago and had just dumped everything.  :)

Today is our park date, then swim lessons.  Busy morning but no plans for the afternoon, which means I'll be doing laundry and cleaning.  Need to get those IKEA knock off's painted - the spray paint stunk so we re-sanded them this past weekend and now I'll be brushing on the paint.  Grr, what a pain. Will be glad to get those done and hung, though.

What's new with all of you?

Chicago Trip 2014–Day 3

 

Our last morning in Chicago came way too early – Tate had slept terribly the night before.  Poor baby, I think maybe my milk was soured because I freaked out so much on the Ferris Wheel and that upset his tummy.  We went and grabbed our breakfast with all the other hotel guests, then went back to our room to pack up and get headed home.  Tate was pretty tired so we laid him down for a nap and hung out in the room for awhile trying to figure out what we were going to do that wouldn’t require us to have a stroller for Tate since ours had a flat tire.  We decided to go hit up Charming Charlie’s in the mall so I could get some perfume of theirs that I love, then go to IKEA to see what that mess is all about.

We left the hotel about 9:30, 30 minutes before the mall and IKEA opened.  What to do, what to do?  Well, how about drive around the mall a couple of times, then drive over to IKEA and drive around that building “just to see how big it is”.  We passed a cop sitting in the same place FIVE TIMES! Lol, that guy had to think we were up to something! 

Finally the mall opened so we all traipsed in to CC and I ended up finding more than just my perfume – go figure!  I came out of there with a new pair of sunglasses (the rims are a 50’s shade of pink, love them!) and a set of lace headbands, which I totally love.  Oh, and the perfume!

We then loaded back up and headed across the way to IKEA.  We had never been to one before so we weren’t sure what to expect.  Eh, it was ok but not rushing back to one anytime soon.  I was starting to think we were never going to get out of there – we kept following the gray path with the arrows and it just kept going and going and going.  You can only make so many left hand turns before you get back to the same place you started, right?  Not in IKEA. That place is freaky!  We never did find the escalator we came up on – ended up taking an elevator back down to the first floor.  Bizarre.  It didn’t help that Baby Boy was freaking out because he was hungry, tired and homesick and I just wanted to get him outside so I could feed him. 

We left IKEA and headed over to the Pancheros we had found the night before for lunch.  Amazing enough, it tasted the same as in Iowa, ha ha!  Andy was in heaven.  We got our bellies full then headed out of Chicago, westbound and down, headed for home.

We decided since we were going to go right by it we’d stop in LeClaire and see Antique Archeology, the store that the American Picker’s guys own.  It was pretty cool to see the store front that we’ve seen so many times on the show, and they had one of their AA vans out front so that was neat too.  But inside? Well, I was disappointed.  It was very commercialized. They had AA magnets, AA t-shirts, AA *postcards*!!!  Seriously!  It was fun, however, to see a few items they had picked that we’d watched them pick on their show. 

After Antique Archeology we finally went home.  It was so great to get back, I had missed my house!  And then the massive amounts of laundry called my name.  Chicago was a nice little trip, and even though I missed home we’ll definitely go back to see some of things we missed.