Carnie-val: Small town style

 Over the weekend, E noticed a little carnival that was set up on the backside of our shopping center parking lot.  In fact, the only two stores that have parking on the backside are a liquor store and a sweepstakes cafe (which is the Ohio version of a side of the road casino).  That will give you perspective on the type of "carnival" we hit up on Sunday.

We bought 20 tickets, which totaled out to be two rides for Finorah with an adult on each.  We walked the 50 yards to the far end of the carnie-val, slowly inspecting each ride to figure out if we thought it was Finorah's style.

At the end of the carnie-val was the Dragon Wagon, which a little kiddie roller coaster.  She wasn't so sure that it wasn't going to give her tetanus.  The carni --- errr, nice man that controlled the ride told us that no adults were allowed to tame the Dragon, so we moved on.

Fish wasn't impressed in the least and slept through the entire carnie-val (which with all the air compressors going off seemed an amazing feat).

After the Dragon Wagon fail, we only had one ride left that we thought that she would enjoy and not cry the instant that it began -- the carousel.  Only problem?  She was petrified of it and refused to get on.  Our solution?

 Let's put our three-month old on the ride to show Finn that there wasn't anything scary about it!  Who's the white trash now?!?  So, I grabbed my kid and shuffled onto the carousel with my wee-infant.  Now this is a coming from a lady with no make-up on, unkempt hair, and spit-up on her yoga pants.  I'm sure I was a sight for sore eyes.  I may have even been scarier than the ride.

Finn & Casper--The Motherly Ghost

After Brother and I got off the seemingly never-ending ride, Finn still wasn't having it.  She was O-V-E-R the carnie-val with a capital "I want to go home" (which may have been uttered by her right before the photo above).  So we were stuck with 10 tickets which oddly enough equaled two adult tickets.  And guess who was chosen to use those two tickets?  Not the guy that has vertigo.

So I had to put on my big girl panties and ride the Scorpion, the ride that I had said earlier didn't look so scary.  When I saw duct-tape holding parts of the floor together as I got on my chosen colored car (Finn wanted me in a blue car which was on the backside of the ride), I really thought that I was going to come away with either a head injury or a sexually transmitted disease.  And then the ride started...  Within the first 10 seconds of the ride, I literally thought I was going to puke and didn't know how I was going to make it through the entire thing.  Then I switched my focal point and I actually laughed through the whole ride.  Laughing at the ridiculousness of me riding a carnie-val ride.  If someone would have told me that is how I would be ending my evening that morning when I woke up, I wouldn't have believed you.  Needless to say, I lived to tell about it.

And I'm going to end the post with a couple of photos that are two weeks old, but too stinking cute to not share.  Someone is starting to chunk out (and hopefully it's not me).

A week in life (v.2014.15)

When I saw this photo, my first thought was...

This moment in Tommy Boy.

Somebody was "row, row, rowing" her boat with her toy mop.

We did some fingerpainting for the girls next door.

Melting...

We got a little carried away with our homemade Mother's Day gifts for Mimi and Granny

Finn & Fish made little birds with their hand prints (although they do look like little fish) & Finn glued some brown paper bag strips as a nest.  We also made thumb print key chains out of baked clay.

Love the hat!

Someone wasn't impressed.

Still love his face.

Playing on her swingset that is all set-up in the yard.

Munk even got in on the playing in the yard

Brother just chilled in his momma-made tent.

This is the look that you give when you have no diaper on and you pee out of your pack-n-play.  Somehow, very little pee made it inside the pack-n-play -- it was through the mesh screen and onto the floor.

On our way to the zoo last Friday -- someone stole poor Brother's snugglin' blanket.

Pushin' two kids around the zoo is a serious work-out.  This was my view.

When she saw all the other kids walking around her, someone wanted to be a big girl and walk.

Zoo tour guide Finn

AAANNNNNND we're done.  Someone was getting tired after an hour and a half in the zoo, which was perfect as lots of people were hitting up the zoo by noon.

My chunky monkey.

Someone got into the diaper salve as I was in the shower.  If you can't see, it's all over her face, in her hair, and all over both legs. Girlfriend was very efficient and didn't miss a spot.

Her look in this photo just makes me laugh.  But man, is that stuff oily!  She had greasy bangs all day yesterday (even after a bath that morning)!

Current odds & ends

This was my Mother's Day.  It didn't look this gorgeous all day.  We got dressed about 15 minutes before these photos were taken.  We were outside most of the day, cleaning up the yard (at least part of it).  We are getting ready for a seriously great summer!  Now that Finn has a huge playset and we have a great patio set, all we need to do is find some friends with kids and have some great BBQs & beers!

Random observations:

• Fish has a serious obsession with snuggling with blankets.  He loves grabbing handfuls of the blankets and bringing them up by his face.  He loves having a blanket up by his ears while he is napping.  On both ears.  I'm not sure how this is going to work during the summer when the weather is sweltering, but it works for now.

• Finn is really hitting her Finn the Fierce stride right now.  She is all about hitting when she gets angry and kicking has become a new thing.  I know that it's only a phase and that I just need to be on top of it.  But sometimes it can be super annoying, as she is constantly angry at something it seems lately.

• I've come to realize that Fish is not a good second-baby.  He would have been a super-phenomenal first baby.  He is a great sleeper -- usually only eating once at night and then again at 5am (or at least he was a week or so ago -- we have now reverted to at least 2-3 times a night waking up to eat) and he is a great napper during the day.  He is a great baby when you are holding him and he is awake.  But we still aren't at the point where he is okay on his own, entertaining himself.  And maybe I'm just getting my baby facts wrong and this doesn't come until a little later.  I can't remember Finn being this needy when awake.  I'm trying to enjoy it as it's the last time.  But it's difficult when you have a two-year-old that also needs your attention.  But most of the times, I get tired because he is such a lunker that my arms get tired.  I'm going to have guns of steel by the time this kid learns to walk.

• Finn has also entered into that whole I-don't-wanna-share thing.  But it's only with strange kids -- not with her brother.  Most of the time, she will give up her Lambie Lovie for Fish if she thinks that he is having "a moment" (which is how we are fond of calling it) or let Brother hold her baby.  But last week, our time at the library and also at a playdate that we went to, she had a very difficult time seeing other kids want to play with the same toys.  In fact, she threw her first all-out temper tantrum, like falling-to-the-floor-kicking-and-screaming tantrum in the library (of all places -- a quiet library) because I told her that we were going to go home if she couldn't share this little play-house the library had set up.  Needless to say, she didn't share and we left.  I was thankful for the lady outside the library and saw I was struggling, trying to hold an infant in a carseat in one hand, a huge diaper bag over my shoulder and my kicking & screaming two-year-old under my other arm like a sac of flour.  She said "Let me guess...  Two?  And new?" pointing to both of my kids.  God bless that woman.

• We have two playdates that we are going to this week.  I hope that the women are kind.  I'm pretty fearful about these things as I tried this group when Finn was teeny and it didn't go well.  It was a momma-night-out and I sat in the middle of the table so that I couldn't just sit in the corner and not participate.  Well, these ladies decided that they didn't want to speak with me -- so instead they just spoke over me.  It was really rude and it ended my idea of finding new friends outside of work.  When I considered this group again (as it's the only SAHM mom group that I could find and it's pretty big), I checked to see if those girls were still members.  They aren't, which sadly made me pretty happy.  I hope that these ladies are more welcoming to new people.

• We are now entering into the potty training phase.  I haven't started to seriously potty train with her.  But she goes on the potty at least 2-3 a week.  She still can't realize before she has to go and will tell us she has to go while she is peeing.  But if I can catch her after she wakes up (either in the morning or after a nap) or sometimes right before bed.  We usually try each of those times, but aren't successful every time.  I know that once she gets it, she'll get it.  We aren't pressuring -- just trying to go with the flow. (Ha!  Pun intended!)

• On a similar note, we are also weaning out the binkie.  If I didn't have an infant that uses them, I would have just gotten rid of them altogether.  So we have now deemed them only for nap time and bedtime.  And the naptime binkie is only used when she is laying down.  We started this last week and she is good without them during the day now.  Initially, she was stealing Brother's binkies, but now she realizes when they are good and when they aren't.  Within the next month, I'm hoping to finally take them away by "giving them to the Binkie Fairy."  Wish me luck on that one.

To all my mother f'ers out there...

Just kidding -- To all the beautiful mothers out there -- whether it be of two legged children or four, wishing you a very happy mother's day!

And it seems fitting to do this again exactly two years later, but I'm going to talk about Daddies on Mother's Day.

Two years ago, this post was written.  It happens to be the most popular post on this blog as it was featured in another article featuring the world's best fathers.  How the author of that article ever found our little blog is beyond me.  But due to the popularity gained from that article, that blog post gets hits from all sorts of google image searches, mostly searches for "father-daughter tattoos", "daddy tattoos", and "daughter tattoos for fathes"s.  But I was quite shocked to learn that you can also find images of our blog when you google image search "tramp stamp".  Yikes!

Anyways, I went to my friend's Kentucky Derby this year, leaving Daddy alone with Fish for the first time.  Daddy didn't let me down in his high-jinx again. I'll let the videos do all the talking...

Country roads, take me home...

As the John Denver song goes, "Country roads, take me home to the place I belong."  Our trip home was wonderful.  The drive out was great with a kid in each car and an adult to keep the kid entertained.  We made it there in record time.  I can't even describe the feeling that I get every time my car gets to the crest of that hill and then when we pop over it, you can see the Mississippi and Iowa on the other side.  Almost heaven.

Lots of Mimi and Papa lovin' was spread around.  Finn made sure to get her Mimi and Papa time in -- A LOT.  It was a lot of "No, Mimi do it." or "Where's Tapa?" (her cute little way of saying Papa).  There was also a lot of cousin Owen.  She couldn't get enough of him.

photo courtesy of Mandy 

We went over to my brother's place one night and grilled out.  The kids got to play in the yard.  There were slides, sandboxes, kites, balls and bubbles.  It was a great night to be a kid (if only the weather was just a little warmer -- it will be next time we are home).

photo courtesy of Mandy 

photo courtesy of Mandy 

photo courtesy of Mandy

One of my favorite photos -- it looks like they have some serious convo's out there.

Sunday was our family Easter egg hunt.  As mentioned before, she made out like a bandit.  There was more than enough eggs to go around and she was definitely an overachiever.  With only three kids and so many eggs, one got tired after all the big eggs and prizes were picked up and the other realized that there was candy on the inside of the eggs and started opening the eggs as he picked them up.  Finn was still running around like crazy until the final egg was picked up.  And her bag definitely showed that!

Aunt Susie holding brother Fish.

This was also the first time that Fish and his cousin Nixon were able to get together.  If you remember during the Iowa Christmas post, my cousin had a baby boy around New Year's Eve.  So Nixon and Fish met for the first time -- only four weeks separate the two of them.  Nixon definitely has some size and pounds over Fish -- but we'll see as they got older, who is going to be pushing around who.

The Egghunters:  Noxx (Nixon's older brother), Owen (some to be older brother this summer), and Finn (Fish's older sister)

I love how Finn and Owen are holding hands.

Gram #2 Vicki holding brother

And they are off!

She was so excited to pick up eggs, she even lost her shoe!

Double-fisting it!

Hey, wait!  There is candy in these eggs.

Beautiful brother Cory