Fish Lake

Last week we went camping with Christopher's family at Fish Lake.  I love camping, but I have so far put off trying it with kids.  Tyler and Kaitlyn were horrible sleepers as babies, so the last thing I wanted to do was try that with lots of people and in tents.  But they are older and Jasmine is the easiest baby I have seen, so we had no excuse.  And we loved Fish Lake!  It was beautiful there, and 20-30 degrees cooler than it is here.  That sounded great, since we have gotten to nearly 100 lately.  A brother-in-law organized it so everyone could go fishing on his boat, so it sounded like a great extended family trip.

But then it rained.  Multiple times each day.  Thankfully, no tents leaked, and we still managed to have a good time.  I just didn't take the camera out of the leak-proof car very much.

I also didn't get to go out on the boat, since I skipped the first trip (Kaitlyn was out walking with an Aunt, and I didn't want her to come back to find nobody) and there turned out to not be another chance with the rain.  But at least we wandered down to the lake to skip rocks during one break in the weather.

Kaitlyn liked to throw in the biggest sticks she could find.

We had a large group, though people were coming and going all weekend.

My favorite moments of the trip:

*Whenever it is Tyler's turn to say the prayer in our house, he says the same two sentences.  Thanks for our day, thanks for our blessings, done.  But one night in our tent he started going on and on - thanks for the cabin, thanks for tents - and then, towards the end, muttered "now you say it" and then continued on in his Ruffy Dog voice so the stuffed animal friend in his lap could "say" the rest of the prayer.  "Thanks for the snacks. . ."  I tried not to laugh, but failed.

*Daddy taught the kids charades so they could play in the tent before falling asleep, and it was hilarious.  Tyler kept pretending to be numbers, but Kaitlyn went with "the waves of the sea" (which looked like an inchworm), "a bathtub" (laying down with arms and legs in the air), and "a light bulb" (tucked into a ball).  How did we not guess those?

*This isn't Daddy's favorite moment, but he was laying down on his stomach playing a game on his iPad while Tyler was straddling his back to look over his shoulder and watch.  And then Daddy started shouting and tossed Tyler out of the tent within three seconds - because Tyler started wetting his pants.  On Daddy.  I had to go rescue Tyler (who didn't have any shoes and just wandered off after his eviction) and take him to the bathrooms to finish the job, but everyone other than Daddy had a good laugh at that one.

Once we got home, we had an hour and a half to get unloaded and cleaned up before the Digicert swim party.  Whew!

I loved the puppet show, which was new this year.

(Here, hold your sister so I can take pictures!)

But I think my kids' favorite part was the face painting.

I know she looks serious here, but Kaitlyn loved that "mermaid mask"!

And I only had Kaitlyn with me in line, but when Tyler saw what was going on, he said he wanted to be a monster.  Roar!

And then we went swimming, and washed off all the paint.

I love this pool, because it has a huge kiddie area with shallow enough water that my kids can handle it on their own.  So I could watch them while chatting with all my friends and holding the baby :).

And this pool has a flowrider, so we didn't see too much of Daddy.  He almost did a 360!

And now, I just want to do nothing for a few days.  Except apparently laundry and drying the tent and everything else that was wet when we packed up in a downpour.

ARG! Family pictures

I love family pictures.  I love having a picture of all my favorite people, and having them all sorts of places I can see them, from over the fireplace in our family room to the background of all my electronic devices.  And ever since Jasmine was born it has bothered me that she wasn't in our last one.  Well, technically she's there in the large belly I was sporting, but I'd rather see her smiling face.  She's part of our "flamily" too (as Kaitlyn used to call us).

And ever since we bought our cabin, I have dreamed of getting family pictures up at this meadow.  Unfortunately, picking this remote location meant I couldn't just call in a small favor and ask someone to meet us at a park to press the shutter, like I did last time.  My goal was to get up at the crack of dawn (hence avoiding the harsh light) and I was worried we'd have to take a four-wheeler up there, so I thought we could just take care of it by ourselves.

Wrong.

The baby woke up nice and happy at the right time, so I frantically tried to get all of my makeup done and get the older kids ready.  Only Tyler woke up CRANKY.  As in, sobbing on the floor and kicking anyone who came near him.  By the time we had him under control, the baby was cranky, and then quickly down for a nap.  So at that point, I let her sleep for a bit, debating on when to drag her up because now everyone else was dressed and ready and the longer we waited, the higher and harsher the sun was in the sky.

Apparently, I waited just long enough to get both harsh sunlight that no one would look into AND a cranky baby.

This is the best it got.  Tyler never looked at the camera once that day.  And the baby just cried and looked down into my lap.  And Daddy kept saying "just take another round, because I don't want to have to do this again." And Tyler said "CHEESE!" while looking at his shoes. Ugh.

We got some better pictures once we split it up so someone was behind the camera, and hung out in the shade at our place.

Oh, and I had to get my 3-month shot.

 
Only I can't find Tyler's picture now.  Just Kaitlyn's.

My babies always look at the camera with a "why is she doing this to me?" expression, and that's part of the fun.

We'll see if I can talk Christopher into trying again anytime soon.  In the meantime, I'll just pretend that I like the picture where 3 out of the 5 are looking at the camera.

Fourth of July

I love the Fourth of July!

This holiday always reminds me of my Grandma Jones.  She LOVED all things patriotic, and had tons of American and especially Navy decorations all over her house.  I have a lot of memories of spending the holiday at her house, watching my uncle attempt to set off fireworks into the corn field behind her.

Christopher took the kids down to see the parade, and I set up everything for the party.  It was a perfect day to just relax in the shade.  And the kid's craft table went over rather well again this year!

I think we wore out Tyler though.

We ended up spending the whole week at the cabin.  I had fun finishing my new sign, among other projects.

I even gave Miss Four Month Old her first taste of food.  Before . . .

And after.  She did not care for it.  If any food got in, it was an accident, in her mind.  But it sure is funny to try.

And we finally switched out the big ping-pong table to a cheap foosball table!  The kids love it, and it is great to have something they can actually attempt to play.

Bits of summer

Summer always goes by quickly, but we've been trying to make the most of it.  So while I don't have big events to mark on here, the random pictures have been piling up.  Tyler has been going to school just twice a week for a while now, and that has been great.  Well, Tyler's been a punk lately, but I think that is from a lack of daily schedule, as well as him just learning to test his bounds.  He loves going to school.  And since it is only twice a week, we've been spending a lot more time at the cabin just goofing off.  The water balloons are always a big hit.

And one of Tyler's favorite activities is holding his Baby Jasmine.  It may or may not be her favorite, but she puts up with her siblings pretty well. Such as sweetie.

We've been out and about a bit, and the kids really loved this fast food pit stop one day.  Yum!

And we finally used our "Pass of all Passes"!  I think everyone has them by now.  We resisted for a long time, but when it was only $10 each for a year pass to mini golf, baseball games, the waterpark, and everything else, we caved.  Tyler liked the go-cart ride a lot!

And this last week Kaitlyn had swim lessons next door with a bunch of her cousins.  Tyler was signed up too, but . . . well, you have to be fully potty trained.  Kaitlyn has been miraculously good for a few weeks now, but Tyler has a couple #2 accidents nearly every day.  So frustrating.  Basically, he depends on us telling him to go.  So we can remind him enough to take care of #1, but since we can't predict #2, that doesn't go well.

Sorry, that was too much information, but well, that's my life as a mom these days.

Anyway, here's the swim lesson crew!

Kaitlyn had improvement this year, but once again refused to jump in by the end of the week.  At least she had fun and got some more experience in the water.

We also caught most of a rodeo, played miniature golf, and we've spent a lot of time working on reading around here.  Kaitlyn is really getting into it!  I'm not sure that I know what I'm doing, but we're making progress anyway.

Hooray for summer!