It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since Jameson’s first fair experience. He wasn’t even crawling yet; he sat and sucked his pacifier, looking at the pumpkins that weighed well over 50 times more than him.

This year, Jameson obviously had more opinion. When we took him out of his stroller, he insisted on staying out for a long time. My parents and sister made a trip up special for the fair and joined the fun as well. We are guessing that next year, he’ll insist on riding some of the rides.

He loved the pumpkins; I’m pretty excited to take him to a real pumpkin patch this year to have him pick his out. He was already was trying to pick them out at the fair!

We did the pumpkins first before it got too crowded, and quickly moved on to the animals which we had been promising him all morning long.

After all the animal noise practice, Jameson did say baa and moo, but didn’t say neigh for the horses until we were leaving.

In fact, he was actually most excited about the tractors. We walked over to them, and he said “wow!” and wanted to put his hands on all the wheels.

Jameson insisted on drinking out of adult water bottles instead of his own; we were concerned with his fluid intake since it was so hot (at least it was cloudy!), so for lunch he had some of my lemonade, which he loved.

We weren’t very methodical this year, looping around the same area a couple times. After lunch (traditional cavatelli and meatballs for myself and Meemaw), we walked back to the pumpkin area to look at the vegetable house and then back around to the kids animal barn where you can hold rabbits or chicks.

Jameson is very good at being gentle with small animals; at school, they occasionally bring in a chinchilla owned by one of the teachers which he enjoys. He lightly patted the bunny. And hey, look I’m in a photo!

Handwashing was the last step in our fair day. We wandered around a little after, but the sun came out and the heat quickly beat us back to our cars and to home. We grabbed a funnel cake and cotton candy to go. I let Jameson try the cotton candy later, but he wasn’t so sure about it, flavor or texture I’m not sure, but he tried to spit it back out and give it to me. Mmmm more for me!

Sunday my parents left after lunch, and Brian brewed in the afternoon. Jameson took a short nap but was easy to please with empty kegs, the bounce house, and cooling water from the brew process to play in. And for Labor Day, we visited a local festival, suffered along with Jameson after he refused a nap, and happily passed him to Brian’s parents and sister when they arrived for dinner later. All in all, a quick but satisfying long weekend!

I’m interrupting our series of vacation photos in case you are feeling in need of some Jameson photos. Just in case.

Today, Brian and I are both back at work, but we did have yesterday off which I suppose makes it seem as if we had two Fridays this week. Not too shabby. Except today is not Friday, bummer.

So anyway, yesterday morning we went shopping for a little while to find new sandals for Jameson that covered his toes but could handle water, for daycare. We had success, and then wanted to take Jameson out to eat to try him out in public since we haven’t gone out since our minor disaster at Red Robin over the winter. (It is Red Robin, so I don’t know that he was too bad for that place)

Anyway, we couldn’t find a good place open, so we went to Wendy’s, and that went okay except Jameson didn’t want to eat anything other than french fries and paint with ketchup (not eat it). And sip out of dad’s water. We went home and offered him a cheese stick and a pouch of fruit, and then he took a nap.

When he awoke, since we were all getting dressed in our Independence Day finest, I decided it would be a great time for a family photo, since we really hadn’t had one since the winter. We no longer have the blank wall, so I moved us to the living room corner.

I was pretty happy with the results, though I am pushed against the wall a little bit in this photo, but because Jameson is smiling, it won out.

Not too many outtakes this time, but I loved this one of Jameson because he is so excited to pet Sasha!

Then it was time to go to my Aunt Carol’s house. They live a town over, but we often don’t seem them.

We also got to see my cousin Jerry and his wife Lisa and their kids, who also live right down the road from us but we don’t see them much; and my cousin Carrie and her husband Brian and their kids, who live in Maryland, were also there!

My cousin Stacey and her husband Chuck are moving away from Ohio, which is sad, but exciting for them, so we were also thrilled to see them.

(This is Carrie’s daughter Krista, and her Barbie pool, which Nicholas wanted to dump out and Jameson kept thinking was full of bubbles)

It was sweltering hot, so we didn’t stay out for too long! Jameson was very interested in the bubbles, as per his usual now. He had fun putting the bubble wand in and out of the container, which we emptied. It doesn’t seem to matter to him.

We were sorry to see Jerry, Lisa and the kids leave about a half hour after we arrived, but Nicholas was hilarious telling everyone bye very excited and animated!

It was a good excuse to make our way indoors to get relief from the heat! Sophia demonstrated her dress up clothes.

Stacey tells me that this was a flower girl dress from my mother’s wedding, which was funny. It’s on backwards, though Sophia insisted it wasn’t.

Jameson made himself comfortable pretty quick, which I was surprised at since he had seemed so shy in our recent cookout with friends last weekend (I have yet to share that with you).

Maybe it was the older girls? He does seem to love following around older children.

Time for supper! We had to sing Happy Birthday to the USA first at Sophia’s request. Then, the only thing he wanted to eat was watermelon. He didn’t want to try the pasta, which was strange, nor the hotdog.

He did try an olive though, he didn’t like it. But when I put it on his finger, he thought it was hilarious!

After dinner, there was a show. We heard Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, saw some dancing, and listened to some xylophone and electric guitar. All the stuffed animals came to watch.

It’s so easy to watch Jameson when he actually wants to stay in the same room as the other kids. Good fun!

It was a nice little reunion and Fourth of July, reminiscent of when I was a kid and we spent it with that same side of the family at my grandpa’s house. I don’t remember it ever being that hot though!

I’m not sure where this week went. It’s already Friday, and I’m still talking about Easter. Thank goodness there was something fun to talk about this week, or you probably would’ve gotten a few woe-is-me-first-world type problem posts. It was kind of a depressing work week, but it has had a upswing here at the end.

So we left off reading books, eating dinner, and going to bed. And overnight, the Easter bunny arrived! Easter bunny didn’t go overboard too much, but the contents barely fit in the basket, hence the covering of lovely bunny basket’s face.

That is isn’t the first thing Jameson found though. He discovered an Easter egg first, all by himself. Easter bunny placed six small Easter eggs filled with baby-friendly teddy grahams and gold fish.

Jameson discovered the first in the corner of the stairs. Luckily, I already had my camera but even still I barely got it running in time to capture his find. And then I let it run for like 10 minutes, and couldn’t bring myself to edit the video down.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1p34n34t8M]

Here are the highlights:

• finds first egg, 0:00
• sits down to eat, 0:50
• sits down to eat again, 1:35
• sits down to eat again, 1:55
• discovers big (empty fun decor) egg, 2:07
• discovers basket, 2:50
• plays with phone up to his ear (so cute, he does this all the time now with everything) 3:20
• sneezes a load of snot out, 3:40
• finds second egg, 7:20
• finds third egg, 8:10

Jameson found all his eggs. They were all in spots he usually plays with, so it was natural for him to discover them. He may have ruined his breakfast a little bit on goldfish and teddy grahams!

Inside one of the extra large eggs was a surprise. They were all empty but one, which had peeps in it!

He wasn’t a huge fan of the peeps. I’ve been eating them all instead.

Then it was time for church! Jameson got all dressed up, but the shirt I bought for him was way too big, he was swimming in it! So we swapped it out for another shirt I had for him all ready. (Sorry for making you iron the other shirt, mom haha)

Jameson’s very into hairbrushes, particularly dad’s. He likes to take Brian’s hairbrush in the morning and brush his hair.

At church, we got to see another brand new baby which was fun, and Jameson was in the childcare room. He was exhausted, but didn’t fall asleep until the end. Which meant we had a lot of trouble getting him down for a nap later and eventually had grandma go rescue him (because we as parents can’t be seen as the rescuers, right?)

Easter supper was ham, green bean casserole, broccoli, potatoes, salad and rolls (and the classic butter lamp my mom brought up). We were excited to have both sides of the family together for the meal, which happens very rarely.

Sasha was all prepared to gather up Jameson’s food, as usual.

Sasha enjoyed Easter as well. The End.