Michigan State Fair

This weekend we took Felix to the annual Michigan State Fair.

The Nation’s Oldest State Fair was officially first held in 1849, only twelve years after Michigan attained statehood. At the onset it was customary, in fact, for the fair to be held one year in one city, the next year in another, and there was always a hot contest to be the city selected. The Michigan State Fair settled down at the present fairgrounds in 1905. (Michigan.gov)

We were sad to find out that this will be the last year for the fair.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm, faced with a $1.8 billion budget deficit, has proposed cutting all funding after Sept. 30. Eviction notices have been sent to tenants at the 164-acre site. (Mlive)

In any case, we had a great time walking around, there was just so much to see. Here are some favorite shots from the day.

Running through the maze.

He was very interested in the chicks!

Loved these feathers, hated these cages.

classic fair fare.

Blueberry break.

Perfect Party Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend for Felix’ 1st Birthday Party! The weather was perfect, the company was outstanding and love was definitely surrounding us. Thank you so much to everyone who came out to celebrate and all those who sent well wishes our way.

Making an announcement with Papa.

Papa made this puppet theater. We had a few marionettes out for kids to put on their own puppet shows.

Papa also put together this awesome toss game. There were only a few who mastered all levels.

We had the bean bag toss and Papa’s Tic Tac Toe game too.

My sister baked the cakes from scratch, of course! (They were absolutely delicious by the way, and yes, she takes special orders.)

Singing Happy Birthday:

The main event: smashing the cake!

The aftermath:

Kissing a handmade sock frog from Anne, who also made the stellar mix playing during the party.

(We’ve been preparing for a while. click to see more about the invite, party flags, bean bag toss and party hats.)

Party Prep III- party hats and bean bag toss

The Birthday fun continues.

Tomorrow is the party day! We still have tons to do to prepare. Some cooking, cleaning and of course setting everything up outside. Remember when I mentioned being knee deep in fabric last week? I’ve been working day and night on these two projects for Felix 1st Birthday Party.

For the party hats, I wanted something fabric that we could re-use. I came across this tutorial which gave me a great start. In fact I followed most of it. I decided not to use glue, I don’t have pinking shears (they’re on my list though!) and I added an elastic strap to the hat so that it would stay on people’s heads better.

They’re made of 4 circles each.

These were not finished when I photographed them. (and to be honest, I’ll be staying up late to finish a few tonight. eeek.)

I had so much fun with the fabric combinations!

Happy hat model.

My second big project was to make a bean bag toss. Now, I know a lot of people are creeped out by clowns, so sorry if this bothers anyone. But we have a bit of a carnival theme going here, and I just couldn’t resist.

I started with a big moving box and two bags of pearl barley.

sketching it out.

We put the barley in plastic bags first, just to make them a little safer if they do rip open.

Ta-daaaaa. Finished product:

I’m sure I’ll have an update Monday with shots of this stuff in action. Have a great weekend, we sure will!