The Mountain State Fair Round-Up

 The kids look forward to entering the fair every year. Last year when we finalized our plans to relocate that was one of the things they asked about- is there a fair? So we searched online and found it- the Mountain State Fair. Close by, tons of categories and pretty similar to the TN Valley Fair they had entered in the previous 2 years. When it came time to submit entries, they went big- Rylan entered close to 20 categories. Cale and Cohen entered around 13. And Lakin qualified to entered the participation group so he entered 3 things.

Drop off day was last Tuesday and Wednesday, so they had been working hard on their entries everyday. Here is what they entered:

Cohen:
      Art: Colored pencil, oil pastel, water color and tempera paint
      Crafts: Christmas Decoration, recycled craft, any other craft, pottery
      Baking: Decorated cupcakes, drop cookies, pie, yeast bread

Cale:
     Art: Colored pencil, tempera paint, crayon
     Crafts: Christmas decoration, sculpture, recycled, metal craft, pottery and any other
     Baking: Decorated cupcakes, rolled cookies, old fashion fudge, any other baked item

Rylan:
    Art: Crayon, oil pastel
    Photography: Color animal. color plants/flower, B&W plant/flower, B&W animal
    Agriculture: Banana peppers (he did sign up for more, but our garden didn't cooperate this year)
    Crafts: Christmas ornaments, paper craft
    Baking: Decorated cupcakes, yeast rolls, cupcakes, muffins, pie and any other baked item

Lakin had 6 categories to choose from and he entered art, jewelry and crafts.

 I must say that the baking portion is the most stressful. With 14 items and one kitchen it got a little hectic. But because of the location, later drop off times and the items the kids chose to make we were able to stretch the baking from Monday afternoon-Wednesday morning and still make the deadline. But there were 3 batches of cupcakes, Rylan's cheesecake and garlic bread sticks, a pumpkin pie, a peanut butter pie, pumpkin muffins, spice cookies, chocolate chip cookies, honey oatmeal bread, 1 batch of botched fudge and another that set, and soft pretzels! And that is a lot. Plus bagging, tagging and printing recipes for each one. And next year Lakin gets to join in on the baking fun!

We did take a trip on Friday to check out the fair- so they did get to see if their entries won. But we didn't see all of them so I will wait to unveil the winning entries until next Monday when we go to pick up their stuff!

Art and the School Room

 A couple years ago I got each of the boys a canvas to paint on. Since artistic interest and ability have changed so much since they first painted on them, I decided to start over. I repainted them all white- using wall paint since it is what I had on hand...

Cale and Cohen picked their subjects and got right to work. Cohen chose a warm and cool color pattern with his handprints all over. Cale chose to do a melted crayon picture. 

 Lakin also wanted to do his right away. He splatter painted on his canvas using tempera paint cakes. I also traced his silhouette onto contact paper before he started.

Here is Cohen's finished project! I love how it turned out.

And here is Lakin's. The contact paper didn't hold up to the wet paint, but I think it looks kind of neat the way the silhouette turned out.

The main reason I wanted to redo these now was to fill empty wall space in our school room. The new room is almost wall to wall shelves with a lot of wall space up high, but not large enough for our big wall maps.

 Our Friends painting went above one shelf, but I had a couple other spots I wanted to fill in with the kids art work.

Here are Cohen and Lakin's hung up above our science and math items. 

Cale's will take a few weeks to finish first and Rylan is still narrowing down his subject. 

Annika got to do a canvas of her own too. This is the first time she's used paint. 

She only tasted it once...

 

And this is the face she gave the brother to told her she wasn't supposed to do that.