weekends.

Apparently I've become a weekend blogger.
Sorry about that.
Surely I'm going to feel caught up on life at some point, right?
(Please say yes.)

state fair.

Sophie and Gretchen loved the pink tractor. Pretty sure they won't convince Daddy, though.

Last year Gretchen wouldn't touch the free ice cream. She's finally decided she likes ice cream this past year. And chocolate. Crazy baby.

Watching the boat rides and the zip line and listening to the K-State Marching Band...

We had a fun little surprise for Lawson. The grown-ups planned this little meet up, but didn't tell our boys. They were pretty excited to see each other...

Sophie got to add Grandpa to the wall of "favorite veterinarians" this year. Every other year, he's already been added by the time we got there.

These two were so fun to watch. They walked around almost holding hands, then they would realize that they were almost holding hands and pull away. Two minutes later, though, they would be back to almost holding hands. It was sweet.

I love Lawson's face here. He was loving this sweet baby calf.

He's been spending lots of time with Grandpa lately, going to check the pasture for new baby calves. He's getting pretty brave. I'm pretty sure he would have curled up right beside this baby if he could have.

This wasn't nearly as impressive as it was supposed to be. We've seen Grandpa do the real thing.

I'm not sure I would want Corey walking around wearing a shirt that says, "I {love} my crazy wife." It might be true, but I don't really need him advertising it.

Just nasty...

Let's go back to this picture again. Because seriously, who wants to end with that nasty pig picture in their head??

Unfortunately, we left the fair on a sour note.
Attitudes spiraled downward pretty quickly.
Grown-ups got annoyed with whiny kids and grouchy at each other.
Not quite how you want to a end a fun family day.
Don't you hate that? When what was supposed to be a fun day, and for the most part was a fun day, ends up finishing on a bad note?
Please tell me we we're not the only ones that experience that?

rodeo.

This little rodeo is one of our favorite family traditions. We didn't go the year that I was 8 months pregnant with Gretchen, but I think we've gone every other year. Click here to see a sweet little 11 month old baby enjoying her first rodeo. 

Gretchen still wasn't a big fan of the wagon ride to the gate. She loves horses and cows from a distance. 

This might be my favorite picture from the whole evening...

Somebody looks pretty cute in their little boots. They have pink sparkles on the other side.

I think momma needs some cute boots...

I'm noticing in these pictures how sparse the crowd looks. It really is a well attended rodeo, which is pretty crazy, considering it's in a teeny tiny little town. This side of bleachers fills in more as the sun goes down. 

The clown this year was really funny...

Sophie had fun keeping track of the cowboy's scores...

Cotton candy sky...

Love these messy little pigtails...

The clown cornered this mom and little boy on his way to the bathroom.

And then it was too dark for pictures.
And I was holding/wrestling a wiggly, silly little girl with messy blonde pigtails.

(Lawson saw me working on this and grabbed our 2010 blog book to look at the rodeo pictures from that year. Now he's looking at every single page saying "Remember this?! Mom! Look at this! Hey, I forgot about this!" Told you we love those books.) =)