Recently...

The challenge of May has been dealing with morning sickness and the desire to sleep the month away, but not having the privilege to do it! We've been busy as ever. None of these pictures deserves a full post on its own, but combined it shows what we've been up to. 

Jackson started soccer this year. We've enjoyed watching him play and learn the game. He got hit once in the face and came home with a bloody lip, but he kept up with it! 

 Jackson and Zoey both had graduation programs with their schools. They are both excited to be done for the year!!

 Zoey has so much sass, I love it! She has been begging to go to a dance class....which I think she'd really enjoy.

Brian sold his truck! It's been sitting in our driveway for the past few months and he finally cleaned it up and listed it for sale on Wednesday night. Within 5 minutes his phone was ringing off the hook! It was sold for full asking price by the morning. Bittersweet moment...

 We found an owl in our tree! A robin tipped me off when it started freaking out, so I thought another bird was trying to raid its nest. When I scoped out the situation, I first thought it was a cat, but realized it was an owl! So cool, I've only seen 2 in my life in natural settings. I'm glad I got this picture of it's eyes looking at me, because it was actually mid-day and the bird was lazy and sleepy and could care less that we were around.

This is our sweet News

A baby is coming! We are excited. I am feeling sick. We are hoping for a girl. The due date is December 18th, but hoping it comes sooner so that we separate the birthday/Christmas celebrations by a few more days :)

Arches Camping Trip

We arrived in Arches with decent weather, but within an hour, it started to look a little ominous. We spent the first night listening to lightning, thunder, heavy rain and lots of wind! The kids slept through it all, but I only got spotted sleep at best. The next morning was cold and rainy, and we had to prepare breakfast under a tarp and eat it in the Bell's trailer to stay warm. 

But by mid-morning, the rain had cleared and the sun came out. We took the kids on a few hikes around the park. We packed in lunch to double arch and had a picnic there, and then took a quick walk across the street to see the "windows" trail. Arches NP has over 2000 arches within the park, but these were the easiest and quickest hikes with the most arches that we thought the kids would enjoy.

We had 14 kids in our group! It was amazing trying to get everybody going in one direction, but they kept each other entertained and made the hiking a little more enjoyable by having buddies to play with along the way. He actually didn't hear too much complaining! And they loved the ham and cheese sandwiches, apples and grapes and goldfish crackers we had for lunch...I think hiking makes for hungry kids who aren't picky :)

The next night was better, but we did get hit with another rain storm. No thunder or lightning this time, which was good...I slept better! As the day before, it cleared out by mid-morning and we took the kids on a pretty difficult hike to delicate arch. It was 3 miles round trip, which is a big deal for these little legs. But they made it!

 Our final stay was in Goblin valley. The weather was much warmer and calmer. The night sleep was the best of the three tent-camping. We played around in the valley of the goblins, trying to make a destination to a cool cave, but our kids were just too wiped to complete it so we turned around to have lunch and pack-up camp.

We wore the kids out with activities. They loved the camping experience but they were equally excited to be back home!

Zoey is without training wheels!

I only have a video of her riding the bike (on her very first try) without her training wheels... so this picture of her daddy putting the wheels back on her bike will have to do.

 She did an awesome job...picked it right up and was squealing with delight! I was so worried she'd fall, but she did awesome!

A week or so ago, Brian took the training wheels and pedals off her bike so that she could learn to balance, coast, glide and turn. Zoey was sooooo angry with him and vowed to give up riding bikes for the rest of her life. Somehow he talked her back into trying it. I am amazed that so soon afterwards, the pedals went back on, and now she's riding on her own!  

Happy Birthday Calvin!

I can't believe it's been a year! He just started walking a couple weeks ago and is a bit wobbly on his feet still.  We were camping in Arches National Park on his birthday, so we did the best we could to provide him with a cake on his first birthday around the camp.

 I think he did the best at being the cleanest one-year-old-cake-eater I've ever seen! I should have used more frosting, but the frosting was cold and didn't want to stick to the soft cake. I think I made more of a mess trying to frost the cake than Calvin did in his attempt to eat it!

Happy Birthday Calvin! We're glad to have you as part of our family! You are amazing :) 

A camping party...

  Jackson wanted a camping themed party. It was really fun to put together, we already had most the props! I made fun signs that read "Camp Jackson" "Don't feed the bears" "Campers report here" and "campfire ahead" made out of cardboard shipping boxes we had on hand.  We had a ton of fun, so I guess it was all worth it :)

We started the evening with a hot dog dinner, complete with chips and juice box drinks! Boys love that kind of thing. I made a fruit tray and potato salad for the adults, who also enjoyed brats over dogs...I was worried about having a real fire and sending a boy to the ER, knowing how boys goof around, so we opted for balloons instead :) It was a hit!

The Grandpa's graced us with their talents of entertainment. Elmo played several fun songs on the harmonica. The boys thought it was cool we had the grandpas there. Grandpa Gray taught the youngsters some cub scout cheers, it was an entertaining dinner!

This was the cake:

 We played camping games like tin can toss, bear tracks (which is played like musical chairs, only I used paper cards with bear tracks in place of chairs), three legged-race, etc...

 The boys made pet rocks and thought it was so cool!

 We had a camp themed scavenger hunt where the boys raced to find items that also doubled as their goody bag treats. Some items were a whistle, a magnifying glass, a flashlights, a few plastic bugs, some treats and a s'more mix.

Jackson has a good group of friends and we had a blast entertaining them!