Johnny Appleseed Festival...

One of the things on the fall section of our fall/winter fun list was going to the Johnny Appleseed Festival. This is an annual tradition in our house. The festival is at Weber's Cider Mill Farm. Usually we opt to go into the area with the hay ride and hay maze, but we remembered that last year Elijah wasn't that excited about either one. They also have a petting zoo, but he wouldn't miss that too much. So this year we decided to go on the cheap and just hang out for a while.

They had a live band, so Elijah enjoyed dancing

to the music with the other kids.

Then he decided to throw hay on daddy

(since everyone else was throwing it in the air)

Then he danced some more

Another thing on our fall fun list was to pick out pumpkins

Elijah picked out his pumpkin

We also looked at some bigger ones for

Mommy and Daddy's pumpkin

(and smaller ones for Caleb)

Everyone was having a great time.

Even sleeping Caleb. :-)

After we picked out pumpkins, we decided to go

inside the store/ice cream shop.

Elijah got another mini ice cream cone.

It was cookies and cream this time

Then my mom came over and offered to take Elijah

apple picking... with my help, of course.

He enjoyed it. It was like a treasure hunt.

He would pick each one and place it in the bag.

I think we ended up picking 8lbs of apples

Along the way, we also got an apple slushie, some corn, an awesome apple caramel pie and a free cider donut. So I would say the day was quite successful, even if we didn't do any of the "fun" stuff.

The State Fair...

We always enjoy going to the fair, every year. As they say they are the 11 best days of summer. I don't know if they are the best days, but for $8 admission, it's pretty fun. We usually just pick one day to go, but since I was on Maternity leave and we didn't go on vacation this year, we decided to go three days.

Day 1

Elijah was excited to see the animals. That was all he talked about on the ride over.

He kept trying to feed the animals hay... no matter what animal it was.

I don't think chicks eat hay...

He pet the cow this year and wasn't scared.

He's getting to be a pro at this whole riding by himself thing.

He enjoyed every minute of it.

He also tried impressing the ladies with his muscles.

The fair the first day wasn't without incident though. He tripped

over something and skinned his knee pretty bad. We went

 over to first aid to get him patched up and they did an awesome job. 

 Afterward he wasn't even phased...

A little jumping in the bounce house

And passing out in the car while guarding us from evildoers

Day 2

My mom and I took the boys earlier in the day and met Joe after he got off of work.

Matching all-you-can-ride wristbands

Elijah and I on my favorite ride. The Tilt-O-Whirl. He loved it too.

 He went a roller coaster with Daddy

Then Joe got on a roller coaster by himself

That's Joe facing <--- that way

Caleb and I enjoyed the fair

I think Caleb thoroughly enjoyed himself, between

eating, sleeping and being carried around...

I was in desperate search of chocolate milk, so Elijah accompanied

me to the cow palace/milking barn. This was where he conned me into

getting him a mini ice cream cone. He got to pick the flavor himself, too.

He took three licks and gave it to me to finish. :-)

We hung out a little bit more.

Then my parents took the kids, so Joe and I got to ride a couple rides by ourselves

and play a few games. We played this one game where you get the balls in the

holes that say "fast" "slow" "faster" and Joe won. He got Elijah an Angry Bird.

When we met back up with my parents and Joe gave him the bird.

Contrary to what the picture shows, he was so excited.

Elijah, the Angry Bird and I went on a few more rides,

to get our money's worth out of the bracelets.

Then Daddy rode with Elijah on another non-kiddy ride.

And another kiddy ride. 

We tried to get a good picture as a memento, but it just wasn't meant to be.

The fair kicked us out that night

Elijah insisted that the red bird ride with him, then he promptly fell asleep.

Day 3

We checked out the exibition halls and I found this awesome quilt.

Apparently the judges liked it too cause it won first place

Elijah had to go on a few more rides, but this time he

went on them with other people like Aunt Reach

(Reach is not her birth name, BTW)

And Pop-pop

His favorite ride was the banana ride, though

Mike (Reach's husband) won Reach an elephant,

but Elijah got to hold onto it for a little bit

While I was playing bingo that night Joe took the boys into

the exibition hall where they had a caricature artist.

He had this done for me as a surprise. I love it!

It's now framed and will be hung in the living room.

We left that evening thoroughly worn out. We had a wonderful three days. We can hardly wait for it to come around next year, so we can do it all over again.