Ribbons and Money

We love the county fair!  This was Zach's first year and I let each of the boys enter two projects.  Zach got a blue ribbon on his wooden car!  (The category was wooden project, ages 5 & 6.) He glued the wheels and axles, painted with three colors, and put on all the decals.  Great job Zachary!

His homemade card earned a blue ribbon too!  Yes, he did it himself.

(I overheard another parent at the fair telling her son that there's no way "that kid" did it by himself.  Excuse me?) 

Zach chose and folded the paper, put on the frog stickers, stamped it with "hoppy birthday," and tied the ribbon. All I did was cut the ribbon where he told me to. He has watched me make hundreds of cards and apparently he learned a thing or two. Plus good supplies make good cards, right?  Okay I'm done defending him.  Anyway, Zach was most excited about the $6 he won! 

Jonathan has always done really well at the fair.  Now he's in a harder age group, 7-12 year-olds, but he still did a great job! He earned a white ribbon (3rd place) on his ceramic car bank.

And... he won a blue ribbon with his Lego tractor!  He made it a week before the fair and didn't intend for it to be an entry but I convinced him to save it. He entered the tractor in the "Other Toys" category and there were actually a lot of Lego entries this year.  But he won! I love the smokestack and the plow he made for it.

Nicole and Greg wanted to pose with their "projects" too.  Um.  I like how Greg is holding his hand up to show us.  (There's nothing in his hand, he's just pretending. )  Our little goofballs. 

Now on to my entries. No crafts for me this year.  I don't know why. I just didn't. But I entered these pajamas in for Sewing and they earned a blue ribbon!  I was thrilled. The sewing contest is very intimidating. The judges look inside at all the stitches and if they aren't good enough, the judges will write it on your tag. You know, just helpful suggestions on how to NOT be pathetic next time.  I got the hint a couple years ago.

But Jonathan needed new pajamas and I finished these the day before the fair and they turned out great, according to me, so I figured I had nothing to lose by entering them. (Except maybe a little dignity?)  But they earned a blue ribbon!  So I must be getting better. Although...

I just decided to look at the tag. I hadn't done it until a minute ago.  And I quote: "Cute jammies. Suggestion: Trim the underarm seams, like you did on the crotch seam."

Oh. Okay. So I'm not perfect yet. Maybe next year? (I wish I could read the comments on the back of the other tags!)

Now if Sewing is intimidating, multiply that by 50 and you have Photography.

I LOVE walking through the photography building. I decided to enter this year.  What could it hurt?  I entered seven 8x10's in different categories. And waited nervously.  I got two ribbons!  Yes that's five failures but I was SO excited to get any ribbons!  The picture above earned a red ribbon (2nd place) in Child Portrait.  There were a lot of entries in that category. I overheard someone say that it shouldn't count as a portrait if you can't see her face. Hmm. But that wasn't the point. I love her shiny hair and the movement of the background.  (I should probably stop overhearing people, don't you think?) The judges apparently liked it. My pretty little Nicole. I would have been happy to have it hanging in the building even if it didn't earn a ribbon. Nicole was SO excited to see it there.

This one earned a white ribbon (3rd place) for "Scenery: Black and White."  It looked really impressive printed out and mounted.  I saw the two that beat it and they were absolutely amazing.  So I was very happy with the results.  I shot this picture at the ruins of Tulum while we were on our cruise. Most of my entries were from our cruise. All photographs have to be entered the year they were taken and that's why I entered so many.  I'm happy I did.  Now I have seven mounted pictures...

Where to hang them?

Once again we had a great year at the fair. I used to be such a competitive girl in school, with grades and sports and any competition that came along. So it's fun to get a little slice of the "old me" once a year.

I wonder what new category I'll decide to try next year.