Professional photos and books....and other random stuff.

I just want to say thank you to my wonderful friend Erin L for taking these pictures and sending them to me. These are the first professional pictures I have of my children and they are great. It reminds me why you should have professional pictures taken every so often.

It just so happened that she came to the stake softball game with a new lens and wanted to try it out. I am certainly not opposed to my children being guinea pigs for photographers. If there are any other photographers out there, my children will happily be your guinea pigs.

On a side note, stake softball is over. I am sad. We have spent our past 3 Saturdays playing softball and it has been great. I have forgotten how much fun it is. Our ward's team won - by quite a bit - every time. Not that I am competitive or anything :)

My editor sent me a letter a few weeks ago at the beginning of August. It started with, "I like your book but..." Essentially, I need to add 20,000 - 30,000 words to my story. She had some suggestions for where good additions would be and what types of things I should add. So I am working my way through it. Unfortunately, the deadline is September 1, 2011. It is August 29, 2011 and I have 10,000 words to go to hit the minimum. So I guess I know what I am doing all night long. I will know by October 15th if the book is going to be published or not. So if not, I guess I am starting on a new book and seeing where it goes from there. Maybe I will submit this one to Amazon and Barnes and Noble for epublishing. Who knows. I am a little nervous to have people I know read my writing. People I don't know are fine, but people I know I am nervous about. So we shall see.

Our family is doing great. We are just having fun and hanging out as a family. I am enjoying this time of year. We get to go to all the fun attractions around Sacramento and they aren't very crowded because school is in session. So it is fun.

On the to-do list for this week is the zoo and sewing and book writing. Today is the zoo because it is free admission day. Nicholas and I spent Abby's morning nap looking at animals on various websites (for more information, see our homeschool blog). It was a blast and I am looking forward to taking him to the zoo and seeing all the animals in person. Everything else can wait until after the zoo.

The Nevada County fair

We went to the Nevada County fair on Friday. We decided against going to the State fair this year because it was too expensive for what the kids would get out of it. And it is a big fair. Really big. We had also heard stories about some of the kids and teenagers there, and we remembered how true those stories were from last year's visit.

So I looked around for other things for us to do as a family, and found the Nevada County fair. It is a bit of a drive from Sacramento (it tooke an hour and 20 minutes to get there; and hour and 45 minutes to get back). But it was totally worth it.

First, it was only $9 for entry and $7 for parking. And they let you take in all your food. In fact, people take in so much food that they have covered picnic spots all over. That was very nice. Second, it is smaller, and very family oriented. They have face painting and all kinds of kids stuff for cheap or free. It is very family oriented. We loved it.



Of course our kids had to eat soon after we got there. That was fine. We put them in the stroller with snacks and meandered our way to the horses. The horses were great. No one cared that we stopped by every horse (in and out of stalls) and petted them. We talked to them all. The owners all came up and talked to use about the horses and Nicholas got a bunch of his "why" questions answered by the owners (somehow, he didn't want me to answer them).



Then we went to see the cows, pigs, goats, chickens, and rabbits. Everyone was super nice and let Nicholas pet anything he wanted to. They had some saddles sitting on hay bales that the kids could get on and use ropes to rope sawhorse bulls. Nicholas had a blast. I finally got a good picture of them both where they are looking at the camera.



The US Forest Service and CalFire all had fire trucks there. There was a nice young man who was a CalFire firefighter that talked to Nicholas for a LONG time. He put Nicholas up on the fire trucks, showed him where the wheel and horns and sirens were. Answered a TON of questions like, "Why are fire trucks red?" He was very nice and very good with kids. I am continually amazed how good firefighters are with kids. Although I guess they see a lot of them.

It was a great fair. They had a dog show that was great. After the dog show we had some meltdowns by both kids and decided to leave. On our way out we got cotton candy and some cold water and only spent $4! I mean, you can't do that at bigger fairs.

It was a blast and I am glad we went and will totally put it on the calendar to go next year too.

Motherhood

There are sometimes when I think I am blessed to be a mother and sometimes when I know I am blessed to be a mother. Don't get me wrong, motherhood is very rewarding, but sometimes I do forget that most of all, I want to be a mother.

Those days are few and far between. I have my moments: When the neighbors know my children's full names and people on the other side of town can probably do an impression of me saying, "What in the world happened here?" But those moments always fade from memory once the offender curls into my lap and says sorry (usually after he has to clean up the mess).

Motherhood is filled with all sorts of fun. When else do you get to go to a park and run around as an adult? Or have a good excuse for playing in mud, building sand castles, playing in a kiddie pool, and cleaning the kitchen floor with sponges on your feet? Or playing hockey with ice cubes on the kitchen floor, watching cartoons, and snuggling in a bed with stuffed animals? There are the fun times with reading and art, watching kids build new skills, and being proud of them when they do something great.

But then there are the other times: The late and never ending nights, the days when everything a body can produce has been produced and dumped on you, the frustration of wondering if a record player could do just as good of a job as a parent since you spend all day saying, "What are you doing?" and "Really?" and "No," and "Why did you do that?" and "Stay away from the road," and "be nice to your sister," and all those repetitive phrases. And the nights where you finally get to sleep, only to be woken up by someone at your bedside saying they are scared and won't sleep unless they are in your bed and cuddling with you - not their father who is blissfully sleeping, but you.

Anyways, sometimes it just helps to remember that motherhood is a blessing overall.

And when all else fails, put the kids in the back yard with some dirt and trucks and watch them make a mess :) It will bring a smile to anyone's face.