Missouri 2010

We made the big trip to Missouri this year. We had an extra baby with us this time though, little Easton. We also did not get to rent a big 15 passenger van either. Instead, we drove my van and my parents' car. It actually worked out better though. Julie rode with Easton in Mom and Dad's car, where it was quiet. All of the other girls rode in the van, where it was loud! The big girls were great on the trip! A friend of mine said that her girls love to watch The Brady Bunch so I rented an entire season of Brady Bunch episodes. They watched them one after another without a peep! They loved it! The last hour or so got a little crazy because they finally wanted something else and they ended up getting really hyper and crazy. Other than that, they were great. Elye does not like being confined to a car seat though. She requires one on one attention and entertainment! She only slept about 30 minutes each way. That's not much when it's an 8 hour trip one way and she's not really happy. We made it though.

The girls enjoyed swimming, riding horses and making a clubhouse in Grandma's attic. We also had a water balloon fight one day. It took us forever to get the balloons all full and 3 out of 4 girls ended up crying by the end of the "fight". Oh well.

One night we were there was a party for Kollan. He was granted a trip to Lego Camp in the Bahamas by the Make-a-Wish foundation! Make-a-wish also gave him a going away party. We saw family and enjoyed some good pizza and cake and wished Kollan good luck on his trip.

I've posted a slideshow of only 99 pictures out of the approximately 400 pictures that Joni and I took! I'm going to put all of the pictures and more storytelling in a new Blurb picture book. Enjoy the pictures in the next post.....

Flowers and butterflys

This year I took the easy way out to planting flowers. I love flowers. I want a yard full of them. Every color, shape and size! But, I'm not too much into the labor that's involved in growing a garden like that. This year I bought some seeds from Dollar General and sprinkled seeds everywhere. Yes, that was the extent of my yard work this past spring. But, to my surprise, they actually grew! I grew zinnias in the front of the house. They are a lot taller than I thought they would be. I think I'll plant these in a different spot next year. They're great though. They keep blooming and I've actually been cutting them and putting them in the kitchen. There are always butterflys on them too!

These are my poor sunflowers. They got huge! They are taller than a tree that is next to them. But they didn't stay pretty for very long. This one is already starting to wilt. I probably didn't water them enough though.Remember the pretty pink flowers I had in the spring all along the back fence? This is what they look like now! Not pretty! I'm not happy with these at all. I like that they come back each year and they are great for a few weeks in the spring, but, I may need to change this next summer.
I also sprinkled marigold seeds in the backyard. They really grew too. I didn't take a picture from far back that shows how big and bushy they are. But there are butterflys on these all the time too!

While Grace was at camp...

While Grace was at camp Lyla and I had some quality time together. We came home on Sunday and then didn't go to Mimi and Papoos until Tuesday. We went to Chuck E Cheese, played at the mall, had movie nights at home, etc. Lyla still would have rather been at camp with Grace but I think we had a good time. On Tuesday we headed to Mimi and Papoos. Joni and Elye and Reesi were there too. The girls played and played. We went to the sprinkler park one day. Elye wasn't as into it as we thought she would be. She wanted an adult to carry her through it. Joni, Mimi and I took Reesi and Lyla to the drive-in one night too. We saw "The Sorcerers Apprentice". It was a good movie. The girls enjoyed that. Reesi has gotten very into being fancy this summer and while we were there she wanted to have photo shoots like models. I took a TON of pictures of her. At one point they were in the tree having their pictures taken. I couldn't get them to laugh. I wanted them to have a natural laugh for me to photograph. I convinced Joni they would really laugh if she mooned them! Joni, of course, did it! Reesi was pretty shocked. I thought it was pretty funny. While we were out there Elye kept eating the apples from the apple tree. My favorite pictures from below are of Lyla and Reesi jumping in the air at the park in their swim suits. Those were Joni's idea. I thought they were really cute.

Camp

Eric works with the 5th/6th graders at our church so he had the opportunity to go to junior camp this summer. Camp starts when you have finished 4th grade. But, if your parent is part of the staff, you can go when you have finished kindergarten. You're called a "camp kid". Grace went to camp for the first time this summer as a camp kid. Eric was there as a staff member. He taught a bible class each day, organized/supervised sports, and just did whatever was needed. I have to admit that I was nervous about Grace going when I learned that she would not be staying in the same room with Eric. That meant she had to take care of herself and her things all week by herself! That seems really big to me. She's independent but I was still nervous for her.

The staff go to camp on Saturday and the main campers come on Sunday afternoon. Lyla and I were able to go on Saturday with Eric and Grace. We left on Sunday after lunch. That made me feel better because I could help her set up her bunk bed and get all of her things organized so she could take care of herself all week. The staff and camp kids don't stay in the cabins like the campers do. They get to stay in a very nice, air conditioned, building that has rooms full of bunk beds. All of the girls/women are together in one bunk room and the men/boys are in another. One of my friends from church also has a little girl the same age as Grace. They know each other from church and they were going to be at camp too. Grace was so excited to be at camp with her little friend, Ella. They wanted bunk beds right next to each other. They, of course, wanted to sleep on the top bunks! She was soooooo excited to be on a top bunk!

We didn't have much to do on Saturday other than set up her bed area. The little girls ended up sitting on the top bunks all afternoon playing, drawing, playing their DS (thank you Reesi for letting us borrow yours), and being silly. They thought they were big stuff on those top bunks with their sleeping bags and a DS! At one point Grace asked me if they would get to do this everyday. I said yes, for a little while each day. She smiled really big and said, "this is going to be like a big sleepover every day"! She loved it.

I had all of her clothes for each day separated into individual ziplock bags. It had her clothes, socks and panties in the bag for each day. She also had a laundry bag hanging on the post of her bed. So she just had to throw her clothes in the bag at the end of each day and get out a new bag for the next day. Some other experienced camp moms gave me that advice and said that's how everyone does it for camp. Pretty smart! Then she had a little bathroom tote with her soap and shampoo in it to carry to the showers each night. She seemed so grown up. All too soon she'll be carrying that little tote down a dorm hallway!

Anyway, little Lyla loved it there too. She wants to be just like the big girls. She was up on those bunks with them the whole time. She was sad that she didn't get to go too. She'll be able to go next year!

Every day during camp week, the camp kids got to go tubing on the river and some days they went swimming in a pool too! Grace had a blast. On the first night of camp week Eric said she ran up to him at devo that night, jumped in his lap, laid her head on his shoulder and said, "when do we get to go to bed?" She was worn out but she absolutely loved it! She did absolutely fine all by herself too. I had Eric call me a few times during the week so I could talk to Grace. Each time I talked to her she was having fun and in a hurry to get off of the phone! We are so blessed to be a part of a church that focusing so much on the youth. I'm so glad my girls will be able to experience camp with this church! Hopefully this is the first of many camp pictures! This is what Grace did immediately when she and Eric got home from camp. If you notice she's even laying on a heating pad! The cord is hanging out of the blanket. I don't remember why she had that. I just noticed it in the picture. She didn't even want to tell me all about camp. She just wanted to lay down! All of these pictures were taken with a disposable camera that I gave Grace for camp.

This is Whitney. She was a babysitter for our life group. She was a counselor at camp. This is Olivia. She was our life group babysitter for two years. She was a counselor at camp too.

This is a view of the river behind the building Grace stayed in. She was taking the picture from the 2nd story balcony.

This is Ella. They're standing on the balcony where they stayed. They tie-dyed these t-shirts during craft time one day.

This is where the devos were held. It overlooks the river too.

One night they had a Mexican theme night. The girls are all dressed up and posing.

These are all of the camp kids with Chris Smith, our preacher.

This was Grace's favorite thing. They went tubing every day!

Little Lyla Belle. They took this on Saturday night when we were there.

Grace lost a tooth on the morning we left for camp. She seems to have a record of losing teeth at inconvenient times (Christmas Eve). She's showing me her teeth in this picture.

On top of their bunk beds playing the DS.

Great idea!

It has been way too long since I have posted!!! A lot happened during July and the first half of August that I need to catch up on. I did lose my computer for a few weeks though. That's my excuse. Stupid viruses. I wish I could go buy a brand spanking new Imac that claims to not get viruses. Maybe one day. I will catch up with the summer posts at some point. For now, I wanted to quickly jot down something Lyla said today that I don't want to forget.

So, Lyla brought her walkie talkies to me today and said that I could keep one while she was in kindergarten and she would take the other one with her. When she needs to tell me something during her day at kindergarten, we could just talk on the walkie talkies! Wonderful idea Lyla!