Learning to camp

We've never been camping with the kids (aside from on our back lawn) and I've really been wanting to lately. Well, Friday morning I noticed that weather.com was predicting cool weather and 0% chance of rain (a rare occurrence) so I decided that it was time to go camping! I called Roy at work and got the okay from him and after I picked Rae up from school we headed to Walmart to get supplies. Now, I really do mean supplies. The tent we got when we got married wasn't big enough for all of us, so I had to get a new tent. And a lantern. And those little stick thingies to cook hotdogs and marshmallows. Oh, and chairs to sit in around the fire. It was a big purchase, but now we have all of those things and will use them for many many years!

I decided to do everything as basic as possible. The kids don't like their hot dogs on a bun and Roy is doing Atkins, so I didn't bother buying buns. And I didn't bother packing condiments for the hot dogs either! I got a bag of chips and some baby carrots and that was our dinner. For breakfast we had doughnuts and chocolate milk. Simple, simple, simple - that was my plan!

The campsite was at Thousand Hills State Park, which is just 10 minutes away. We got there around 4pm and set up camp, bought firewood and attempted to start a fire. It took a while to get it going, but eventually we had good enough of a fire to roast some hot dogs and marshmallows. The kids kept asking "what are we going to do now" and we had to explain that camping doesn't involve much - just sitting around and enjoying nature! We told some "scary" stories and when it finally got dark enough we put the kids to bed and enjoyed a few minutes alone around the campfire before we put it out and put ourselves to bed. And then I had one of the very worse nights of my life.

Roy had pitched the tent on a slope. He didn't have much of a choice and I didn't realize how much of a slope it was until Rae got into her sleeping bag and slid to the bottom of the tent! Roy and Blaise were on the other side of the tent and I don't think it was as sloped over there. But Rae had a really hard time going to sleep until she finally just smooshed herself against the bottom of the tent. I fell asleep okay but Isaac kept waking up because he was sliding too. Ugh. Every time I would wake up it would take me longer and longer to fall asleep because of the slope and the stupid noisy bugs. And then it got pretty cold and I was worried about the kids being cold. I tried putting Isaac into my sleeping bag to keep him warm (and to keep myself warm while I nursed him) but he kept sliding to the bottom of my bag! It was a LONG night. I kept looking out the window waiting for a glimmer of sunlight so I could wake up Roy and go home! Morning finally came and Roy made a nice fire and we sat around it enjoying its warmth. It was perfectly nippy outside and we enjoyed our breakfast around the fire. Then we packed up and headed out. We stopped by the lake and let the kids play in the mud and then got home around 10am. Roy was nice and let me sleep till 1pm! I really needed it! Then he had to go to work and I spent the day doing a ton of laundry and trying to find space in the house for all of our new camping gear.

So we all survived our first camping trip! Next time we camp I want to do more than one night because it's so much work and you have to make it worth the effort! But I'll only do it if we can find a flat spot to pitch our tent! Here are some pictures of our trip:

Panorama of our campsite

Isaac is so flippin' adorable in this picture




Rae wanted her doughnut warmed up!


Ugh, there were so many creepy spiders


And caterpillars also creep me out.

Our Trip Part V - Going home

Okay, this is the last of our trip pictures! Hooray! Now I can get to all the other things I've been wanting to blog about.

We stayed the night in Louisville,KY and in the morning this huge storm rolled in. It rained buckets and buckets of rain. You couldn't even dash out of the car without getting soaked. It was quite an adventure with 3 kids to load into the car!



A firetruck zoomed past us on the freeway and as we got closer we saw why!





Rae practiced the art of self-portraits. Maybe we should get her a facebook account so she can post them.



Cool McDonalds playground we stopped at. Blaise is in pajamas because earlier in the day he had a blowout diaper and that's the only outfit we had for him.




And a big milestone - our van hit 100,000 miles! Yes, it was a very exciting trip home.

Some advice

In my fridge is something that makes me giddy with delight. It's not even cooked yet and I'm drooling. The best advice I can give you this week is to make this recipe very very soon.

Thin sliced sirloin tip steak - I get mine at Aldi. In Cali we would get it at WinCo and it was a bit cheaper. If you don't live near an Aldi or WinCo then you should consider moving. I miss WinCo so much that I could cry. Anyway, get some sort of thinly sliced meat. The meat we get costs a lot more than we would usually spend on a meal, but this is a special summertime treat for us and it's cheaper than going out to eat! If you want to save on the meat you can get some to slice yourself or use chicken. We made it with chicken the other night and it was very tasty, and healthier too!

Marinade:
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup lemon juice (I like to add a tad bit more)
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 tbs dry mustard
2 tbs finely chopped cilantro (I used dried cilantro because the fresh stuff makes me want to puke - and the dried is already chopped for ya!)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Mix it all up and add the meat. Let marinade for however long ya want. I've done it all day but I've also done it for like 2-3 hours and it's pretty good. And then grill up the meat! We use a charcoal grill and I have little respect for those that don't ;) Actually, when we were at my parents house they did this recipe with chicken and just broiled it in the oven and it was really,really tasty. But since it is summer, GRILL IT! :) You can eat it just plain (that's what Roy does since he's on Atkins) or you can serve it in a tortilla with all of your favorite burrito toppings - beans, rice, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, lettuce, cheese - you get the picture. But don't put too much or you'll cover up the taste of the deliciously marinated meat!! Seriously, my mouth is watering because I'm imagining the taste of the meat. I can't wait for tonight! I might take pictures :)

Our Trip Part IV Rae's Birthday

Ugh,I have got to just get this done. Here are some pictures from Rae's birthday party in Charlotte.

Happy Birthday Christie!

Hope you have a fantastic day! Well, as fantastic as it can be when you are 8 months pregnant!

(Side note: check out the new video on the sidebar ------->)

Time flies....

I started my blog 3 years ago. Wow.

Rae started kindergarten today. Bigger wow. I cried. She did not. When she got home I told her that I had cried and asked if she was sad after I left and she replied "I pretty much just forgot about you mom." She had a great day. No complaints except that she doesn't get to be there for recess (they go right after lunch). She asked if she'll ever get to go long enough to be there for recess. I told her that the 3 1/2 hours she is there is already too long for me! Besides the times when I've been in the hospital having babies, this was one of the longest times I've been away from Rae. Blaise, Isaac and I had a pretty good day too. The house was very peaceful.

Technically she wasn't going "back" to school, but she had seen the phrase so much in the store and on TV that she wanted it on her special "going to school" cheesecake. (We actually had this on Monday night for FHE refreshments.)


Traditional first day of school pictures:



The rest of the trip will get updated sometime - I've been going to bed extra early lately because there's no sleeping in for me anymore. Roy starts teaching next week so we are trying to get back on schedule and ready for him to be leaving the house really early most of the week. Bleh.

Best Pictures

Click here to view these pictures larger

I decided to put together some of my all-time favorite pictures of our family as a single album.

Rolling babies

I am wondering if your babies rolled from back to front first or from front to back? Mine have all rolled from back to front first and people are always surprised. Is that unusual? They have all really liked being on their bellies. And I thought Rae was pretty early at 4 1/2 months, but Isaac has started rolling over!! I can't believe it! He's been doing it consistently all day. He has also started sucking his thumb consistently, which also means he gets himself to sleep in the middle of the night and has been sleeping 9 hours straight! It's lovely! But I have a feeling he's going to start rolling over in the middle of the night when he wakes up and it's hard for him to get his thumb when he is on his belly. Ergh.

Anyway, which way did your kids roll first?

Some news

I interrupt these trip updates to bring you some news. Don't forget to scroll down and see some pictures though.


Rae is going to kindergarten! Well, sort of. Our entire marriage we've said we would home school when it came time. As it has started "becoming time" I found myself wishing that we had half-day kindergarten here. I feel like there are some benefits to public school that I wanted Rae to get a small sample of: learning to cooperate with other children under the guidance of an adult other than her parents, exposure to proper speech from other children and adults, being forced to make herself understandable without help from her parents, following directions and just socializing in general. Several months ago I had heard from a friend that you could have your child go part-time, but I just kind of put it in the back of my mind. Also, I understood it as 5 hours instead of 7, which was still too much.

Anyway, I just kept feeling like Rae was going to miss an experience that would be good for her, so I contacted the principal and asked what kind of options there were for part-time. She was really nice and said whatever we want to do is fine. So Rae will be going when school starts (8:20) and coming home at lunch. I think that 3 hours will be the perfect amount of time for her to be away from home. We went and enrolled her today. Then we went and got all the nonsense school supplies from Walmart. (Seriously, 20 glue sticks?! What is my tax money covering? :) Just kidding...kind of.) She is really excited to start and already made a picture and wrote a letter to her teacher (even though we don't know who it is yet).

We feel really good about our decision and even talked about sending each of our kids to kindergarten part-time just go let them get a little experience with school. But hopefully by the time Blaise is 5 we will be living somewhere with more homeschoolers and that won't be necessary. Oh, that was another factor with sending Rae - there just aren't a lot of opportunities here in Kirksville for her to be with other homeschoolers or many activities for us to do.

Anyway, thought I'd share the news! I know I am going to bawl my eyes out on the first day but it will fantastic to have her out of the house for a few hours! My boys and I will get some nice quiet time together and I can focus more attention on Blaise and his learning. I really think it will benefit the whole family. I told Rae that if she doesn't like it then she doesn't have to go, but I think she'll like it! Now I have to figure out how I'm going to get us dressed and out the door by 7:55am without Roy (On MWF Roy teachers a 7am class -ugh) Wish us luck on this new adventure!

BTW, I don't have a problem with people sending their kids to public school. It is kind of the way I feel about epidurals - they can be great but just be informed before you rush out and get one. I'd list reasons why we are homeschooling, but I'd probably offend someone without meaning to, so I won't. But seriously, I'm not passionate and judgmental about it. You can judge me, I didn't want to send Rae to school because I didn't want to drive her everyday! I calculated it and I'll be spending an hour going to and from the school everyday - ugh!

Our Trip Part III - Isaac's Blessing

We held Isaac's blessing at my brother Levi's house. (Thanks again you guys) He made a bunch of pizzas for dinner after wards and the kids went crazy outside. Thanks to everyone who was there for the blessing! Oh, and most of these pictures came from MIL's camera - because I was too busy talking! Ugh, and I don't feel like organizing these in a better order.












Before church - my parents and my in-laws


Yonas and Silas were Rae's favorite cousins to play with!






Roy belongs at the kiddie table.

Our Trip Part II

The first couple of days in Charlotte were spent hanging out, swimming and getting to know the cousins again. On Thursday my in-laws arrived. For her birthday Rae wanted to go miniature golfing, so on Friday we went first thing in the morning to avoid the heat. It didn't work though. After the first few holes we were already sweating from the heat and humidity. Yuck. We skipped the last few holes and headed inside where they had arcade games.


I was golfing one-handed with "help" from Blaise, and I still did better than everyone else!





The kids were bored after 3 or 4 holes.


They had a "build a bear" type thing in the arcade area, so both kids got to pick a stuffed animal. Just what we needed -more stuffed animals!

Our Trip Part I

On the way to Charlotte we stopped in Knoxville,TN to see our good friends from Davis. Rae and Abe spent their first 3 1/2 years of life together and Patience and John were amazing neighbors that helped us out so much! We had a great visit with them and got a good nights sleep after an exhausting 15 hours in the car (it was supposed to be 12 hours)




The next morning we stopped at Roy's dad's house on our way to Charlotte. We had lunch with him and visited for a bit and then continued on for the last 1 1/2 hours of driving. Whew.

Update to come

We are in Charlotte,NC visiting family and I haven't taken the time to blog. It'll all come in one huge post when we get home. Here's what we've been doing:

-Visited old Davis friends who now live in Tennessee
-Tried out Aloha Snow (My sister-in-law's new snoball shop)
-Isaac's blessing
-Playing with cousins galore!

Lots of pictures to come!

Fun with puns

Ashley: Today's the big test.
Roy: Of what?
Ashley: Of Isaac. I ate a few chocolates last night.
Roy: Only a few, huh?
Ashley: They were mini-chocolates.
Roy: Yeah, they were many, all right.
Ashley: I only ate two Reese's and two Hundred Grands.
Roy: 200 grams of chocolate? That's like half a pound!

My Rae bunches

It is so much fun to see how much Rae learns every single day. She is getting to be so creative and it's so fun to see the projects she comes up with! She is constantly making crafts. She'll ask me to staple together some paper and she'll write a book about something. Today it was a book all about the ways that Isaac is silly. She loves to make signs for the wall. The most recent ones were "Welcome to the play day" and "Toy Store ---->" pointing to her room. She is a little sponge lately. She tells us so many details from primary and she adores her new teacher. She also tells us all about commercials she sees on TV. She saw some OxyClean in Walmart the other day and said "hey, I've seen that commercial". She was showing me a commercial today for some toy that she wants (some kind of clay or something) and she said "mommy, Blaise and I won't make a mess with it because it is 'mess free'!). She just totally cracks me up! Of course, she has her annoying times too. :) She talks nonstop, even when she needs to STOP and is getting frustrated with Blaise a lot lately. But she is still adorable and is a terrific helper. The other day Isaac woke up from his nap in a really good mood, so I left him in his bassinet and was putting away laundry. Rae came in the room and said "I'll take care of Isaac while you finish that". So she entertained him for a while. While putting away the laundry I found a dollar bill, so I gave it to Rae and said "here, this is for babysitting". She just looked at me with a look of shock on her face and said "but I don't want to be done yet". I don't know what I would do without her. She is constantly helping Blaise and entertaining him. She even tried to change his diaper the other day, but his legs were too heavy for her and she couldn't get him to lift his bum to get the clean diaper on. I just love love love this girl and the fun she brings to our family!!

This is a picture of her "playing" a game called Farkle. Roy and I play it often. One day she found our score sheet, so she asked how to play it. All we could really explain was that ones and fives were good to get, so now she plays it and tries to get ones and fives and she made her own little scorecard.

And this one is Rae getting what she deserves :)

My big boy (updated w/ pic)

I just took Isaac to his 2 month doctor visit. He weighs 13 lbs 2 ounces and is 24 inches long. At this age Rae was 11lbs, 5 ounces and Blaise was 13lbs 10 ounces. Isaac lost the most birth weight out of all of them, but he's keeping up just fine! And he's taller than the other two were. He cried when he got his shots, but was fine once I gave him his pacifier. He was great during the rest of the visit. I can't believe he's 2 months old already!

*I accidentally wrote Blaise instead of Isaac - thanks for pointing it out to me Pat. Those two boys are never going to know which name is theirs!

** Roy took this picture this morning and I just had to add it. A blue bow makes it okay for a boy, right? :)

Long overdue

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. I'm sorry Julia, that it has taken me this long.


My cousin Julia, and her husband Brett are trying to adopt. Her friends and family are trying to get the word out there for all to read! You never know - someone could read this and know that their sister's friend's niece has a baby to put up for adoption and could give them Julia's name. So, if you know someone who would benefit from their information, please give them these website addresses:

Parent Profiles

LDS Family Services

Their personal blog: juliaandbrett.blogspot.com

They are such a great couple, and I can only imagine the sadness that comes with wanting children and not being able to have them, and having to wait and wait for a chance to adopt. I'm glad that we have the internet and that blogs have become so popular and I'm able to read all about their fun life. They would truly make excellent parents and I hope that it is a reality for them soon. Please pass on this information to anyone who could use it!

IMAX

Isaac is 8 weeks old today and I thought it was time to post some more pictures of him. Rae took the first two pictures.





Our kids are always born with a lot of hair and then it falls out in the back and sides and they are left with a silly, greasy mohawk. So Roy buzzed Isaac's head the other day. I was so upset when I saw it, because it was a lot shorter than when we did it to Blaise at this age. But it is already growing back, so I know it'll look fine in a week or two. Oh, and when you look back at the old post you can see how much Isaac looks a lot more like Rae than he looks like Blaise.