Alex, Boo and KK Too!

Although we had an indoor camping trip last year, this year we had our first outdoor camping trip.  We found an excellent campground right on the Lake.  It came complete with canoe and on-site babyholders.  Ok, it was Opa and Oma's new house but can you blame us for wanting to camp at a nice peaceful lake? The kids made it through the night in the tent and I feel about 10 years older than I am after sleeping the majority of the night off of the airmattress as Boo and Ham had taken over my space.  After realizing what had happened I moved Boo back to his super nice mattress and slid onto my pretty puny mattress.  Hind sight I should have just leap frogged Boo and slept in comfort.  The nice thing was that when Ham was up at 6am, there was a coffee maker and hot coffee.  I've decided camping is one of those activities that I'm not really excited about since right now we tend to lean towards camping at campgrounds where there are a lo...

I'm not sure why I find the 6 year mark bigger than any other year but this year felt pretty significant for Noodle.  Luckily I was able to take the day off since it fell on a Wednesday.  We started off the day by opening presents.  Since Noodle mastered the two-wheel bike we upgraded her bike.  Of course given my love of bikes I put a lot of research into this purchase!  Luckily it wasn't for nothing as she loves her new bike.  by going to the local amusement park since they had toddler time.  After that we went out to lunch and both kids got chocolate chip pancakes with a candle.  Then it was off to animal shelter where we dropped off all the donations Noodle collected at her birthday party. The rescue gave us a quick tour and let Noodle and Boo take a picture with a puppy and the donations.  We had a little time to ride bikes before heading off to swim class.  Then there were cupcakes at the...

Given my love of biking I was worried that Noodle would never really take to biking since she LOVES her scooter so much.  She finally decided it might be time to try riding without the wheels.  She generally doesn't want to try something new until she can easily master it and this was no different.  Twice I ran with her holding her seat and after that she was off.  Amazingly the scooter hasn't been used since and the kids continue to beg to go out and ride! Not sure why Dad decided to ride the bike but I was glad I quickly got this picture. 

On my days off I try to do a fun activity with the kids.  It feels like most days, the second I come home I have to get dinner ready, clean and get the kids to bed so my day off allows me some time with them.  This week we visited a cool new park. 

The kids and I headed out on a little excursion today.  First to one of my favorite coffee shops where they enjoyed a steamer and I got a nice latte.  The kids have clearly honed in on the fact that rough nights equal a trip to the coffeeshop and they'll get their steamer.  I used to be tricky enough to ask for one pump steamers but others have been kinder in the addition of sugar so they usually catch my methods.  Anyway, I digress. The next stop was a charity book store which focuses on getting books out to all kids in the community.  It's donation based so you offer what you want.  I see this as a very expensive library method as I tend to return the books after a while.  I could just as easily donate the money but the picking out of the books is what makes it so great.  As we're going through our standard prioritzation exercise to get down to the three books I was allowing I notice Kellan pooping.  Since he tends to go all out I figured ...

For the third year we've decided to get a community garden spot.  Every year I've very much enjoyed puttering out in the garden while the kids help me weed and plant stuff, then head out on adventures in the surrounding dirt piles.  This year my plan was to get up super early, since last year we almost lost out even though I got there 15 minutes before they opened, but of course it was a snow day meaning Noodle didn't have school and the prospect of dressing three kids to stand outside and wait for the community center to open was a bit much.  Lucky for us J was still able to get a spot later in the day.  Of course getting out to the garden with three kids and a job is a little harder so our garden feels a little neglected at times.  We do now have a few tomato plants, corn and carrots planted.  The zucchini amazingly didn't make it.  I say amazing because I feel that's the veggie that anyone can keep alive...