Of carnivals, fireworks, and dancing on the sidewalk.

If you happen to be in Atchison, Kansas on the third weekend in July you will notice that something is going on in our little town. For the last eighteen years, The Amelia Earhart Festival has been celebrated here. Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison on July 24th and for the past eighteen years, they've celebrated her birth with a giant festival, including arts, crafts, foods, a carnival, a huge concert, a fireworks show, and even a piece of birthday cake if you time it just right.

 Sophie riding a carnival ride.

 

 You can't see her, but that's Ila up there in that crazy thing. 

 I may have lost three years of my life when Connor said he wanted to ride The Zipper at the carnival. 

Our awesome view for the fireworks. 

 Elinor dancing to the music. 

 Sophia doing some dancing too. 

 My oldest and my youngest babies. 

 Sophia making sure she gets another picture. 

Connor spent a long time chipping a fossil off of this rock. He ended up getting it!

 And we couldn't resist a little of our own carnival fare. 

 Connor was able to meet the governor as he meandered through the crowd. 

In the end, only Connor and I made it through to the firework show as the girls were just not up for the long night. Maybe next year. 

It was a great weekend to wrap up a great week spent with Lynne and Ila. The show, was as always, wonderful. 

Eleven.

Warning: This post contains lovey doveyness which I usually snark at. Seriously.

On Saturday, Ben and I will have been married for eleven years. It is hard to believe that we've been married that long since it feels more like a minute or sometimes eleven million years.

We aren't very fancy, so there won't be flowers on Saturday, and probably not even dinner out. (We had to visit an oral surgeon for Connor this last week and it turns out that you have to pay some big time money to just be in his glorious presence. You don't even want to know how much it costs to let him look into your mouth.)

Maybe I'll make him a special dinner for the two of us to eat after the kids go to bed. That could be kind of nice, right? Or maybe well just stay up late and eat chips with guacamole and watch Jim Gaffigan or Arrested Development. That may be more our speed.

The great thing is that even if I don't make a special dinner, or don't have any special plans for him, Ben will tell me thatI'm the best wife ever, and that he'd marry me all over again. And, even if we don't go out for dinner, and there aren't flowers, I'll tell him that he's my absolute favorite person, and that I'd marry him again tomorrow.

And we'll both mean it. We love being married - and more importantly, we love being married to each other.

We've accomplished a lot in our eleven years. We've moved six times, given birth to four beautiful children, have mourned the loss of four children in the womb, watched Ben get his masters degree and become a pastor, and watched me transition into being a stay at home mom.

We've cried, been frustrated together or at each other, fought, said we were sorry even when we weren't, fought some more, and then said we were sorry again when we actually meant it.

We've perfected the art of belting out a Journey song on the radio, discovered our mutual love of singing "You can't always get what you want" to our children when they are complaining, and can often be found laughing so hard that we are nearly brought to tears.

We are two hopelessly flawed, stubborn, sarcastic, cynical people that through a whole lotta patience, some major crying (me), and tons of forgiveness have been able to make this marriage a joy.

Here is to eleven amazing years and many many more. There's no one I'd rather by sojourning in this place with than you, Ben.

Happy Birthday, baby.

Violet Marie is one today.

I'm pretty sure that this is the fastest any of my babies have turned one. Science suggests that it took all of them a year to do it...but what does science know?

Happy Birthday Violet. May you always be as sweet as you were today (minus the part where you pulled Elinor's hair and pooped all over your clothes).

Of Lead Wizards and Water guns

One of the things Connor had decided he likes to do is perform in plays. He was in the Little Mermaid chorus this last spring and really wanted to do some more of that theater stuff.

We signed him up for Summerstage here in town, which is a three week morning or afternoon program. At the end of the three weeks they put on a play for all to see. Connor was assigned the role of Lead Wizard (which he thought was perfect for him) and yesterday morning and tonight we got to go watch him in action. 

As an added bonus, Sophia was picked as an audience volunteer which she thought was only the most amazingly best thing ever. 

Connor's had such a great time these past few weeks and I've enjoyed hearing him talk about things like blocking and voice. He already can't wait until next year. 

Sophie gets her moment in the spotlight. 

Connor's big scene.

Of camps, bug resorts, and ant-free restaurants.

For those of you who missed me complaining about it a hundred million times, Ben is gone all this week.

Here's the thing...I know that there are hundreds of amazing capable mothers out there that take care of their children by themselves every day. I was raised by one of these amazing mothers. My best friend is one of these amazing mothers. I know they're out there, I just don't claim to be among their ranks.

The funny thing is that because Ben is a pretty busy guy, I honestly do most of the day to day parenting in the house. I fix nearly all the meals, I wipe almost all of the bottoms, I make the kids pick up, I lay out clothes for the next day.... But when he is home, Ben can be a huge help. He'll put those dishes away and reload the dishwasher. He fold that basket of laundry that I haven't gotten to for the past day (or three). He'll change that occasional diaper. And my favorite thing he does...he'll put the kids to bed while I relax on the computer.

All that being said, this week has not been nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I haven't lost my cool nearly as often as I thought I would. I haven't been that stressed out. I haven't even cried yet. I don't want to say that all this calmness and not crying is because I bought a couple of litters of Coke, but it has definitely not made things worse. Also not making things worse...the blondies I made on Sunday night...that are now gone. I might have to make some more of those...while having a Coke, of course.

In fact, this week has actually been kind of fun. We've watched every Tinker Bell movie (yes Lynne, Every. Tinker. Bell. Movie.), we've built castles for all the My Little Ponies we own, we've danced to Everything is Awesome a million times, and we've taken walks around town. Connor started his own camp named quote appropriately Connor's Camp in the living room, we had a cook out at his camp, he and Sophia created a bug resort in the backyard that includes an island for roly polies. They even created a restaurant for the bugs called Ant Restaurant ...because...well...as Sophie explained "it's called Ant Restaurant because the ants aren't allowed to eat there." And, the kids determined that our entire living room floor is covered in lava (but only at bedtime) so they all need piggy back rides up to bed so their feet don't get burned.

The most surprising thing that has happened this week: I'm not totally behind on laundry or dishes. In fact, I'm maybe even doing better than an average week here.

 I have it on good authority that this is the only water park designed for bugs in the world. 

 Connor hanging out at Connor's Camp

Warming their hands over the fire. 

But...shouldn't we walk?

I don't like corn dogs. And....since I buy the groceries around here you can guess how often we have them. Yep...almost never. This means that my poor deprived children have corn dogs so infrequently, the youngest ones don't even know what they are.

At the end of her preschool year Sophia received a coupon for a free corn dog from Sonic. She was beyond excited about this and frequently asked me when it was going to be time to go get her corn dog. Yesterday, Sonic had them for $0.50 for National End of School Day or something like that. I figured that it was the perfect time to cash in and get everyone (except me) a corn dog for lunch.

I told Sophie that it was time to go get her corn dog and she was jumping up and down. It kind of made me feel guilty about the fact that I never give these kids corn dogs. Connor was excited, Sophie was jumping up and down, even Elinor had figured out that something amazing must be about to happen.

I told the kids to go get in the van so we could go pick them up. Then this happened:

Sophie: "The van? Shouldn't we walk?"
Me: "Oh...I don't think we want to walk all the way down to Sonic. We can drive."
Sophie: "But, how are we going to bring the corn dog home if we take the van? We should walk."
Me: "Can't we just drive it back in the van?"
Sophie: "I don't think so. I think we should walk."
Me: "What exactly do you think a corn dog is?"
Sophie: "You know....like a puppy."

She was only completely heartbroken when I explained to her that a corn dog was not in fact an actual dog, but was something you eat.

Her heartbreak only lasted until she actually got to eat her corn dog, which she of course loved. They all loved them.

In case you were wondering, I'm also depriving my children of the following things that I don't like to eat.

Pigs in a blanket.
Fish sticks
All other kinds of fish
All seafood
Everything else that is gross

Sometimes you remember to take the Easter pictures...

...and sometimes you don't until later. Which actually means that you can get some pretty funny pictures.

 Such as Sophie in the midst of her I just found an egg party dance. 

 Or the really awesome outfit that Connor picked out by himself. 

 Ellie Bells putting her eggs into her...erhm...basket, or the bag you found to replace her missing Easter bucket. 

Really, considering that I had been up since about 4:45 am with Connor, then helping at the Easter breakfast all morning, and then having a delicious lunch after church, it's kind of amazing that I still remembered to take any pictures at all.

Although I definitely remembered to pull my camera out to get this one. 

I didn't remember to get any of Violet. Well...better luck next year Vi.

And, I did remember to take one last week when we had a few less things on our plate.