Back to School (AKA glory day!)

Yesterday was the much anticipated

First Day of School!

Ellie has afternoon kindergarten this year, but for picture taking purposes, I had her put her school clothes on and join the other kids at the bus stop.

Everyone is holding up the number of the grade they are going into...

(the fist sign means kindergarten in case you hadn't guessed)

Jake is so proud of his new Vans...

(Let's get some meat on those ankles!)

Wasn't it just yesterday when I was going to kindergarten for the first time with my Rageddy Ann lunch box? (I had full day! Which included naps! Which I hated!)

They hate having their picture taken while getting on the bus...



I mean...REALLY hate it! I keep telling them that one day, they'll thank me...
(It doesn't help that I didn't get a good picture to start with and I made Reilly walk back down the bus steps to try for a better shot)...

When I finally dropped Ellie off at 12:40, she was so excited, she could hardly contain herself...

3:45 came very quickly...But to see a smile this big was worth it!

***What kind of lunch box did you have?

***Do you think kindergarten should be for a full day or half?

***Do you try to recreate moments for picture taking purposes?

Ending on a "fair" note...

My favorite part of the summer finally arrived....The Middletown Grange Fair!

I used to love the street fairs in NYC. The farmers market in Union Square was fabulous. But give me a county fair, and there lies my true love.

This years entries were...

Brussel sprouts...(we were the only ones who entered these...imagine that!) hee hee

asparagus beans...(why didn't I take a picture when they were fresh?!)



pineapple sage...(smells divine!)


rosemary...(finally, I won a blue ribbon this year on this!--there are some real rosemary gurus out there that beat me every year)


scented geranium...

(I also got a blue ribbon on lemon balm, but forgot to take a picture when it was semi-fresh--by the time I remembered, it was completely brown...much like the asparagus beans)

silver thyme...

Grandma Aikin's bread and butter pickles...

This was an art project from last year that Jake did. He wrote his name in cursive, and then created a design out of it...

One of the requirements for 4-H was that each kid designed a poster to display in the poultry tent. It's hard to see in this picture the "interesting duck facts"...but here they are....

1. A female duck has a loud quack, while a male duck has a raspy quack.

2. Ducks have excellent vision and can even see color.

3. Ducks are precocial, meaning they are born with their eyes open.

Reilly entered this under the "collage" category...(I love that the kids can enter things from art class)

The making of this little number here took me HOURS to clean up...(glass glitter, glue, jewels, paint). It was worth it, though, to see the thrill on Ellie's face when she saw a blue ribbon attached...

As I've mentioned before, Jake joined 4-H this past year...

It's been a great program and he and I have learned so much...

On the opening day of the fair (Wednesday), the kids all had to have their birds to the grange by 9:30am. The judge was great! He spent so much time walking around, explaining to the kids about what qualities he looks for in a bird. They had to listen carefully because he quizzed them later when it came time for the junior show....

Here Jake is with "Pearl" at the junior show. She's a little white polish bantam around 3 years old. We got her from a farm about a month ago who was looking to downsize their flock of chickens. She was so sweet and docile. We decided to show her because the chicks that we got around Memorial Day just weren't old enough.

These are the members of the Bucks County Bucks Clucks....

Pearl earned a blue ribbon...(The judge's exact words...."this is a nice little bird"...)

Jake earned second place for showmanship (he was judged on how much information he knew about his bird and how well he handled her)...

This picture was actually taken on the last day of the fair...her top feathers were a mess at this point...she dips them into the water when she takes a drink...

I was afraid she would have points taken off because of the mini "hair cut" I gave her after we washed her right before the fair. Some of her feathers wouldn't stand up, and I thought that trimming them would be the answer. I literally did the "walk of shame" when we arrived at the fair. At that point, it was too late to switch her out with another bird...

It worked out fine...the judge never even mentioned the feathers...so we lucked out!

It was fun meeting new people and letting them pet Pearl...

Jake and I took turns showing her around...

Jake and I had to "chicken sit" on Friday. Brian brought the girls around 6pm and we had dinner ...(Decisions, decisions!!!)

I'm not sure it was such a good idea to hit the rides right after gorging on fair food...but oh well!

You should have seen the bottoms of our feet at this point! Gross!

I can almost smell my arteries clogging...

On the last night of the fair, after the last cow show, the 4-H kids all got to stay overnight and sleep in the arena. Someone from the rabbit club organizes this every year. He hangs a big sheet up and projects a Disney movie onto it...

The moms all back their car up to the arena and sleep (yeah, right!) in their cars...

The sleeping part for me never quite happened as all I kept hearing a lot of cock a doodle dooing, mooing, bleating, and goats challenging each other by slamming their horns against the fence.

In spite of the sleepless night, it was electric being there "after hours"...

At least SOMEONE got some sleep!

The next morning, they made a HUGE "unheart- healthy" breakfast...

Eggs with cheese, bacon, SCRAPPLE!, toast, pancakes, potatoes, and Sunny-D! Oh my gosh, I'm still feeling sluggish from that breakfast...

We didn't go to church on Sunday because we had stake conference and we wouldn't have been able to make it back to the fair to help break the cages down and clean up.

We finally got everything finished and packed away...and got Pearl back to her posse...

She was so excited to be back...

It was finally lights out officially on the long, (but oh, so fun!) week at the fair...

Good times were had by all!