School Carnival

Gabriela's school had their annual carnival last Friday and the kids were really exctied about it. We bought some tickets and I had the kids earn their tickets by doing chores before leaving the house. Gabriela worked really hard to earn hers. I also made them down a green smoothie before going, because I knew they would be filling up on sugar once they got their.

Once we arrived, Gabriela found her friend and begged, or quietly pleaded,  us to let her go off on her own with her friend. We gave her her independance and a few tickets and told her she had to come back to us for her other tickets so that we were sure she would check in with us. I spied on her and took a few pictures of her. It is bittersweet when your kids no longer want to hang with you.

 Max was along for the ride and was in good spirits most of the time. You gotta love that smile!

 And one more for fun. Oh and he turned 5 months on that day! It's flying by. (sniff, sniff)

 The little ones wanted to hit the bounce houses first thing.

 You don't think she's into it, do you?

 Julianne is just a bit more cautious.

 After that, the kids wanted to try the rock climbing wall. While we were waiting in the long line, I thought it would be a good time to go look for Gabriela, and no sooner had I told Miguel that, I hear over the loud intercom from the school, "Lindsay Ruiz, your daughter Gabriela is at the front office." Yep, I guess going off on your own has it's downfall when you can't find us anymore. But she was more than happy to do the climbing wall with us.

And everything started out just peachy.

 Look Mom, look how awesome I am and how high I'm climbing!

 And up Sophia went as well.

 Can you see those faces starting to change?

 Where did the awesomness go?

 Sophia got very serious once she got up pretty high and with a straight face let go and floated down to the bottom like a rag doll.

 But not Gabriela. She had a meltdown, bless her heart. She froze and refused to listen to anyone. We told her to let go, but she just wouldn't trust us.

 And she hung there for dear life.

 And it took the guy in charge to go up and get her down. Whew, was she glad that was over.

 So we moved on to less eventful things like face painting.

 I think the face paint goes well with the remains of green smoothie and a runny nose. Why don't I ever seem to catch those things in time? But oh how we love those chubby cheeks this girl sports around.

 And before we left, we had to go get some hair color.

 When asked if she wanted princess hair or rock star hair, Sophia totally went for the rock star look.

 She may be under the spell of the toxic fumes, or she was just plum tuckered out by this time.

 and a, not so very clear, side view.

 And checking herself out at the end.

As a side note: we have since cut her hair into an A line bob. At least she had one last good run with her long hair.