daily life Archives - Page 15 of 20

Why I haven’t blogged for 5 days

9.7.10

Labor Day Weekend — Family Camp at Young Life’s Lake Champion

We look forward to it year round with good reason.

Our kids competing against another family’s three kiddos during field games. Our kids lost. But, who cares when you can move right over to the batting competition and a family pyramid race and a wrestling competition in a stack of tubes.

Lydia loved strutting around the camp and did great in a bunk room of ladies in her pack and play.

She slept through each night with no problem (getting up early and staying up late helped with that, I think).

That’s our 4 year old nephew blobbing. He rocks.

Tubing pretty much rules.

as do ziplines.

Here’s my brave 6 year old girl–doesn’t look too hard, right? Well, look how high she was.

She did great. I was a little nervous.

Little Miss Center of Attention. Jenna (in yellow) was adopted from China about 11 years ago as a baby. Pretty cool.

And, here we are on the screamer swing…screaming.

Now, back to real life. We made school lunches already and got the backpacks ready for tomorrow.

(sigh)

But, it’s not too early to think about next year…anybody want to come with us?

Sunday Snapshot: {dates}

8.23.10

There is one thing I always wanted to do when I was a mom.

Dates.

I wanted to make sure I got a date with each kid regularly. Individually.

My undivided attention just on him or her.

No phone calls.

No checking email.

No other children saying, “Mama, Mama, Mama….”

Here’s some snapshots of our latest round of dates that have all fallen this past week. Everybody was begging for a date with Mama this past week; I think the realization that the end of summer is days away and long days of school are a’comin’ made them what some special time.

Ashlyn’s was first:

We started with her fave–Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream with chocolate sprinkles. Mmmmm….

Then, for dessert, we headed to Candy Kitchen, one of Ashlyn’s favorite stores. She’s a big spender there–always spends $2.40 for a 1/4 lb of candy. Without fail, she picks a candy necklace first and then a gummy butterfly. She always picks some other random candies for herself and then a handful for Drew and Evan. Then, we spent some time browsing at the bookstore right next door and talked about all the books we’d love to read.

The perfect date.

Drew was next:

Have you ever been to a Fractured Prune donut shop? Check out these flavors! I mean, seriously, people. Drew’s date was an early morning breakfast date–we threw on some clothes. Drew still had his jammie shorts on. And, we headed out for breakfast. Turned out to be a bit more like dessert. Who am I kidding? Why am I acting shocked? I did take him for donuts. I’m acting like a normal ole chocolate frosting donut would be a healthy breakfast while these exotic flavors are too much.

An observer may have thought Drew’s favorite part was that they gave out Pirates of the Caribbean playing cards as your “ticket” while you waited. We had the 9 of hearts. When our order was ready, they just shouted “9 of hearts!” and we gathered our ~~dessert~~ breakfast.

At least they warn you on the box.

Check these donuts out, people! You will notice that there are 6…and only 2 of us on our date. We brought back some goodies for the rest of the fam. Drew got an orange creamsicle one; I got O.C. Sand (honey glaze with cinnamon and sugar). We brought Ashlyn a peppermint patty (of course), Evan an oreo cookie one, and Mark a french toast one. The bonus one was peanut butter and chocolate chips. No, Lydia didn’t get it. The kids shared it later.

Drew loved it (clearly) and didn’t even mind the messy orange goo on his hands.

He’s so fun to be with when I’m just alone with him.

The perfect date.

Then, it was Evan’s turn.

Ice cream again at a local joint.

Loved this sign above their drink case…until I realized that I’ve had way too much ice cream, candy, donuts, and more ice cream on these dates. Perhaps I need to establish fun dates doing something besides eating pure sugar.

Well, not yet. We split a big vat of cookies and cream (he loves Oreos) with fudge. We sat outside and talked about starting 3rd grade and that we can tell each other everything. And, we walked hand in hand. And, I thought to myself, “I wonder how long he’ll still walk with me like this? I wonder when this won’t be cool anymore?”

The perfect date.

Three perfect dates.

And, then, I got a rare treat. A really rare treat.

A date with Mark on Friday night.

A really good meal at P. F. Changs. Yummy food and good conversation. Really any conversation would have sufficed since dinner at home consists of the two of us saying a lot of “No, you aren’t done yet.” “Keep eating.” “Lower your voice; we’re right here.” “Wait, he was talking first.” etc. etc. But, Friday, we just sat fairly quietly and just talked about stuff, nothing too life changing, just stuff like what we’re excited about, what we’ve been learning…good stuff.

All while we sat with this little monkey.

She actually managed to sit there for 2 whole hours. Through an appetizer, a long wait for our entrees, dessert, and even a decaf coffee. Does anyone else know a 17 1/2 month old capable of such wonderfulness? I should say not.

Truly, the perfect date.

And, while we were on our date, the three other kids had dates of their own.

Our friends, the Hopples, pretty much rule. They kept the kids until Saturday morning. Yup, 6 kids under the age of 8. And, she’s prego.

Don’t feel too too bad for her though. We’ll be keeping them all next.

4 perfect dates. All in one week. I’m so spoiled.

Rainy Day Fun with Grammy

8.12.10

I haven’t been too busy with websites and such to have fun with the kiddos. Today, we headed out near Grammy’s house to the Crayola Factory.

Drew and Lydia in the chalk area–Drew colored more on his hands than on the cool floor.

For big kids only, Ash and Evan were really into making a design out of melted crayon wax in these big crayon thingies. I confess, that I enjoyed helping them too. Melted wax is just sorta fun, you know?

This guy told us all about how Crayola makes crayons. He made a couple hundred red ones in front of us and told us all about the process. Did you know they simply use cornstarch and water for the glue on the wrappers? And, did you know local farmers used to hand apply each wrapper to crayons before they had machines to do it? They called them by the color of the crayons they’d wrap–the red farm, the blue farm, etc.

Yea! A picture with all 4 kids smiling! Not the clearest–but they are all there and smiling!

Grammy with lil Lyds.

After the Crayola Factory, we headed 2 mi. down the rode to do a mule pulled Canal boat ride. Had to post this picture because the boat guide was on the microphone explaining that the tow rope was attached to the mules’ harness at which point Drew started cracking up. Know why? He thought she said “hiness” which is another word he uses for “hiney.” It wasn’t until dinner tonight that the issue was clarified, and he realized that it would be a little hard to attach a tow rope pulling a 47 ton boat to a mule’s rump.

So typical Drew story.