That's not Fair

Today is the last day of the Western Idaho Fair. When I was younger, I LOVED the fair. I loved the churros, the snow cones, the spin art, the Zipper...all of it. I haven't been to the fair without a pack of kids in probably 15 years, so it could be that if I went as myself instead of going as "Mom", I'd enjoy it.

But going to the fair with kids is pretty awful for me. I am constantly freaked out about losing one of them. I'm always saying, "Where's Girl 1? Do we have everyone?" and doing head counts. I'm terrified of someone getting lost or stolen.

It's hot. It stinks. It's hot.

I have to watch the kids' intake of foods and weigh that against the spinning, hurling, flipping motion of the rides we're piling them into. Puke lurks around every spin of the Gravitron.

The heckling of the carnies...so lame.

And the cost...I think we figured it would be $200-$250 bucks for all 7 of us to get in, ride the rides, and eat the food. We could do Disney for close to that.

AND think of all the electricity...

Anyway. If I could turn off my responsible brain, the fair would be a ton of fun. But I can't.

This year my friend Mia had a great idea to have a Fair Day at their homestead. Mia writes Family, Food, and God a really great blog about living simply, spiritually, and sustainably. Mia and her family hosted and fed us all (10 kids, 4 adults) and our family provided the games and prizes. I worked to make all of the games out of household items, or repurposed waste.

 I made a can toss out of pop cans and wrapping paper. I'll post a tute on that tomorrow. It was really fun.

Mmmm...Lemon Heads....

We used a set of stacking cups and they had to land a golf ball in each. Everyone got a piece of candy for trying. The winner got 4 more pieces.

We did some chillaxin'. Boy 1 has GIANT feet.

Wouldn't be the fair without face painting. This is what you get if you allow your wife to decide what gets painted on your face.

Zombie!

We even had rides. Sort of.

We got to pet Beefy and Jerky.

 And we all tried milking Christina. She was very patient with us.

We filled a box with packing peanuts from The Man's work and then hid prizes and candy in it. The kids had 20 seconds to grab out as much as they could.

The glasses they dug out were a hit.

Glow sticks!











The kids got to help grind the corn for the corn dog batter, they picked cucumbers and tomatoes for snacks. We had Zucca bread, organic all-beef corn dogs, homemade donuts, and TONS of candy. All the kids agree that it was so much better than the "real" fair. We're thinking about making it an annual tradition.