County Fair & Other Random September Activities

Here's a Halloween preview: 

 I bought these costumes last year. They still fit (or rather - they finally fit) so we're using them again. Sarah says she wants to be Winnie the Pooh and the kids decided that baby David should be Roo. I'm searching e-bay for a good deal on those.

 Kathryn is constantly asking if she can hold the baby.

 And feed him...

 Then sit with him again.

 Joseph likes to feed him too. Can you guess what he's eating? Pinto beans...there's nothing like training them early to eat rice and beans all week long. =)

 Flying a kite. This dollar store wonder has served us well.

 Kathryn wanted to do it too, but the wind was so strong she would have lost the kite, so David let her "hold" the string for this picture and she was happy

 Grandma Carol came to visit us the week of Labor Day. She brought Joseph some new clothes for his birthday (see his shirt) and some headbands for the girls.

 Trying to get all the kids to look and smile at the camera is nearly impossible, I think.

 Here's Joseph with his bike at the Labor Day picnic. They had a bike parade -- all the kids from the ward (church group) got to decorate their bikes then show them off before we started eating.

 Sarah's bike.

 Kathryn is saying "Let me see" (meaning, the picture that I am taking).

 "CHEEEESE"

 "Hi baby!" said in a very high-pitched, loud voice.

 Look how long he is stretched from arm to arm of the chair.

Now...the Country Fair! The kids have been waiting all week for this -- ever since David mentioned that we could go there for their special "Daddy time" this week.

 First to see the animals...sheep, goats, cows, horses, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, guinea pigs, and turtles.

 The pigs were really big and just generally "scary" for Kathryn, so she kept her ears covered the whole time we looked at the large animals. She liked the geese and rabbits though. At our house when something is scary (like in a movie, for example) the kids don't cover their eyes, they cover their ears. Don't ask me why.

 This picture was literally 10 seconds before he nodded off to sleep. He mostly slept the whole time and just rode in the stroller. Such an easy baby!
After the animals we looked at all the arts, crafts, and fair booths. The kids got tons of free coloring books, stickers, and other goodies. Then, we went to the rides. They immediately wanted to ride the "pony ride" aka the carousel.

 Sarah and Joseph haven't been on a carousel since we lived in Nashville. This was Kathryn's first time on any sort of ride. At first I thought it was going to go well. She went with me and sat on the horse and was really excited about that. THEN, it started to move and she flipped out! She was clinging to me for dear life. Poor thing.

 This little boy wasn't sure if he wanted to share "his" car with Joseph.

 Kathryn thought these cars were fun. This was her favorite ride.

David woke up and smiled.

Then, they went on the helicopters. This was Joseph and Sarah's new favorite ride. Sorry carousel. They wanted to ride again...but we quickly distracted them by offering to go look for more free trinkets in the craft barn.
When did carnival rides get so expensive? At 3 tickets per ride x 3 kids and 3 different rides = too much$$ (And these were just the "cheap" kiddie rides!) At first we told them they could only choose 2 rides, but somehow those ticket people know that you'll have a few tickets left over, so you'll have to buy just one or two more tickets so you can use those remaining ones. Oh well, I'm glad they had such a good time. Thank heavens the county fair only comes around once a year! (Shhhh...don't tell the kids that it's still there on Saturday).

Sarah's "Spanish" Numbers

At preschool Sarah and Joseph are practicing writing letters and numbers. Joseph adores writing, but for Sarah it's more of a chore that she has to get through before she can go paint. Today she showed me a sheet with lots of spaces for writing numbers. She had written only a few, then scribbled in the rest of the squares so she could be "finished" and told her teacher that she had written her numbers in Spanish. She must have thought her teacher wouldn't know "Spanish numbers", and therefore let it slide.

It looks more like Arabic to me. Creative little gal.

3span01?


Here's Joseph's letters. He's working hard on them so he can earn a special writing workbook that some of the older kids use.

Birthdays and Moving

It's been a busy month. After returning from our trip to California we had just over a week to find a new place, pack and move out. We've been in this short term rental for a couple of weeks now and things are settling down. I'm still behind on the laundry - but what's new? I swear, I was just starting to get that all under control and had everything so well organized and then we had to move again. We're only here in this new place until mid-October at the latest because this house is being sold at public auction.

We found a house in our price range with 4 bedrooms all on one level and made an offer on it. After much price haggling, we've finally got a purchase agreement and we're hoping to close on the house by October 1st. Then, the first order of business is to paint and install new carpet. After that we'll move in.

Now, back to Joseph's birthday... let's start at the beginning.

August 8, 2006 - This little stinker took 4 hours to push out. =( He was 7lbs 12 oz and 20 inches long and had great lungs.

He also was rather jaundiced. Here he is getting a little natural sunlight (just for a few minutes) when he was a couple days old.

This is one of the best pictures we have of him between the ages of birth to about 4 months. Let 's just say that he didn't photograph well during those months for some reason...maybe because he was so colicky that if he wasn't crying when you took the picture he looked as though he would start crying at any moment. Poor kid. (Poor me, actually...I don't think I slept more than 3 hours at a time for a full 4 months).

By Christmas (4-5months), he was sleeping more, I was sleeping more, and he was getting a lot cuter too. =) I decided that maybe we would keep him after all.

6 months old -- look at those chubby cheeks and compare him to David -

Definitely brothers. (That's little David at 5 months)

Easter 2007 - 9 months old. Sarah is 13 months here.

November 2007 (I can't seem to find the files of pictures from his 1st birthday...I'll add those later if they show up).

January 2008

March 2008 (Easter)

June 2008. He got the smalled little scratch on his nose in June that year and picked at it every night while he was falling asleep. It would scab over, then he'd pick it off until the wound covered his whole nose. Bandages on his nose never lasted more than a minute, so we resorted to socks on his hands, with tape around his wrists to keep the socks on. It took a week with the socks to get the scab all healed - all in all, I think he had that wound for 2 full months. He still has a little scar there.

July 2008 - This is when Grandpa came to visit after Kathryn was born. I think it was the first time they ate spaghetti and it was so cute to see them eat it and try to say it.

September 2008

Christmas 2008

February 2009 (Don't ask me what Sarah is doing with that towel).

July 2009 - they discovered the chocolate syrup in Grandpa's fridge and he made that perfect little mustache all by himself while he tried to make chocolate milk and drink it.

August 2009 - 3rd birthday. This is a train cake...kinda hard to see in the picture, but my first attempt at a creative cake.

December 2009

May 2010 - that's his remote controlled car and a new shirt from Grandpa. I love how blue his eyes are -- too bad the picture quality is so poor.

Now, August 2010 - I can't believe he's four. Here's the whole story of his big day (we celebrated a day early, so we could celebrate Krista's birthday on the 8th. They share a b-day but both needed their own day).

Here's the birthday cake I made. Not your typical, fancy blogger fondant cake - but he liked it. That's regular, ol' made-from-scratch powdered sugar & cream cheese frosting.

Here's the poster that David drew using markers. It's a Wiseman family tradition to make a big poster for birthdays. As you can see, this year's theme was Thomas the Train.

On Joseph's big day we went to a huge "castle" park (the kind with wooden towers and bridges, etc.) Aunt Krista came too. Little David was glad to get some attention.

Joseph thought this park was awesome. There were so many new things to see and do. Next we went to feed the ducks and geese, then he got to open his presents. He got soooo many presents because we were at Grandma's house.

The other kids got something too, and that helped them to not be so jealous.

The doll in the lower corner is not one of Joseph's gifts...just thought I should clarify that. =) He got Lincoln Logs, Cars, new Buzz Lightyear shoes and........ (drum roll please)......

A train track set complete with a Thomas engine, of course. =) Grandma and Grandpa had it all set up and did a fun reveal at the end of all the other gifts. Naturally, it was the favorite gift and he quickly forgot about everything else.

In the afternoon everyone went to see Toy Story 3 (except for me and the napping babies). Then he had his birthday day dinner and got stage fright when it was time to blow out the candles. He did NOT like having everyone sing to him while he sat there as the center of attention. He literally crawled under the table in the middle of the Happy Birthday song and refused to blow out the candles until Sarah and Daddy did it with him.

Since I'm posting this on September 8th, (maybe) I have to throw in a picture of little David, because he is 6 months old today!