White trash

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a little white trash. My kids are often dirty with messy hair in public (heck, I am dirty with messy hair in public all the time) we don't care about germs, we love to make poop jokes, etc. But, man! Have any of you been to a county fair lately?! HO. LEE. COW! It is super hard for me to not be judgmental at a fair. I especially have a hard time not judging those people who walk around with a bright pink, 10 foot-ugly lookin' stuffed dog that they probably won for the equivalent of $89.95. I mean, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! Like I said--it's hard for me not to judge--so hard that it's probably better for me to just avoid fairs all together in the future so as to avoid the temptation to do so. I'm feeling guilty just writing this. But anyway...we went to the Lane county fair yesterday with Jen and Tim and then they treated us to pizza for dinner. (The picture with them is actually from last weekend, though.)It was super fun. And before I met up with everyone at the fair, Brian gave me some time to myself to go look for some fabric for my chairs--or my chair, rather. I only ended up ordering fabric for one of them because I can't afford to do them both right now. Remember back in the day when sewing your own stuff used to be so cheap? Anyway. Oh, my heavens. I am so excited about the fabric I ordered. I have been torn because on one hand, I have wanted to get fabric that will be practical and super durable and not too trendy. (These chairs are going to be TONS of work for me so I want them to look great for a LONG time.) On the other hand, the chairs are not going to be worth my time and money if they do not look totally awesome. SOOOOOO, the fabric I chose is an awesome color green, but in 100% polyester-- so it will clean up easily and hold up to our family circus. AAANNNDDD, I got some awesome accent fabric to make a big toss pillow, too. You know what is so cool about these chairs? They are so deep that I will be able to put a toss pillow on each of them and people will not have to throw it off in order to have room to snuggle in! I know, cool. (I'll show pictures as soon as I can.) So anyway, now I just need to order some new turned feet off of ebay and keep working. Oh, and guess what? I cleaned my carpets. Don't forget to remind me to add clean carpets to my list of 31 favorites for my party this year. I seriously LOVE clean carpet. I love to vacuum anyway, but I especially love it when the carpet is new or like new because you've just spent hours cleaning it. I've taken my mom's advice and only used boiling hot water right off the stove in the cleaner, and after each round of adding soap, I go over it again with just the boiling water--and man, it looks good. I got a new rug to protect the carpet in my corridor of a hallway and before I put it down, I wanted to make sure that the carpet to be protected was nice and clean. But enough about stuff that doesn't matter and won't go with me when I die...






























I've decided it's time Camp starts earning his keep around here.

















Actually, for the last week or so, Camp has been bugging me about running a lemonade stand. So finally on Friday, I went and got some lemons and we made us some lemonade. Jane became discouraged that she didn't have any lemonade to sell, so I suggested she take a business lesson from her uncle John and draw some pictures to sell along with the juice. Oh, man. These are the moments when nothing in the world is more rewarding than being a mom.


























P.S. Here's just a little bit more. I need to document that fact that Danin is an amazing talker. Last night at the pizza place, a woman came up and said to Brian, "How old is your daughter? She just came up to me and asked (pointing to the carousel) 'Will you turn that on for me, please?'" That girl...

































And lastly--like my garage sale find?