Fun and free festivities!

   The orthodontist office that we have been consulting with for Brienne's braces had a fun, free, fall festival on Saturday!  How's that for alliteration?  It just so happened to be on my birthday and while my mom was here.  We were considering doing a little somethin', and this seemed like just the thing.  Especially because it was free!

   Thankfully, since we had gotten there fairly early, it wasn't too crowded.  The kids enjoyed sliding down the Titanic slide and bouncing around in the inflatables which they pretty much had to themselves for a while.  Manny however, did not want anything to do with the inflatables.  Probably because the air pumps were so loud.  I think it scared him.  He usually runs and sits on the couch for "safety" when we vacuum, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

   They had a very talented balloon artist on site, who stood ready to entertain children and adults alike.  He certainly had us cracking up.

Manny loved his little "whacker" thing!  

Somehow Joelle ended up with a...uh...beaver.  She did say he could surprise her!  

And she also promised that she would wear whatever he made for her!

   When it was Clara's turn, the guy made her big pink flowers for her braids.  I couldn't believe her reaction when he attached the first one to the end of her braid.  She pulled it right back out again and let it fall to the ground.  What made this episode even more difficult (mainly for me) was that he didn't stop there.  He attached the other balloon flower to the other braid.  Guess what she did that time?  Yep.  She pulled that one out too!  Needless to say, I was embarrassed that my sweet little four year old was being so rude to Mr. Funny Balloon Guy!  How could she?  She was so casual about it too.  She didn't seem upset or anything.  She just did not want those things in her hair!

   Since "Balloon Guy's" flower creations were tossed to the pavement, it really was quite forgiving of him to make a pink poodle for Clara.  Thankfully she didn't reject this offering!  

As you can see, we still got some good use out of those flowers!

   We also enjoyed sitting down to a free hot dog lunch.  They also gave us cookies.  And just in case that wasn't enough sugar for us we had coupons to redeem for snow cones and cotton candy.  Since it was chilly and the result of eating snow cones would probably be a mess that we didn't want to deal with, we decided to forgo them.  We still got the bags of cotton candy though.  We haven't eaten them yet, and I'm not sure if we will...

..................................................................................

   Later that afternoon...

Daddy reads a book (upside down!) to some kiddos who were ready to relax.

...while others frosted cupcakes with Gramma in the kitchen.

They were delicious with vanilla ice cream!

How sweet is that?

   Mom helped the kids to add their own special touches to this apron for me.  It was sweet, the kids were so excited to give it to me.  We could not get Manny to sit still for the picture.  Although he did keep marching back and forth in front of the camera doing things to make us laugh!  

   It was a great weekend spent with the people I love.  

What could be better than that?  God has been so good to me!

Brienne made this sign for me