football and mudboots

I recently found these pictures from Spring.  

Love those farm boys playing football in their mudboots!

Fashion Ensembles | by Audrey

previously known as "Crazy Clothes by Audrey"..  I decided to change the name because quite honestly, to her, these aren't Crazy Clothes..   it's fashion.   :)  She would wear this to the mall if I let her.  So, from now on, this series will be known as "Fashion Ensembles by Audrey".  :)

and I have lots more where these came from!  :)

First Day of School | 2011

Wow!  One in 3rd grade and one in Kindergarten.  When did they grow up on me??

School morning was no different than summer mornings...  they woke up, ate breakfast, cleaned their room and bathroom and got ready.  Even in the summer, they are early risers, so school mornings are a piece of cake.  Thank goodness!  However, we did put them in bed around 8:30 last night, and I think all summer they were in bed between 9:30 and 10:30..   :)  We're night owls around here.  :)

Anyway, here is Wyatt on his first day of 3rd grade.  He's the big dog in the school now since 3rd is the highest our elementary goes to.  He was pretty confident walking into school this morning.  :)

And our Kindergartener...   when did my Landon get so big?  He was also very excited and confident going into school.  After hanging his backpack up inside, he went right back out, headed straight to the playground and found his friends..   they all high-fived each other!  :)

The three best kiddos in the world!!  Love these faces!

Mr. Kindergarten

Mr. 3rd Grade

Miss I'm-Not-Sure-What-I'm-Going-To-Do-Without-My-Boys

This mama was NOT ready to send them back to school.  However, I am very thankful that they are starting the year off confident, happy and healthy with great friends and great teachers!  We are blessed to live in such a great community.

Firepits and glowing chalk

 Unfortunately we haven't had very many free evenings to do this during the summer, but we did get to a few times...    A favorite of ours is to make a fire in the firepit and relax!

This particular evening, we had a fire and made the Crayola Glow-in-the-Dark sidewalk chalk.  Mixed reviews on this.   The directions say it will set up in 30 minutes..    we let it set for over 90 minutes and it was still wet and fell apart easily.  It was pretty neat, but only glow for a couple of hours so had to be used right away.  But pretty neat for a one time thing.

State Fair honors

I don't usually like tooting my own horn, but I am pretty proud of this so I'll share (with help from my mom's begging)   :)

This is my fourth year of submitting photos to the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon.  I absolutely LOVE sending in photographs and can't hardly stand the wait to get the postcard in the mail saying if I had any photographs accepted to be displayed at the fair.

Usually only around 20% of the photographs submitted are actually chosen to be displayed.  

This is my 4th photograph to be displayed at the fair and this is my very first ribbon!!!  I was so stinkin' excited when I received the postcard and it said I had received an award!

I received an Honorable Mention in the "People:  Color" Division.  In this division, there were only 6 Honorable Mentions chosen.  

D and I headed to the fair by ourselves last Sunday and one of the first stops was the Cultural Center to find my photograph!!  Exciting!!

 And then to top it off, the Photography Salon Superintendent, Charley Starnes, was there and wanted to award me with my certificate!!  Super exciting!

And here is the photograph awarded:

Every year I am so excited if I even have one photograph accepted to be displayed so this year was extra special!!!

So, what did Audrey do during the fair?

Yes, we're still on the county fair.  

Audrey kept busy busy during the fair...  here are a few things she did.

Posed, posed and posed some more every time I had the camera out.

climbed gates over and over and over again (this was her favorite thing to do during the week)

hung out with cousin Mia

peeked into Great Grandma's purse

hung with cousin Collin

hung onto Aunt Beth

ate lots of ice cream!

 not exactly sanitary right by a calf's rear end, but we don't get too concerned about that stuff

loved covering the calves with the bedding

along with all of these things, she also did some train riding, rodeo loving, delighted in the car races, ate lots of hot dogs, corndogs, chips and fruit cups, watched some bears and did lots of walking!  And she loved every single day of it!