Fair, Fowl, and Fireworks

LaGrange had their mini fair on June 22nd.  The day started out with a pancake breakfast and then a parade.

Dassah got to ride in a fire truck and toss candy.  When given the choice of riding with Daddy or watching the parade with Mommy, she chose riding.

At noon there was a lunch of hotdogs and hamburgers.  Dassah's making a silly face.

Obi has the cutest expression.

After a short rest at home, we went back out and got our face painted.

Kids around town also made stick horses and had races.

Showing off her horse.

I tried to paint Obi's face.

We headed back home and about an hour later, we had a storm move through with hail and a tornado warning.  We got to hide in our basement for a while.

Daddy built a better door for our chicken coop.

Dassah helped stain it.

While Dassah helped paint, Obi crawled around and inspected the weeds.

I picked him up to keep him out of the goat heads.

Dassah loves to pose.  "Take a picture like this, Mommy!"

"Take a picture like this!"  Dassah gave me about a dozen  poses to take pictures of.

Obi loves to be dirty.

But although he loves dirt, he also loves baths and showers.

Dassah like wearing a nightgown to bed.  The one she has is starting to get small so I made her a new one.  It's big, so it should last a few years.

Another picture of the nightgown

Simon came out to inspect the chickens.  One pecked him and he quickly ran off.

"Dirt! Such wonderful dirt!"

A close up of a chicken.

All eight chickens.

LaGrange does their fireworks on July 3rd.  They have an ice cream social to start the celebrations.  We went and filled up on sweets, then went to a friend's house for a barbeque and watching fireworks.

I gave Dassah several sweets.  She only ate the cupcake and half a cookie.

Since Daddy is a volunteer firefighter, he was stationed with a truck, taking donations for next year's fireworks.  He just happened to be stationed right next to the friend's house where we went for the barbeque.

All done eating.  Time for fun!

Dassah played football with her friends.

Obi found a little pile of dirt to play in.

Waiting for fireworks

Playing with toes

All the kids got glow sticks to play with.

Someone didn't make it until the fireworks.

Still waiting.

I had to pass Obi off to someone so I could take Dassah potty.  He woke up and was watching the fireworks with them, but when I took him back, he started crying at each firework.

I have named these two roosters Soup and Stew because they are always going at each other.  The more aggressive the rooster, the quicker they will end up being dinner.

Fourth of July, the kids ended up napping on the couch together.

Pinwheels!  Or as Dassah calls them, "Windmills".

We went to a barbeque with our church family.

Happy fourth of July!

We didn't stay to watch fireworks with them because then we would have arrived home around midnight.  Instead we came home and set off a couple of our own fireworks.
 

Sparkler!

Pretty!

Another day, another sparkler.

Dassah helped Daddy light the snakes.

On Monday, we put together a twin sized bed in Dassah's room.  She's excited about her big bed.

So excited she didn't nap and ended up falling asleep in the chair.

Happy Birthday, Hadassah!

We pulled out Dassah's little pool and went swimming with a friend.  Obi is not sure he wants to get into the cold water.

"I have a hat!"

Sleeping peacefully

May 17, there was a fun day at Mike's work.  They had hotdogs and hamburgers and cotton candy and snow cones.  Dassah didn't want to try the cotton candy.  It must have looked too much like pink cotton.

"Look at my snow cone!"

Ride 'em, cowgirl!

Playing in the water on the slip 'n slide.

Going down the large inflatable slide.

Obi got to check out the inflatable slide a little, too.

This angle makes it look like he's about to fall off.

Mike decided to de-ice the freezer.  It didn't take too long before he had a little helper.

Swimming!  I've decided Dassah's swimsuit from the past few years is too small for her.

Comparing footprints.  Both my children are flat-footed like their daddy.

Dassah decided to decorate her face.

A castle made with Mommy's help.

Fresh out of a bath with "matching" froggy pajamas!

My sweet girl.

My smiley boy

The weekend before Memorial Day, we went down to Aunt Becky's house to see cousins and celebrate Dassah and Isaiah's birthdays.
 

The babies together.

Stickers!

Birthday kids!

Isaiah digs in while Dassah starts off by licking off the icing.

Yummy!

Cousins have a "pet" toad!

On Memorial Day, we went out to Agate Fossil Beds National Park.
 

Right outside the visitor center, there are a couple teepees.

Ready to go on a walk.

The boardwalk over a marshy area/creek.  Right at the end of this boardwalk, we came across a rattlesnake.

We saw a couple horned lizards on our walk.

And another snake.  This one is a bull snake.  It crossed the path in front of us.

We posed for a picture in front of the fossils in the visitor center.  Dassah kept calling them "dragons".

On the way home from Agate, we saw a tornado.  It's about in the center of this picture.  We were about 15-20 miles away from it.

We also saw some more wild life on our way home.

Once we got home, we had invited some of Dassah's friends over to celebrate her birthday, so we got ready for that.

Presents!

A dish set!

Playing the piano with Obi.

 Mike was on call with his work on Dassah's actual birthday, and it ended up he wasn't around for much of it. We had decided some time before that we wanted to raise chickens, so on June 1st, the kids and I picked up 8 chickens from our across the street neighbor.  There are 2 blacks, 2 barred, 2 speckled, a brown, and a buff.  Dassah promptly claimed them as her chickens.

Dassah is so excited to have chickens.

Holding her chicken.

Obi liked the chickens too.

We're working on turning our shed into a chicken coop, but until then, we have a temporary enclosure.

Out of curiosity, I asked Dassah what their names were. I don't think she understood the naming process and just strung sounds together, but here are some of the names she came up with:

Daboo, Popkin, Toople, Noma, Snoomit, Rockin, Snobeki, Meeki, Atukik, Stompook, Tukkik, Stembock, Telpoke, Kapoke, Shoo, Lou

Yes, there are more names than chickens. I could point to a chicken 5 times in a row and she would give five different names.

It turns out that we have 6 roosters and only 2 hens.  One of the roosters I have decided to name Soup.  He's the meanest and will probably be the first to end up in the soup pot.

 

New swim clothes!  They're a size big so they should hopefully last through next year, too.

Testing the water.  "Do I want to get in?"

I love his smile!

Dassah was playing with the spay nozzle on the water hose.  I liked the effect of her silhouetted behind the golden drops of water, but the camera didn't capture it quite the same.

A tea party!

We visited someone's house.  Obi was excited he could see out the screen door.

"Wait a minute!  I didn't want to fall down inside!"

"Okay, I'm ready to go swimming now!"

Eating big people food.  Mmm spaghetti squash!