We went to the County Fair on Saturday. It was tons of fun! We had a great time looking at all the prize winning animals, getting free junk, and eating fair food! The kids' favorite part was the little kid play area. They got to make "dirt buddies"...basically a chia pet head. We can't wait for them to sprout!

Here's Ar milking a cow. She was professional and loved it! She kept getting back in line over and over again!
All the kids loved the "corn" box. I had to watch Larkin like a hawk to keep her from eating the corn!
Ahhh!!! She is so cute!!
Check out that food...yeah, it tasted about as good as it looks! Greasy curly fries and yucky corn dogs...how can you mess up a corn dog??
Noah got to participate in Mother's Goose's little show. This is him telling "Udder Moose" as Josh called her, that he is 3 years old! What a cutie!

After the fair, we went to the Ward's Pioneer Picnic. It was really fun. There was lots of yummy food, lots of game, and good company! The Primary did a parade and also sang some pioneer songs. Both were very cute!

Here was Joshua's "bike" for the parade. He was the envy of many a little girl there!
Here's Noe with his instrument by the covered wagon. I have no idea where Noah's bike was...or his shoes for the parade!
Good old Arwen with her whistle, just riding around in circles!

Arwen is COMPETITIVE!! Aaron thinks she gets it from me (??) and I KNOW it is definitely a Nielsen trait...come on, have you never played a game with one of them?? Death is ALWAYS on the line, you leave not being able to hear from all the yelling, and someone always slams the door to their room in anger!! Not that it's bad, it is always such an adventure! Anyways, Arnie's true colors came through at the Pioneer Picnic during the tug-of-war contest. Check out these pictures. She was vicious!

She had to be at the end of the rope to make sure everyone on her team was behaving!
She even let herself get pulled to the grass and risked grass-stains for the contest!
Sometimes, it looked like she was going to cry, she was so into it! What a silly...who lost her other front tooth last week!!

My friend Jen took pictures of my kids while we were visiting her in Utah. They turned out AMAZING! I love them! Thanks so much, Jen! Here are my favorites!!

Can you believe it?? All of the Nielsen children looking AND smiling for the camera at the same time! They must be such well-behaved kids! Here's Joshua kissing his baby sister. I love it!
Noah adores Larkin. We always catch him giving her tons of hugs and kisses...to the point of mauling her! People always tell me that Larkin looks just like Arwen. They both have beautiful eyes, that's all I know!
Could brothers be any different looking? We call Josh our "brownie" because of his dark skin and eyes. And Noah is the fairest skinned of all the kids! These two sure get into lots of trouble together.

I sure do love my kids! How lucky am I??

Arwen! Arwen is such our princess! She is just gorgeous. (I think!!) Arwen is a really good, well-behaved child. She takes pride in keeping her room clean and helps a lot around the house...sometimes even without any complaint! Arwen takes ballet lessons and really enjoys them. She comes up with the FUNNIEST things to say ever. She is getting older, and with age comes SASSINESS, I am learning. I'm pretty sure she thinks she knows everything and loves to roll her eyes at me when I get surprised with something new she has learned. Arwen loves to read books. She loves to draw, play with scissors and tape, and put creations on my wall. She usually tapes them up, but the other day she told me that she was sick of me taking them off and so she GLUED her artwork to the wall so I couldn't take it off! She is really growing up fast. My little baby starts kindergarten soon!! How we love our Arnie!

Arwen has so much beautiful hair for a 5 year old and it sure looks cute when we do it up!
I loved this shot of her feet!
Check out that pouty, seductive look!! What am I gonna do with her??

Now for Noah! Noah is such a drama-king! Everything is either the end of the world, or the greatest thing in the universe with him! He is our treasure hunter. He is always asking Aaron to do magic and pull "treasures" out of his ear. Good thing Daddy likes treasures too and always has a pocket full of them! Noah is so mischievous! It gets him into lots of trouble often times. I'm pretty sure he's not trying to be naughty most of the time, but he sure always does horribly naughty things! Noah feels things so deeply...he gets his feelings hurt a lot, but also can love with a capacity that is amazing for a 3 year old. He's our fighter...watch out when he gets angry. (Memory can attest to this!) I'm trying hard to teach him other ways to solve problems...funny that my tiniest little kid is the bully! Noah is so smart and says the funniest, sweetest things and always has the most expressive looks on his face! Silly Noe, I sure do love you!

Ahhh! I can't get enough of looking into those eyes!
Here's his attempt at a wink! So cute!
Noah sure is a goof-ball!

Joshua!! How could you not love Joshua. Everyone needs a Joshua. He is so stinking cute. I just can't get enough of him. He is finally really learning to talk and I LOVE to hear all of the cute new things he comes up with everyday. He does naughty things lately and then turns and smiles at me and says, " Just kiddin!" He is always so willing to go along with any plan that Noah comes up with and get into lots of trouble. He also loves to play with Arwen. His favorite things are trains, playing with pretend food and the kitchen set, watching movies, chocolate, and going for walks with Daddy. He is definitely our mope. He can pout like no other. When he's in full-on pout mode, he does this cry out of a little corner of his mouth...that makes him look like Popeye! We love it!! Squashy Joshy is the greatest!

Joshua has the best, biggest smile!
He has got the most gorgeous dark brown eyes. I love them!
Ladies, watch out for this heart-throb!

And now for Sparkily Larkily! Larkin definitely has the brightest, bluest eyes of all the kids! They just sparkle! She is such a doll. She is always happy and smiling. She loves to be held and just jump in your lap. I love when she reaches up and will lightly touch my face...so sweet! For how good she is during the day, she is a MONSTER at night! I feel like I still have newborn most of the time! I just can't get angry though...look at that face! All of the kids just adore her...even Joshua. If you ask him who his best friend is, he always answers Larkin! We are so lucky to have this little one!

Just a little princess!
I think this is my Favorite picture of all. That is such a Larkin look, and I love it!
She is such a happy, content little girl.
And she finally knows how to sit! Yippee!!

Arwenism: I can't remember what Arwen and I were talking about the other day, but she mentioned something that I didn't know she knew. It totally surprised me so I asked her where she learned it. She rolled her eyes like I was so lame and answered in a tone that said...duh, mom, and said "I learned it on dot com." Oh. Of course. Dot com.

Joshua LOVES trains. Anytime he sees a bus, a big van, the MAX, or a real train he freaks out and yells, "TRAIN!!" for the next 10 minutes. It's pretty cute. I finally caved and bought him a little train set from IKEA the other day. He has not stopped playing it since I bought it. He cries anytime we have to leave and races to be the first one in the house yelling, "TRAIN," when we get back. I love to watch him and listen to him say ," Chuga chuga, whoo, whoo!" So sweet!!

Don't mess with Josh's trains. He can scream like nothing I have heard before...and he can hit pretty hard!
He likes to make the train crash and pretend to get upset and then fix it. He also likes to take a piece of the track apart and and say, "Think about it." That's what we say when we put the kids in a time out. He really has a great little imagination!