Spring Break Campout!

My brother Shad had a blast camping on a lake front shelter site at Lake Livingston state park last year.  In fact, he had so much fun that he booked 8 of the 10 shelter sites for 3 nights (March 13-15) over spring break this year and invited us to come!
We brought our buddies the T family, my sister Jamie and fam drove down from Dallas, my sister Carrie came, and 3 families from Shad's ward.  It was a blast.  The kids ran and played and fished all day, the adults chatted and played and fished all day, and Shad set up a movie projector on the back of one of the shelters each night.  It was just about as perfect of a camping trip as you could want.  I loved watching the sunrises and sunsets over the lake, and the quiet lapping of the water.  I searched pinterest for food ideas and we had such yummy meals the whole time.  And we really enjoyed the time with friends and family.  We might have to make this a tradition!

The sunset on March 13.  I will admit this was NOT my favorite camping day.  I spent the morning finishing our camping prep, loading the car, driving the hour to the campsite, unloading the car, setting up the shelter, feeding the kids dinner, etc--all on my own since Dan needed to conserve vacation days and wasn't coming up until after work the next day.  But we pushed through and bedtime came and I survived :)

My nephews fishing.  I love this pic.  I love those boys.

Our family's shelter

Shad caught the best fish of the trip on that first evening--it was big!

We enjoyed our morning on the 14th.  We'd been cold but not uncomfortable through the night and had a nice simple oatmeal breakfast.   

Brooke and Megan's favorite part of the trip was having command of their own flashlights.  They loved them.

I even tried my hand at fishing on Thursday.  

And proved--I still got it!  Look at that fishy!

Megan T and Chloe became fast friends.

Candy and Kenzie were such cute buddies--they got so dirty everyday but had so much fun.

We went to a ranger talk on Friday and then rode bikes over to a little park.

Silly girls playing in the piles of dead leaves.

Silly girls playing in the afternoon.  They all enjoyed trying fishing too.  Therefore my brother Shad spent a great deal of time every day re-stringing fishing poles and replacing lost bobbers.  He's the best.

The inside of our shelter.  Dan and I slept on the air mattress downstairs with Candy in the pack-n-play (there's also a picnic table down there).

Megan and Brooke's beds up in the loft.

You can't see it, but that's a bald eagle right there in the middle--really, it was!

We saved our best meal for last--lemon curry dutch oven chicken--yum, yum, and yum.

The last sunset (March 15).

All 12 grandkids from my family---age 12 down to 20 months

My family minus Dad and Tyler

Our family--looking pretty rough but we got a pic :)

My sister Jamie and her fam...

Our great buddies--the T family.  We are so glad they came along!

One more silly shot

Love this pic of Brooke and Maddie

And---we successfully wiped out the girls.  This was about 5 minutes into the ride home :)

Rodeo Time 2013

I love the rodeo.  I love the Texas atmosphere and all the memories it brings back.  It's a pretty timeless place.  I love seeing my girls enjoy so many of the things that have remained unchanged since my own childhood.  Yee-haw!

The rodeo started a little early this year, so we hit up the first "value Wednesday" with playgroup on Feb. 27.   It was about 10:30 by the time we headed in with our friends and it was BUSY!

We checked out a few of the inside displays and then hit up my personal favorite--the pig races at 11:30.

Here are my kids pining after a pony ride.  But at $7 a pop it didn't make the cut for this cheapo mama.  I told them I didn't bring any money for that--did they?  Nope--too bad then.  And really, they earn between 5 and 10 cents when they do extra chores and they have somewhere around 30 cents each saved up--maybe next year :)

We then ate our lunches and headed to "the farm" area just as the school trips thinned out some.    (lunch time below)

Honing their tractor driving skills--this farming business is hard work...

 Candy especially loved the horse cut-out.

Here they are with their baskets full of produce--Brooke, Kenzie, Candy, Maddie, and Nathan--our buddies for the day.

Loving the corn box...

The girls and I are making our way through the "Little House" series and Megan and Brooke were pretty psyched to get to practice milking cows just like Almanzo has to in Farmer Boy.

Brooke and Candy

Megan

 My kids love the part of "the farm" where you sell your produce to the market, receive fake money, and then use that to buy a treat.  They bought fruit roll-ups and I'm pretty sure they'd never seen one before.  They were in heaven. 

 We caught up with some pigs on our way back in and took some photos.  *please note the fabulous blue teeth, courtesy of the fruit roll-ups

 

When we got back inside, it was EMPTY!  We wandered around the very un-crowded exhibits and saw more in our last 20 minutes inside than we did in our first hour.  Along with a few bunnies, we also got to pet a 2 day old lamb.  Ah-dorable.  I kind of want a small flock of sheep for the backyard.  What's not to love?  They are so soft, and lambs are so cute, and we'd never have to mow the lawn.  

Candy was pretty excited to watch the guinea pigs run around--cutie.

After a long day of farming, these girls got some quality time with their Daddy and some BOB books.  He's such a good daddy.  Megan was trying to finish book 7 so she could earn some time on the kindle and he sat there with her for almost 30 minutes--so patient as she fought her way through each..little...word.  He's a saint.  I made it for about 7 minutes (and perhaps ONE word) that afternoon before my patience was gone.  Megan is interested in reading and we are working on it.  But she wants to know how to read without having to practice.  So it's been a bit of a struggle.  I'm trying not to push it too hard but also making more of an effort to spend time trying every day.  I can't wait for when she gets it and the whole world of reading is opened up to her--I try to keep that in mind when we're driving each other crazy along the way :).

February part 1

This little 18 month old keeps us laughing with her silly personality (Feb. 7, 2013)

With so many necklaces, clothes are overrated (Feb. 8, 2013)

I got my sewing and craft supplies all organized onto new shelves.  It's so nice to have more storage space! (Feb. 8, 2013)

Spring is around the corner (ha!), so I planted flowers (Feb. 8, 2013)

More kindle time (we are enjoying our Christmas gift from Dan's parents), Feb. 10, 2013

Shad and Amy headed to an orthodontic conference so we gained some extra cuties for a few days (Feb. 13, 2013)

Chloe got to join in on joy school on Valentines day (Feb. 14, 2013)

Cute heart hair...

Even more friends over for some coloring and playing (Feb. 15, 2013)

Pizza ready to bake for babysit swap!  (Feb. 15)

Pretty cute group on a Friday night (Feb. 15) (3 from the T family, 3 from the M family, 3 from our family, plus 2 from Shad and Amy!--that's 11!)

Zoo day with us and Shad's 4 kids... (Feb. 16, 2013)

 Hailey, Brooke, Chloe, Megan

Zach popped up in there too

Getting all clean...

It was a fun weekend with Shad's kids.  They headed home after church on Feb. 17.

Uncle Ben was here with UVU on Feb. 23.  It's always fun to watch him play and catch up with him a little bit.  They played HBU.  Tyler and Steven came with us to watch the game.

Go #34!

Played some "haha" game at joy school (Feb. 26, 2013)  Candace, Megan, Maddie, Brooke, Evelyn, Christie

Haircuts!

Megan and Brooke got their second ever haircuts, again at salon de mom back on February 9.  Megan's hair was actually legitimately long and getting it brushed out was becoming quite the battle in the mornings.  So we cut about 4 inches off. 
I learned my lesson from last year and was very cautious in cutting Brooke's hair.  Those curls make things tricky.  So I just cut off maybe an inch where it was longer in the back so it could be all even. 
We were all happy with the outcome and I saved $20--go team!

Megan's before (look at all that hair on my little formerly bald baby)!

 
And after...

Brookie's before--a little crazy back there

And after!