Too Much of a Good Thing

Last week I took Sean in to the doctor's office for his 4 month appointment. On the well baby questionnaire they gave me, it asked if I was giving him a multivitamin. Multivitamin?!? The kid's four months old!!! I was surprised, so I asked my pediatrician why my exclusively breast-fed baby needed a multivitamin. Turns out that doctors are starting to see more and more children with vitamin D deficiencies. (In VERY RARE cases they are even seeing rickets. Rickets!?! In this day and age!) But here's the kicker, it's due to all the sunscreen that we have been slathering on our kids to prevent skin cancer! Not only are we blocking out harmful UV rays, but we're also depriving them of much-needed vitamin D. Oooh, the irony... :)

Double Your Pleasure

I know "The Office" aired almost a week ago, but last week's episode, "Niagra", (aka Jim and Pam's wedding) was so brilliant (said in my best British accent as an homage to the British version) that I had to write a brief post about it.

With the highly-anticipated wedding episode I was worried that the writers would go all mushy and lose their comedic edge, but they didn't and the result was that "The Office" was at its best, both hilarious and touching in its trademark quirky fashion. Like my personal favorite scene where Jim cuts his tie in half to help an overwhelmed Pam forget about her torn veil!

But of course nothing demonstrated this delicate balance better than the final act, a spoof on the viral You Tube video "JK Wedding" interspersed with clips of and Jim and Pam's last-minute escape to Niagra Falls. As I watched it I was reminded when dealing with the chaos and demands of everyday life sometimes you need to get away and spend a moment with what matters the most to you before you head back to the circus.

And just in case you haven't seen it yet, here is the original clip that started it all:

The Fairest of Them All

(One of the memorable signs from the Iowa State Fair)

When I announced our move to Iowa on Facebook our good friend Chris replied: "Don't miss the Iowa State Fair!" Chris has a great sense of humor and is deftly sarcastic, so I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn't. The Iowa State Fair is a big deal, and not just here in the Midwest. People from all over the world come to this annual event. It's even listed in Patricia Schultz's, "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" and was the inspiration for both the musical and movie, "State Fair". This year over a million people attended the fair, including our family of four.

For those of you who didn't make it this year, here are some of the highlights:

Kyle in front of the famous Butter Cow. (Doesn't he look thrilled?)

Kyle perked up once we went to the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit, an interactive, farm-to-table, learning experience for kids:

planting seeds

picking green beans

Kyle's harvest

We all really liked the baby animals at the animal learning center. Most of them were only a few days old!

The fair was all about the "biggest" and best. We saw a 1,000 lb pumpkin, the State's Largest Rabbit (20 lbs!), the Super Bull and the Big Boar.

The food at the fair was delicious and by the end of the day, I felt like a BIG PIG myself! The fair is famous for its "food on a stick" and after fried chicken on a stick, a foot long corn dog on a stick, and cajun chicken and onions on a stick, we sampled the quintessential State Fair desserts - deep-fried Twinkie (on a stick!), deep-fried Snickers (0n a stick!), and deep-fried Oreos.

I have to admit, I really liked the Oreos. Thank goodness we did a lot of walking that day! Thank you Chris et al for letting us tag along!

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