are you experienced?

the first week we were off from school was a little weird. first, that monday was memorial day and josh was home. then, the temperatures were in the seventies and low eighties. and, finally it was the weekend of the italian festival.

we decided to hit the zoo on that thursday because the weather was so nice and the kids wanted to see more animals. carter spotted this gi-normous flower and decided it should be hers. i am pretty sure that is illegal. or at least frowned upon. 
what do you do when your daughter hijacks a very large and beautiful flower from a plant at a public park? take pictures.
since the shaved ice station wasn't open at members night, we had to get our summer treat even though it was 69 degrees while we were at the zoo. carter complained she was cold after finishing her cherry sno cone. miller, on the other hand . . .
proclaimed he wanted to look like cookie (as in monster).
nice start, buddy.
the next morning, we were meeting friends at our house to walk to the italian festival. it has become an annual tradition. since moving to our house, we have experienced the italian fest whether we actually entered the gates or not. see, we live just a few blocks from the park where the festival is held. therefore, our street looks a little like this for three days & nights each may.
while they do their best to keep our neighborhood clean and the traffic issues to a minimum, there is still some chaos. i think most of it comes from the bitter, elderly home owners that typically reside in our area. they like to block off the front of their home with lawn chairs tied together with jump ropes and twine, or write notes on their cars that state "i live here" and, my favorite, sell drinks and popcorn in their front yard for festival goers to enjoy during their long walk to the park.
here we are entering the park-aren't they too cute!
we then must visit all the random booths and use our cute little faces to steal swings on the tire horse or collect bubble gum from the neighborhood association lady.
then, we hit the face paint booth where we pay tickets for my children to have their faces painted using stencils. yes, i said stencils. carter chose a tulip for her hand. miller wanted a car and the girl showed him a stencil of 1970s and 80s cars. who doesn't want a four door sedan on the side of their face?

how about a baseball? mommy asked. uhhhh . . . she said.
well, at least it didn't last long. i can't say the same thing for his search for the perfect prize.
meanwhile, the girls put on a show with the batons they won playing plinko. in an attempt to use the rest of our tickets, we headed for the sno cones!
miller confidently claimed again that he wanted to look like cookie. he's definitely off to a good start.
carter helps avery with her sno cone after spilling her own and finds it is much easier with a straw. now, don't you know this container was not created by a mom. every single time we buy one, at least part of our top heavy sno cone ends up on the ground. hell-o, why would you do this to me??
oh, seriously. guess where miller's ended up? yeah. his skin was blue. getting closer and closer to looking like cookie. we decided since miller was wearing more of his sno cone than he had eaten, we should head back to the house. somehow we ended up still having tickets left over from the day. when i told josh, he decided to take them back the next day and visit some friends' booths. so, he headed out with carter and miller just in time for naps.
this is miller after arriving at the festival.
carter's favorite thing to do right now-fill in application forms. here she is applying for the neighborhood home owner's association. when she finished, they took daddy to play plinko.


carter tried to help miller pick the perfect prize again. we ended up with tons of candy, 2 batons, an animal mask, squirt guns, and more. then, before heading home, miller tried one more time to look like cookie . . .
that's right, sno cones!
how come she looks like this after a sno cone and he looks like this . . .

really, buddy? what happened to your spoon?
i seriously think miller could stain his clothes if he was only drinking water. oh, well, i guess that is part of being a boy!

**oh, yeah, all the photos from day 1 of the italian fest i hijacked from jennifer's facebook page. my camera battery was dead. thanks, jen, for capturing miller's plight to be a hot blue monster.