Wordless Week

Well, almost wordless. I've had sick babies this week so there's been a lot of lounging around and snuggling up with lovees, but not a whole lot else. At least they're smiling sickies. :)

The Big Fresno Fair

We went to the fair this past week with Grandma (twice actually!). The first time, Auntie Jenn and Uncle Burkie came along too. I've never really been a big fan of fairs, but it is definitely more fun to go with an enthusiastic three year old in tow. He was so excited about everything. I think he was a squealing, pointing, could-hardly-contain-his-excitement ball of energy for the vast majority of our trip.

We rode a few rides....

Drew and Grandma

Nathan originally tried to hop in the front seat with Drewski, but due to some minor size differences between him and the front seat, opted for the back seat instead. 

And thanks to said size differences, Nathan readily volunteered Uncle Burkie for the next ride. 

....Played a few games....

...Won a toy (that he was very proud of)...

...And then headed over to the animals so that Collin could have some fun.

He loved the cows and the sheep!

For that matter, he also loved the goats. If we had let him, he probably would have hopped over the fence to go visit face to face.

 Drew kind of liked seeing all the animals as well. :)

The next time we went to the fair was to go visit Kenny. Remember him? The cow that Drew got to wash a few weeks ago with our friend Cayla? Well, part of the reason Drew got to wash Kenny in the first place, was to get him ready for what he would experience when it came time for the fair. Since Nathan was working, it was just me, the boys and Grandma that were able to go and watch Cayla show her steer. She advanced through all of her classes all the way to the final round and then placed sixth (which wasn't too bad considering the final class had around 20 steers!). 

Drew and Grandma. I finally had to ask Drew to wait until after Cayla's class was done to tell her how excited he was to see her. I'm sure a waving three year old on the fence line is no problem at all in a livestock class. Yeesh. 

Cayla and "Kenny". I'm sure part of the reason he still looks so squeaky clean is that Drew just did a super excellent job in bathing him a few weeks ago. ;)

Just before we went in to go watch Cayla's class, we let Drew go and ride the ponies since we had missed them the first trip. He got a kick out of it. Considering he has two horses of his own, I really should make an effort to drive him out to Charlotte's ranch (where my mares are living) to go and let him ride one day.

Drew and his trusty steed "Aladdin"

This week, the boys also went to a Bulldog's football game with Drew's best buddy Noah and his dad Aaron. Nathan and Aaron have season tickets together so they're at a game usually once a week-ish. It's a good excuse for Aaron's wife Laura and I to get together and also a fun way for the boys to all get to hang out (their boys are almost the same ages as both of ours). This week, Aaron and Nathan wound up with two extra tickets to the game, so at the very last minute Drew and Noah found out they would get to go too. Pretty fun.

Nathan, Drew, Noah, and Aaron

And finally, just because I can't resist sharing. This is how I found the boys watching a movie before bed the other night (and yes, that would be another goose egg on Collin's forehead. The kid is fearless).

Awe....

The great Pumpkin Hunt

Yep, so after that on a roll blogging thing (remember three posts in one week?), I of course, went and missed a week...as in genuinely didn't even catch that I had missed the week until looking back this week, sort of missed it. Ug!

The boys have been mostly interested in two things lately:

Train rides:

Collin is almost always the rider, and Drew is usually the conductor. Every so often they switch. They've been using those coupons that come printed out with grocery store receipts or Target receipts as tickets. Drew will ask Collin for his ticket, and Collin, super proud to be included in the big kid fun, gladly hands it over and hops on the train. He almost always picks the caboose, but occasionally I see him somewhere in the middle. I love seeing them play this way. It's new and I'm sure it will become mundane at some point, but right now, it makes my heart happy.

and Art....lots, and lots of art:

Collin's pretty proud he gets to use the crayons now!

We also headed out to San Luis Obispo this past week to pick up a desk (thank you love, for bearing with this insane wife of yours!), and since we were in the area and it happened to be October 1st, we decided to take the boys to our favorite (non-picking) pumpkin patch on our way back home. We actually went out to the Avila Valley Barn and played there for a while too, but I left my camera in the car so I have no pictures to show for it. We found Chesebrough Farms while we were living out on the Central Coast and the family that owns it is so, so nice. It was a treat to go back and visit, and the boys loved the freedom of getting to run around and look at all the tractors, scarecrows, wagons, etc. along with all of the pumpkins.

As you can see, we had Auntie Jenn Jenn and Uncle Burkie come along too :)

We gave Drew a wagon and naturally, Collin wanted to get in it. We told Drew that they wagon was where his pumpkin would go once he picked one out. Well, sure enough when we next turned around, he had filled his wagon with probably ten little pumpkins he had picked out all squished around Collin, who was loving every minute of it.

We ended up putting most of those little pumpkins back and swapping them out for two little pumpkins and one big one. We also got a ton of gourds and cool varieties of pumpkins (they have almost any type of pumpkin or squash, pretty fun!).

Collin loved the pumpkins. He kept wanting to pick all of them up. The only problem with this was that they were usually heavier than he could actually hold, which meant they would drop. I'm amazed we didn't end up having to buy a pumpkin that Collin had cracked open by dropping.

I tried to get the boys to take a picture together, but as you can see they were really interested in appeasing me.

Anyway, it was probably the earliest we have ever gone to get pumpkins, but the beautiful benefit to this is that my house is already all decorated and fall-ish. Now, if only we could get some of that delightfully cold back East-ish fall weather....