Summer 2008 - First Camping Trip of the Season

Derek took the girls camping this weekend. (I had a Board of Directors training I had to attend so I came up late Saturday night.) They went to Kroger Campground in La Plata Canyon (about one hour from the house, up the Colorado mountains).

On Saturday they went on a long hike - up to tree line. Derek was excited at how good the girls were on the hike - they enjoyed it! This is great for Derek as everyone knows what a hiker he is. Even Pongo, our 10 year old Lab, did the hike well. Derek says he is showing his age a bit, but he did well. Then they did some four-wheeling in the truck up to the old mine. The girls collected "Fool's Gold" and a few other "treasurers". Olivia found a stick (just an ordinary stick to you or I) and names it "Toomi" she still has the stick this morning - she slept with it, she asked to bathe with it (and was promptly told "no") and when Daddy tried to throw it out she made him climb down the steep mountain to get it!

I came up Saturday night and we had dinner, made Smores, climbed the fence at the campground and watched the girls perform dances they made up.

Our family is diverse in our level of marshmallow roasting. Here is how Derek & I like our Smores... slowly roasted & slightly browned.Then there is Emily - she likes it burned completely!
Olivia - she just likes it in between, however when she discovered she could light them on fire she began to do that for fun! Here is Emily blowing it out for her! The girls had a great time & here are some more pictures of our trip:

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Peculiar Resting Spots

Someone recently asked on a blog what strangest place your child has ever napped was... I am not sure this is all that strange (albeit no doubt unique) but it is rather funny. This is Olivia in June 2007 sleeping while on our river trip.

The Family Photo Process

We were coordinating, dressed nice and had yet to ruin our clothes this morning (Easter morning) so after church we tried to get a family photo... and the process reminded me how ironic the ending photo with a happy family smiling at the camera is when the process tends to be really grueling! I had to tell the girls over and over, "Quit picking your noses, drop the stick, you can't put your hand there for a photo, smile, don't cross your eyes, open your eyes, put your hat back on, etc..." and the whole time they whine. Today they wanted to go on "an adventure" not sit in the front yard for a photo shoot. Here is the final product (not professional of course, but the best we could do)!

Here are some other attempts:

And my personal favorite (I look mad, but really was trying to blow my bangs out of my face):

But after the "photo shoot" I got the best gift from the girls:

Spring is Here!

Obviously we are not keeping up on our blog as much as we'd hoped too... life has just been busy around here! Anyhow, we are officially on Spring Break (yeah!!!!) and the girls and I have a long and relaxing week filled with... NOTHING! We did this on purpose because we all wanted time to read, go on walks, sleep in and not be on a schedule. We've started seedlings for our garden, tilled up the front flower patch, cleaned out the shed, go out our spring & summer clothes & we are planning a movie day next week too!

I wanted to share some pictures of our St. Patrick's Day celebration and Easter celebrations.

So here is St. Patrick's Day - we traditionally leave out a Leprechaun trap (a green box Emily decorated with gold "coins" and rainbows when she was two years old) and in the morning we always find treats in the box, but no Leprechaun! We figure he left us treats and then escaped. This year he left us t-shirts, temporary tattoos, green necklaces and the ever important Gold Chocolate Coins. Then to our surprise he had turned the toilet water green & the milk! Silly little Leprechaun.

Here is our Easter celebration... our Easter bunny leaves a trail of eggs... pink for Olivia and purple for Emily from the girls beds to their basket. This year Olivia's basket was under the kitchen sink & Emily's was in the trash can under the computer desk... the hiding places are getting trickier because they are getting bigger. We then ate breakfast & went to church. Lastly we will do the Resurrection Eggs to "hit home" what Easter is about.

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It's "Snow" fun when school is cancelled!

Last night we watched the Super Bowl and Mom & Marty's house. Since the game got over late Emily stayed at their house. They were going to take her to school in the morning. However, it snowed and snowed last night and so alas when we woke up this morning school had been cancelled. Marty offered to drive Emily home after they "hung out" for a while. When Emily got home we quickly ate lunch, got dressed in our winter gear and Olivia, Emily & I went outside to make a snowman! The girls decided they wanted to make three snowgirls... one for each of us.

The first few snowballs we made were TOO big for me to pick up (heavy lifting is for Daddy...) so we ended up having to make the snowballs smaller. Then we made three snowgirls... this took all the snow in our front yard as well as the neighbors (thanks Jennifer)! The girls used bark, branches & rocks for the finishing touches and as if it was "meant to be" I had three carrots left for noses.

Above is Emily's!

Here is Olivia's.

Olivia decided she wanted the big snowman to be "Daddy". I asked her, "Where is Mommy then?" She responded, "Inside making hot cocoa silly!" So our three snowgirls turned into two snowgirls and their Daddy! How lucky for him to be immortalized (at least until the temperature rises) without having to do all the work!

Daddy was not home when we made these so there is no picture of him with his snowman!

New Year 2008

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