I cannot believe its October and I never even blogged about the Banks BBQ that happened in August! Of course it was on the day my baby girls was supposed to be born, so I was a little distracted! Anyways the above picture is my son throwing the ball to knock the poor dance team girl into the water. He got her twice, and I must say I was gloating while all the people around him exclaimed how great he was. (Bragging, I know!)
Now here is the frog jumping contest. There was much build up in the Johns' family household as we awaited the big day! Payton's frog 'Snoopy Froggy Frog' and Chloe's frog 'Frogalicious', were caught at Daddy's work for just the occasion. We fed them Crickets, which brought a little ambiance to my home every night. They filled our home with gentle chirping....although at 3 in the morning it can really wear on a person. Not that I was really sleeping anyway because I was as big as a whale. The above picture is Payton's frog that only jumped 64 inches. Each kid has to make their frog jump 3 times and that is measured. The frog that jumps the furthest wins.
Here is Chloe and Daddy setting out her frog, which she was very scared of. She jumped back everytime the thing moved, or she thought it was thinking about moving. Her frog faired better and jumped 72 inches! That held the top spot until the family that has won every stinkin' year for the past 10 years brought in their ringers! They I would classify as Toads, not frogs and they were huge! Jumping over 100 inches each. Seriously next year I am going to demand they test these things for HGH.
My poor children were devastated that they weren't getting a trophy! I was so heartbroken for them, I almost thought about buying them a trophy! However, its building character. Lucky for Snoop Froggy Frog and Frogalicous that I don't eat frog legs, because part of me was tempted! Daddy took them back to the land of their birth the next day, so they could be safe from the wrath of a angry Mama!! My kids got over their sadness soon enough because it was time for the Combine Demolition Derby!! Thats where local farmers take perfectly good combine tractors, decorate them and then smash them into each other until only one is left in one piece. Its awesome! Some of these farmers work year round on these things.
Here they are all lined up and ready to go at it! The yellow one was the winner. It was my favorite, the Crash Test Dummies, as it were. He has won 5 out of the 7 years they have done this. The kids loved it and thankfully made up for the sad defeat in the rigged frog jumping contest!
I was having one of those days where I thought I was Mom of the year. I hiked me and my 3 lovely children through Forest Grove down to the Dutch Brothers cart to get us coffee and chocolate milks. The air was crisp and cool, with a little bit of a burnt smell from all the chimney smoke. I was truly enjoying the walk with my kids. I couldn't have been more proud to be a mom of 3! We were picking up different colored leaves and the kids were pretending they were birds, using the leaves as wings. About half way to Dutch Brothers something in Payton flipped a switch and I was suddenly walking with ADD boy. He was hugging trees and jumping around flailing his arms and really just raising a whole lot of a ruckus. I didn't mind that, but it was just him almost falling into oncoming traffic a few dozen times that I really started getting irritated. I had yelled 'Payton Johns!' about 20 times in course of 5 minutes and it really wasn't helping. I said it one more time, and he looked at me and said:
