a carnival is elementary fun!

last week was the annual elementary school, pta fundraiser carnival. we love it. it's the only fundraiser we have to endure each year, and we always have fun! it's nothing big, but the kids love it, and thus, i do too. you can't beat a cheap dinner that doesn't cost much! besides the hotdogs and nachos, there is a collection of big inflatable "rides" and standard fare games (fish pond, plinko, wheel of prizes, etc.).

plus with cousins attending the same school, the boys can count on seeing someone they know. here they are as dinner winds down.



meanwhile, my baby has decided than when someone says "say cheese," to take them quite literally.


i did have a blast watching the big boys go crazy on the inflatables, but was easily more entertained watching my baby who has now mastered the slide!




as meemer noted on her blog, he declares most trips down the slide as "awesome!" very fun and extremely cute. of course it was harder to get him off the playground than it was to get the older two off the games and inflatables!

sentimentally yours

every once in a while, some of the "treasures" from my childhood prove useful. my parents saved a lot of memorabilia from my youth, and having inherited those genes, i kept much of what they saved. so, meemer pulled out one such treasure and put our baby in it for church.

ready, which is me, and which is my boy?




ok, it's not really that hard. especially with all the pix of my boys on our blogs. that and there are always more professional pictures of the firstborn than the third. (that or my parents were better at scheduling pix. or i'm just lazy because we have digital cameras...) or who still has a "raggedy andy" doll? or maybe you could just tell because i have more hair than my son!

in defense of my age, there are color pix of me as a baby, this is just the only one i could find of me in the same outfit...

finally, here's my boy in color:

10 things that make me happy.

thanks meemer, for the tag. "if you get tagged, you have to list 10 things that make you happy. what are the things that tickle your fancy, make you smile or still give you that butterfly sensation? what things do you seek out and truly enjoy? the only rule is that you can't say your kids or your spouse...it's too easy."

it's pretty busy at work now so this will be short. (i typically blog on the bus/train or at lunch...) plus i don't even want to try to prioritize this, so i'm just listing 10 of the many things that make me happy, in random order.

pizza from the pizza place

kid-free time with meemer

days off work

meemer's homemade chili

lego star wars 2

seinfeld

being in nature (our yellowstone trip totally revived this passion)

payday

baseball

reading

i don't know anyone who hasn't already been tagged, and don't want to tag a stranger, so if you read this, have a blog, and haven't done this post, consider yourself tagged! everyone can use a review of the good things in life!