Moody Cotton Festival 2012

This past weekend was the annual Moody Cotton Festival.  It is always a special start to the fall and every year the boys get older, the more and more fun we have.  The committee that my mother started 5 years ago, Moody Beautification Committee, won first place for their float!  It was amazing and had moving parts!  It is such a sweet, small town tradition and it has been fun to share it with the boys.

This year Ian was one of the 3 judges asked to judge the festival pie contest.  So, he was up at 8am tasting over 30 pies!  (Quite a breakfast!)

Here are a few photos from the weekend.

 Mom reading the boys a night night story before heading to bed.

 Elijah, Joaquin and I waiting outside MiMi and Papaw's house for the parade to start.  It goes right in front of their house!

 Daddy and Joaquin (making his funny face)

Elijah kept saying, "I can't believe there are real cowboys!"  That was an unexpected favorite in the parade.  Second, of course, only to picking up all the candy that was thrown out to them.  (Elijah quickly realized that if you want candy you have to wave at the floats.  It's hard for them to pass  up a cute little kid waving at them.)  Look out, that one is a strategizing smartie-pants.

This was the 'small' rainbow snow cone MiMi ordered the boys!  It covered their whole face when they were biting into it.

Elijah's miniature pony ride

 Joaquin on the pony

MiMi and Joaquin listening to some live country music

The Herbivore 

The Carnivore

Joaquin trying to show us his 'acorn hat' as he calls it.

But now he just looks like he has an acorn nose.

Here is a video of Daddy, Joaquin, Elijah and MiMi going down the 'mega-slide'!

The boys first roller-coaster ride!  They were in the last compartment and Joaquin was laughing and smiling the whole time.  Elijah, on the other hand, was screaming 'STOP!' the whole time.  Afterwards, when we were walking away, Elijah said, "That was fun!  I love roller-coasters."  I don't know if he was trying to cover up how scared he was or if hind-sight made him realize it was pretty fun after all.

And, it always ends in MiMi and Papaw's backyard.

Here are the boys playing in the sandbox.

What a wonderful way to bring in the fall!