We first went to the craft tent where I was honestly blown away with the amount of crafts there were to do. From beaded necklaces, to sand creations, picture frames, window clings, magnets, decorate candy bags, etc there was enough to keep the kids busy for a while. Laney loved decorating a bag and playing in the rice while Ella and Carly enjoyed making some fun outdoor creation (have no idea what it is called but has ribbons hanging off of it and you hang it outside...how is that for a description?).
Laney got both hands painted and kept running back to get bedazzled!
Cute cupcake
Carly ended up having art work all up both arms
Ella showing off her dolphin but what I really love
is what is going on in the background.
Notice Jack and Laney comparing their arm paints? Too funny :)
Jack, are you under there?
I loved this and so did Matthew!
Rice in a baby pool. All the kids played in this for over 20 minutes and would have stayed longer if the adults weren't getting so bored.
Making the hard to describe outdoor craft
Then it was off to the game tent. There were lots of games and every game awarded a prize (candy, small toys, balloons, Chick-fil-a fries and drinks, etc).
Although blurry, you can tell someone is having fun
What did I do?
Ella saw a picture of kids playing hockey in the festival program and has wanted to play hockey ever since. We found this scaled down hockey display and she enjoyed playing, however, she then asked to take hockey lessons. Sure, I would love for her to do this but would hate to buy all the padding, hockey stick, ice skates and uniform and then her 1) grow 2) hate it. So we will stick to gymnastics for now :)
I thought this was the hardest game! You were supposed to throw the cowboy hat on to the head of the horse. Seriously? What about the wind? ;) So, I just walked up there and put the hat on his head. Later, Ella revealed that she really wanted to do this game because she was hoping to take home one of those stuffed horses. Points for honesty! But they did give her 5 tickets where you could choose from popcorn, juice boxes, silly bands, candy, rings, necklaces, etc. Both girls chose the juice box, popcorn and silly band.
The bouncy houses at the Festival are crazy expensive if you ask me
($2 to just slide down once and you know
they would want to go more than once!).
But there was a game sponsored by a local church and once you played the game you could bounce in the small bounce house for free. Well, that was good enough for us and the girls seemed
happy with the smaller bounce house.
It started to get hot so we left about 1:30pm
(just in time for Matthew's nap).
This was the first year since we have had kids that we didn't make it to the parade. Jason and I still weren't feeling 100% so I didn't want to push it AND the forecast was calling for rain (so that was our legitimate out). Made me sad as one of my favorite Freedom Festivals was the one where Ella was 26 months and her reward for going pee pee on the potty was going to the parade. Wow--look how much has happened in those 3 years!
