Freshly Hunted Eggs

It's Easter again! My, how time flies when you're having fun.

Speaking of fun... here's my crew for the weekend:

Wait, is this better?

Hmm, try again....

Eh, close enough!

You may have noticed there are a few extras besides my two girls. I've got my brothers and sisters staying with me while my parents are in China (at this very moment!) getting this cool dude:

We can't wait to meet Timothy in person. 

But meanwhile, back at the ranch....

There are eggs to be hunted!

They say hunting for your dinner is the only way to go.

Mmmm....fresh, plastic eggs!

Sometimes teamwork is the best way to get those eggs.

And sometimes it takes a village to find an egg.

Happy Empty Tomb Day!

Blessings For the New Year

As you may have noticed, I love keeping up family traditions.   Maybe I'm sentimental or maybe I'm OCD.  You decide.  Traditionally, we take a family photo near the end of the year.  Traditionally, it's really hard to get it done.  You know the drill... Someone's grumpy.  Someone's not home. The light is to bright.  The light is too dark.  Get closer and act like you like each other.  Ew, she's touching me!

Sigh.

But we pulled it off. 

Happy New Year!

Feather Ornaments

I have a yearly tradition of making my daughters an ornament for our Christmas tree.  Usually, it corresponds with some new craft I learned that year or something that was new for the kids.  One year I knitted little cardinal birds with their initials on them.  This year I was inspired by our Year of Chickens.  Having begun the chicken raising adventure at the beginning of this year, I thought it might be appropriate to design an ornament to commemorate that.  After all, my children are the ones who now snobbishly refuse to eat store eggs because in their words "they taste like chemicals!" :-)

Once I got on the ornament making train, I couldn't stop myself.  I made more than just one for Noodle and Hopers.  I made one for an ornament exchange party.  I made one for a friend.  One for my mom.  Here are a few of them that I grabbed photos of:

I used only things I had already, like buttons, fabric scraps, beads and lots of hot glue.  In the aftermath, I only ended up keeping the two I made for the girls, but I want more, more, more on my tree!  Plus, they were fun to make.  If you're not careful, I might end up making one for you too!

Fall Door Hanging

I have to admit, I've been a little jealous of all the cute front door wreaths I've been seeing lately.  The crafty person inside me was quietly dying a painful death over not being able to make a Fall wreath for my house because of this:

 

 

 

* Cue ominous music... *

 

 

 

Ah, the dreaded stained glass front door.  It was there when we bought the house.  The previous owners had it installed as an homage to the family shield.  I kind of like it.  I mostly don't.  Every time the holidays spur that wreath-y feeling in me, I take one look at that bright blue family crest and shlump back inside to knit something instead.

The colors will clash, I whine to myself.  It's too busy looking for anything else up there, I complain internally while browsing solid front doors with adorable bow-topped wreaths on Pinterest.

Eventually, my crafty side shoved my whiny side out of the way like a bully on a playground and came up with an idea.  Cover that baby up!  I zipped to the sewing machine, dug in my fabric scraps, made a trip to the craft store, and by the next day, Fall had found its way to my front door.

Fresh cut leaves and berries front the front yard make great colorful accents, too.

So there you have it.  My take on the front door Fall Wreath. What's yours?



Mother's Day

I have to bring up Mother's Day for the sake of my own memory.  It's fading, fast.  I'm gettin' old here people.  But I desperately want to remember how much I love being a mama, and how sweet my girls are. (Especially tomorrow or the next day when someone is fighting over the bathroom or I have to pick up dirty socks off the dining table.)

So for that, I need to blog.

My girls awakened me early Sunday morning with great excitement.  I mumbled something about needing more sleep, but they wouldn't have it.  Noodle had prepared a beautiful breakfast of a fresh egg and cheese burrito with a side of neatly arranged tangerine sections.  I would have taken a picture of it had I had my wits about me, but it has been repeatedly shown that I don't have any wits at seven a.m.  It was an expertly prepared breakfast--since my sweet eleven-year-old Noodle has been preparing her own eggs since she was about six.  Poor thing had to learn.  Getting up at the crack 'o dawn to cook is not my forte.

As I was eating, Hopers gave me the gifts she made for me at school.  I can honestly say, I love some things about sending my kids to public school.  These little treasures they bring me are definitely one of them.  I'd never be able to coax something so funny out of them myself.

A refrigerator photo magnet.  Technically, I went to the school and took this photo (and one of each kid in the class).  There goes my hands-off theory.  But I wasn't in on what was being made with the photo, so it's all good.


But here's the funny part.  Parents out there, you know you love these...

 It's a purse.

 But a purse with a True Story.

Oh those goats...always slipping my memory.  It's 'cause I'm old, you know.

I love it when I'm nice, too.  Makes things so much more pleasant.

Mrs. Carroll is Hopers' teacher. Excellent comparison, Hopers, excellent.

There is a particular dark green dress I own that Hoper's always asks me to wear to church.  I never do, of course, because it's covered in sequins! (I bought for a cruise, once upon a time...)

Happy Mother's Day!

Egg Hunters and Memory Loss

At our house on Easter Sunday, we like to enjoy a traditonal egg hunt. With all these kids, it's a must. Mom and I hid 135 eggs (yeah, yeah, overkill, blah blah blah) boiled and plastic, around my yard. The dads were working swiftly on the new treehouse during the hiding, so it was up to us ladies to remember where every single egg was.

 . . . .

What was I talking about?


Oh yeah.  Easter. And so,

Underneath these calm, smiling faces are wheels and fireworks waiting to burst into action!  How cruel of me to make them wait just one more moment.... Ready, set, GO!

In a blitz of energy, everyone sprints off to find the little hidden treasures.

Like father, like son.  Tate and Dad wore their matching work blues today.

Victoria's eggs were the coveted "golden" eggs of the day.  There were only two, but Tabi found one.  The prize was a grand feeling of victory and a pat on the back.

Tate.

Hopers found a few of the eggs we dyed with turmeric.

And Faith found the other Victoria egg.  Give yourself a pat on the back, honey, I'm holding a camera.

Teegan.

 

 

Faith and her Daddy, searching for more eggs. Somehow (yet not surprising because it happens every year) we didn't find all the eggs. I swear the missing eggs are the ones Mom hid.  She swears they're the ones I hid.  But at any rate, there are nine out there in my yard right now.... or in my dog's stomach.

 

Happy Easter!

Thanksgiving Camping

For the last several days, I've been living in a tent, cooking over a fire, and not bothering to brush my children's hair. No, we didn't suddenly become vagabonds.  We celebrated Thanksgiving!

Our tradition, going back since I was a kid, has been to pack up and slip away to the woods for several days during this special holiday. No one has to worry about hosting a fancy dinner at their house (or even cleaning it for that matter).  No one has to answer work email or phone calls (no cell service).  Nothing but God's creation, plenty of play time, and of course, lots of food!

This year the involved families were: ours (Me, Seth, Noodle, Hopers, and Poppy the dog), my parents' family (Amie, G-Daddy, Tobi, Tabi, Teegan, Tate, and their 5 dogs), and Seth's sister's family (Jena, Dave, Kirsten, Katelyn, David and their two dogs).

We went to Aiken State Park in South Carolina. Originally, I was skeptical because 1. it wasn't booked up for Thanksgiving like every other state park in America, and 2. most of the reviews I read said it was "quiet", which in my mind translated to "ugly and boring."

My skepticism was for naught.  It was gorgeous. The landscape reminded me of the rolling, hilly woodlands of North Florida. The park boasted of two small lakes and a winding little river passing through it.  We soon discovered that, yes, it was quiet, and no, it was definitely not boring.

I think we were the loudest ones there.

Tate, Teegan, Katelyn, and Jena

We played a few games of impromptu football and soccer.

Hopers, Tabi, Noodle and Tobi

The kids roasted marshmallows pretty much any time they thought about it...which was whenever they were awake.

Dave and Seth

The guys channeled their inner manliness and spent lots of time hunting down wood and chopping it for the fire.

Seth and Poppy (left).  Poppy and Kirsten (right)

Poppy enjoyed camping as much as the rest of us because she got lots of attention.

On day 2 we found a big tree to play in.  It was my dad's idea: create a zip line for the kids.  You know whenever my dad thinks about trees, it means my husband will end up in the top of one.

Dad brought all kinds of climbing ropes and gear to play with.  Everything was super-duper rated for holding up huge things.  Like Tabi.

Me making a harness for Katelyn (left).  Seth trying his own harness (right).

I learned how to make a harness out of a single strap, some knots and a carabiner (Dad researched it and taught me). I became the harness queen, tying and untying straps on children as they took turns on the zip line. Seth thought it would be faster to use a ready-made harness, but after OW OW OW PUT ME DOWN he decided not so much.

Noodle, takin' a crack at it.

Everyone took a turn flying through the air and loved it.  Well, not Teegan and Tate.  They declined in favor of staying close to the ground.

Hopers

Katelyn zipping toward Tabitha. Aghhhhh! Tabi moved just in time.

I decided I needed a turn on this crazy contraption. I whipped up a harness for myself (I knew all those hours of knitting would pay off!) and clipped in.

Me, David, Hopers, Katelyn, Tobi, Noodle, and Dave

The kids thought it would be a breeze to pull me up to the highest point.  (They ended up needing a little help.  Darn you, apple pie!)



Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Next to our zip line trees was one of the lakes.  Did I mention this place was gorgeous?  I managed to hold down a couple of girls for photo ops.

Noodle

The girls.  Aunts. Cousins.  Tobi (9), Noodle (11), Hopers (6), Kirsten (13), Tabi (7), Katelyn (10).

On day 3 we found the other lake and decided to do some fishing there.

It was pretty, but the only thing we caught were frogs.  I think someone lied when they said the lake was stocked with catfish.  Either that, or the catfish were smaller than the frogs.

Hopers enjoying herself while Noodle pouts about the fishing.

We hung up our fishing poles in favor of a little canoeing.  There were canoes for rent to either paddle around the lakes or to take down the river.  My gang, plus David, were the only ones brave enough to travel a river in 55 degree weather, so we rented two canoes and jumped in to our little adventure.  We brought Noodle's i-pod with its waterproof case with us to take pictures.

The river was beautiful, the water was freezing, and Noodle was REALLY nervous about the boat tipping.

Me, Noodle and Seth were in one canoe.

David and Hopers were in the other canoe. 

Being split up, we lost sight of David and Hopers for a while, as they were the first ones in the water.  As it turns out, Hopers wanted to race us, but they spent a good amount of time getting stuck in low branches!

Every night, we settled around the fire after eating (way too much food).

Noodle, Seth, Tobi, and Kirsten

The kids took to drawing and playing hangman in the sand by the fire and singing songs...

Tate and G-Daddy (left).  Hopers (right).

...and making silly faces....

Jena and Teegan

...and telling stories....

...and giving the doggies some love.

Even with the temps getting down into the 20's on the last night, we all stayed cozy in our tents thanks to the great invention of the space heater. 

G-Daddy with Tate's frozen pants that had been left out to dry.

The kids all got along amazingly.  The food was out of this world.  We had our feast, of course, on Thursday, with turkey, fried fish, ham, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, macaroni and cheese, winter squash casserole, baked beans, rolls, green bean casserole, and pies.  Then, on Saturday night, we had a chili cook-off between the three families.  Jena made Green Bay Chili, which is a sweet and tasty beef and bean concoction served over macaroni noodles.  Mom made vegetarian chili with a side of "Noodle's Chili" to please my picky daughter who doesn't like onions and bell peppers.  I made venison chili, which has become a mainstay around my kitchen in the winter.

It was a really great trip. One of my top favorites ever, I think.  The kids are all begging to go back there again next year.  However, today is Monday. I am home and in the throes of a two-ton-truckload of laundry.  The kind of laundry saturated with campfire-smoke-knees-in-the-dirt-playing-hangman-loving-on-doggies for five days.  I am inclined at this moment to ban all camping forever! 

Good thing my laundry memory is short and my love for tradition is tall.

Happy Thanksgiving!