Man, I'm tired

I had a great time visiting family in Florida over the weekend. All 5 of us kids in the same place at the same time doesn't happen often. The next time it will happen will be the day before my 30th birthday. I'm excited about that :)

Anyway, I have pictures to upload and then some more to borrow from Facebook after others post them. I just have to say that I'm tired. I'm so very tired. How many days is it going to take me to recover? I asked Cody this morning "I wonder if it's going to be like this all week. My eyes are soooo heavy." Ideally, after three incredibly long days (and pretty much no sleep) I would attempt to be in bed at a decent hour and try and recoup. Not this week. The kids (all 3 of them) are having their birthday party on Saturday, so I have so much to get done to be ready for that, and Hannah has dance camp until 8 every night this week. Over the course of the last few days I have not cooked and we resorted to McDonald's for dinner last night (so not like us). We did all sit down at the kitchen table at 8:30 and eat together (that makes it a little better, right?). I looked at Cody and said "I don't like this, I hate doing this." To which he replied, me too. Maybe tonight I'll try and go to bed before 11:00. I'd like to say that I'll make something, but nobody went to the grocery store over the weekend. I think veggie burgers will be dinner tonight.
Tomorrow night I will cook! Well, the crock pot will cook the chicken that is thawing in the refrigerator as I type!

The baby with wild hair

Would you look at this baby, if you can get past his hair :), he's pretty stinkin' cute. I love this baby. I love his hair, and his big brown eyes, and his head, and his feet, and all his rolls, and his baby smell.

I keep telling my sister that I'm jealous. I always wanted a baby that had jet black hair. But I will settle for having a nephew that has jet black hair.

I'm going to Florida this weekend (but sadly I'm spending more time in airports then actually in Florida...bummer). My grandparents are celebrating their 60th anniversary. How awesome is that? 60 years! Man! I'll also get my fill of this cute monster too. "Aunt Money" doesn't like to go more then a few days without seeing him.

Come to our puffet show!

We read 2 stories almost every night before bed. Sometimes we deviate from routine, just to spice things up a little. The other night the kids decided they wanted to put on a "puffet show" (so what that she's almost 7 and still says puffet instead of puppet, I can't bring myself to correct her, it's one of the few things she says incorrectly). They wanted to do this instead of reading. Cool, this should be funny.

Cast of characters: strange blue girl, army bunny, Eli (we had to tell him that we aren't supposed to be able to see you...a few times), and a lion like creature. This is what we learned...Hannah has the imagination and Eli is obsessed with wrestling; which he did not get from either one of us because, well,we hate it. I'm not kidding. I can not tell you how much time he spends talking about wrestling and all the wrestlers. Smile and nod, that's what I do.

Strange blue girl would ask questions about school and life. The other two characters would respond with something related to wrestling, totally not answering the question. The best part is that strange blue girl's mouth would move at the appropriate times. Army bunny and the lion like creature would not move their mouth at the right time. They would not be talking, yet their mouths would move. Then we could hear the voices and no movement. We laughed hysterically and tried to tell him when and when not to move their mouths. But alas, he failed to listen. About 5 minutes after the show began, the puppeteers began to bow. Pretty sure it was due to the fact that Hannah was done hearing about wrestling and strange blue girl being the target of attempted moves.

That was long...

While on our camping trip, we went for a hike. You can't go camping and not go for a hike, right?

We hiked around this lake. The trail around the lake was less then a mile, but we opted to go up and to the nature center. It ended up being about 2.3 miles.

Cody (and the self-timer) took these before we really got into the hike. You caught the "up" part right? While it doesn't seem like a lot, it really is, especially for the kids. We went up in elevation about 250 feet. They did awesome. They were excited about it the whole time. Even when we got to the stairs. Holy cow. Had I been thinking I would have taken a picture of the stairs. There were soooo many. But I was only thinking about getting up the stairs without Maggie trying to drag me (we call Cody #1 and I'm #2 when it comes to Maggie, wherever Cody goes Maggie goes). This made the stairs and parts of the hike fun. She was literally attached to me, and at some points I was not who she wanted to be attached to. So, she would attempt to pull (makes for great impromptu training sessions because she also has to obey #2). I loved Eli's reaction to seeing the stairs. "Oh my word!" (that's his new phrase) Ya know what? He was the first one to the top! We were so proud of him. Cody and I were a little unsure if he would make it all the way up.

They did such an awesome job and they keep talking about it and wanting to know when we are going again. Next stop Marengo Cave, that should be fun :)

Pick-up sticks

We went camping over the weekend. We invested in a very nice tent over the winter and finally had a weekend to use it. After last year's disaster of borrowing a tent that would hold all of us, and the thunderstorms, and the puddles of water inside the tent...I demanded this and he was ever so happy to oblige my demand. After using it, soooo worth the money.

The kids had a blast this time. Hannah was nervous about going...after last time, who could blame her. Not now, when we were packing up she wanted to know when we would do it again.

The entire time we were out Eli played pick-up sticks.

Every time we made a trip to the potty, Eli found sticks. While hiking, Eli found sticks. He was constantly picking up sticks to help the fire. He and Cody built the first fire. After that he decided that picking up sticks would be his job.

Once the fire was made, he felt it was his job to continue feeding the flames with little sticks. Yeah, and the dried leaves. He thought it was awesome to make the fire smoke. The fire needs to smoke! Not really buddy, and he had to be told a few times to stop throwing all those leaves in the fire. Then he turned it into asking every few minutes if it was time to throw another leaf in the fire. I'm glad he had fun and can't wait to go again.

I love these guys...

Sometimes things are hard and stressful. That's life, you have to take the good with the bad. I can be overwhelmed at times when things get hard, but then I look at them and know that I handle anything thrown at me. They are so worth everything.

Recital Time

Hannah has a studio wide dance recital once a year. I love and hate this weekend all at the same time. I love the time I get with just her doing the dress rehearsal on Saturday and then pretty much a full day on Sunday. What I don't like, it's a tad stressful. She had 3 routines this year, so that means 3 costume changes. But we all survived and she was fabulous!


Here is she is in her tap costume. She is really liking tap. I think it might be the noise the shoes make...maybe that's what I like :)

Here she is in her ballet costume. I apologize for the very bad lighting in the other picture. I've been talking (really hinting) to Cody about wanting a Nikon D80 and taking some photography classes. Seriously, how awesome a wedding present would that be, but then I'd have to match with an equally awesome present.

Here she is with the other girls in her jazz class. This class (and tap) is new for her this year. She's had a blast in it too.