The Middle

I know, I've been a terrible blogger lately. It's a very easy explanation, I'm lazy. But that's not what this post is about.
This post is about my middle child, Bean. He's going through a MAJOR middle child syndrome phase thingy right now and it's killing me. I've never seen mood swings like this little punk has been having, and I went to hair school (65 girls, ages 18-23, all in the same room, for 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, for a year...you get the point). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my skinny minnie, I just wish the real Gruntabee would come back. The nice, funny, silly, lovable one. Like really soon.

Uintah County Fair

*WARNING: this is the longest post EVER! I have a million pictures and lengthy explanations to go along with said pictures. Be prepared to loose 10 minutes of your life if you proceed...*

Carnival: We got the boys unlimited ride bands and let them go crazy. It was $60 well spent. Lucy was a trooper and watched from her stroller until she finally fell asleep. She woke up about an hour later and hung out for another 30 or so minutes and then was ready to sleep in her crib.

Craft Day: My boys LOVE doing crafts. Color, paint, glue, cut, etc, they love it all. The fair does a kids craft corner and I took the boys to it last year, but only let them do one thing. I'm pretty sure I ran out of patience, but told the boys that the fair ran out of crafts :) Not this year. I let them do all the crafts and they did great. Lucy was a trooper and just hung out in her stroller eating treats while the boys crafted their little hearts out. They started by decorating magician hats. I don't have a picture of that. Oh, warning, all these pictures were taken with my phone. My phone blows. Hence, these pictures are not HD quality, to say the least. After hats they made beaded necklaces with their names on them:
and finally they did some watercolor paintings:
After crafts we went to The Little Red Barn. It's basically where the kids walk through and do all the things real farmers do (but everything is pretend and not real). They picked apples, planted vegetable seeds, picked those veggies, gathered chicken eggs from the hen house, bagged grain, loaded hay into a tractor and drove the tractor to the hay drop off spot, fed the cows grain and then milked them and collected that milk, and then go to the farmer's market and deposit all their goods. Then they get "paid" for their goods and get to pick out a treat from the "store". Super long explanation, but I didn't really get pictures of any of this. I think The Little Red Barn was the boys' favorite thing of the week. They asked monthly, last year, if it was time for the red barn and have again already been asking when it will be back.

I'm One of Those Mom's...

I really had no idea. So when I entered Lucy into the baby show for the county fair, I did it mainly because everyone kept telling me "you have to enter her!". When we got to the fair grounds, I realized how out of my element I was. Now I'm not judging those who do this kind of thing all the time...well, okay, yes I am judging you, but it's not on purpose. It just kind of happens when you look around at the other participants. My Dad put it perfectly when he said, "my granddaughter isn't going to do baby nascar again!". For those of you who have never had the grand pleasure of participating in a county fair baby show, let me give you a play by play.

First off, all the kids must be in swimsuits. Fair enough. Little more love for all the pedophiles, but whatever. Next, the kids are grouped according to age. Lucy was in the 5-12 month age group. When you arrive, you have to check in and it's then that you receive your number. We were #19 out of 21. Then you stand in line according to that number and wait for the interview. Yep, read that right, INTERVIEW. They interviewed my 8 month old baby. What did they ask? Not much. They talked to Lucy and she gave them all a courtesy smile. Unfortunately, she decided not to break out into her spot on rendition of Defying Gravity or show off her killer ballet skills. I'm not sure what they wanted her to do, or wanted ME to do for that matter, but I just let her sit there at stare at them while they stared at her. The whole thing lasted about 2 minutes. Then we waited for the results.

First came the "specialty awards" which ranged from longest eyelashes, to best swimsuit, to cutest giggle. Lucy didn't win any of those, which I was happy about. The top three don't win specialty awards and I was sure Lucy was in the top three. Then they read third place. Not Lucy. Second place. Not Lucy. Sweet, that means she won the whole thing. No surprise really. First place. NOT LUCY. Wait, what? She didn't win anything?! That's when my level of extreme competition, that I thought was long gone, made a sudden appearance with a vengeance. I was pissed. How can she not win? Did they even look at her? Seriously. Then I was embarrassed. Then I was pissed again. This all took place in my brain in about 3 seconds.

I stewed about it all day. I tried really hard not too, but apparently it's just not in my system to let it go. I'm grateful that she has no idea what was going on, because if she inherited even a smidge of what I have brewing deep down, she would've been scarred. Needless to say, I won't be entering any of my children in any more baby shows. I'm way too competitive. I don't need a trophy telling me they are the cutest kids ever, I already know that.

(why didn't anyone tell me I looked like a grease ball?)

giving the judges a plum...

okay, not really, she fell asleep as soon as we got in the car :)