Things I'm Loving

• My brother, James, is engaged!!! We love Maddie and we are soooo excited for them! (And we are excited that we get to go to Utah for the wedding and the holidays! :)

 

•  The Mississippi Valley Fair - well, we kind of loved it, kind of didn't ;)

Since state fairs are such a big deal in the Midwest, we decided we needed to try it out at least once. I think once is enough for me :) For some reason a lot of the pictures I took at the fair got deleted from my phone :(
 
 
 
 
Pictures that got deleted: Jack screaming bloody murder on the roller coaster, the alligator wrestling show, the tiger show, tons of baby farm animals that the boys got to pet, and all of the classy dressed people ;)
We asked Jack afterwards what his favorite thing was about the fair and he said it was petting all of the baby bunnies! haha  I guess after chasing bunnies for over a year at our house he was happy to finally get to touch one :)

• Norwegian chocolate! We just had a family move into our ward congregation from Norway and they hooked us up with this amazingness - a symphony bar but a million times better if that is even possible. 

• Books! I wish I could say that they read as much as they watch shows but that would be a lie. We are working on it! (You should really check and see if Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is in your area - Jack and David each get a book in the mail once a month and they are always darling books fit for their age group. Since we've been in Iowa, we've received 28 free books from the program! I love it!)

 

•  Free tractor entertainment from our back door! (And not having to do our own yard work/snow shoveling - one perk of not owning our own home yet :) 

 
 

•  Summertime! This has been my favorite summer in a really long time. We've been park hopping on our bike almost every day and trying to fit in as much swimming as possible before the weather cools down. We discovered the most amazing toddler pool ever last week - it has a huge gated zero depth area with a sand area and water tables. We all love it!

Jack AND David both went down this water slide all by themselves! All it took was a little Little Caesars bribe and then once they went once, they couldn't get enough of it!
 

• The stars aligned and Jack and David both slept past six for 5 days straight. I hope I'm not cursing it by typing this!