Carnival!!

As you may remember from last year...or the year before...every year, in September, our church does a community carnival.  They have games, and prizes, and a bounce house, and face painting, and colored hair spray, and food, and a cake walk, and crafts, and a fire truck, and an ambulance, and a fire truck simulator (so you can see what it feels like to drive a fire truck), and more - all for FREE!  Seriously, it's amazing.  I know I go to church there, but I can't figure out why everyone in the surrounding counties doesn't come!  This year the twins REALLY enjoyed all aspects of the carnival!

Games:

Coconut Bowling

 I felt like the paparazzi - catching Allie and Nana going around the games together.

 Washer toss (she might be cheating a little...)

 Face painting:

A Butterfly

 Lightning McQueen

 Snacks (and prizes, in the bag)

 The cousins came and joined us for the day!  For those keeping count, we got to spend time with the cousins 3 times in 1 week!  And now we haven't seen them for a week and we miss them...

The paparazzi catches Nana swinging with the girls.

 The one activity I never captured on film (er...on SD card...) was the cake walk.  Our kids (especially Ryan) were desperate to win a cake.  It was the ONLY thing I think they really wanted from the carnival.  We walked round after round, and didn't win.  The cake walk started to get vicious - people would jump in mid-walk and then end would be like musical chairs.  That's how much our ladies' baking is prized!  FINALLY, Allie won...and I told the twins that they won together.  Thankfully, they wanted the same, gummy bear topped cupcakes.  Phew!  We were able to move on to other things.

Another big hit - the ambulance.  They spent a ton of time playing in there!

Taking care of D

 Nana hopped in and got a picture with the kiddos.  I wanted her to lay down on the stretcher and have them all pretend they were trying to save her...but we ended up going for a more traditional pose :)

Such a funny bunch :)

The only thing that got Ryan out of the ambulance was the fire truck.  He climbed right into the driver's seat.  he stayed for a while (and we came back twice).  He told the firefighters that he was going to be like them when he grew up.  They said to come to them first for a job :)  They happened to be the same fire fighters we took cookies to during our fire safety day!

Of course, the day ended with meltdowns and tantrums since they were so excited about the carnival they couldn't fall asleep during naptime...but we will choose to remember all of the fun we had that day!  Seriously, if you are in the area next year, you should come to our amazing carnival!!

P.S. If their hair looks like it's colored in some of the pictures, that is because it was!  It was a fun day, so I let them go all out.  And no, it didn't wash out all the way (and Allie's face paint left her tinted a little purple).  So the pastor's kids showed up to VISITOR'S SUNDAY with their hair and faces slightly tinted.  Oh well, we had fun!