Summer Carnival!

We had fun at daycare's annual summer picnic this week. This is the first time the Irish family was able to attend, and the theme was CARNIVAL! Emily and Zachary had so much fun playing all the games, (not so much fun learning to give a ticket before you could play, and play before you could get your prize.) And it brought back memories for Momma of the games played at the St. Hyacinth's summer festival, (not the carni games, the ones the church always ran.)

There was a sucker tree, face painting, digging for dinosaur bones, a cookie walk (Momma's favorite), and a bean bag toss. Zachary LOVED the bean bag toss...(usually he's scolded for throwing his toys; this time he was handed a toy and told he could!)

Some more favorites:

Zachary showed excellent form bowling w/ a strike! (and he also showed he has the Irish gene which requires him to stick his tongue out when he's concentrating...Daddy and Grandpa do the same thing.)

Emily loved the maze...which really wasn't more than a corner tunnel. The prizes at the end were either a small magnifying glass, or choice of bug (there must have been hundreds to choose from.) I think we ended up w/ 3 magnifying glasses, and 4 bugs...(yes, that's 7 times through...in a row.) (And you can barely see Em's rainbow on her cheek.)

Zachary also loved fishing! (Go figure.) But this was Momma's kind of fishing...no baiting!

And last but not least, everyone's favorite...the duck pond!! We also played this again and again! We had a stickler running it though...no cheating there. There was 1 duck out of maybe 30 that had a smiley face on the bottom. The prize...was a smiley face necklace! Zachary won it by chance... and Emily was jealous. And we tried and tried and tried again...and the girl just kept handing her these other stupid things that we didn't want...(come on, just the smiley face necklace!) Finally, Momma had a "hunch" where the special smiley ducky was...and helped Emily out.

A couple other pics...

Emily and Momma (and Busia) planted some sunflowers this year. Out of a whole bunch, only about 4 have made it. We were a little late planting, so still no flower. Hopefully we weren't SO late that the snow will fly before the flower blooms...

And here's Daddy's 2nd annual picture w/ the kids at the tree that doesn't grow...