Recovering...

Yesterday ended up being a lot busier than I initially planned ;) 

After finishing laundry and repacking the camper, I vacuumed and scrubbed the inside of it so it would be all fresh for our trip.  I re-made all the beds and packed up some of the food that won't go bad, including some homemade trail mix that has become our tradition for long trips!  

It was starting to get later and I planned on quitting for the day and just working on photos, until I caught site of the garden.  I couldn't walk away.  I weeded for 3 1/2 hours and walked away extremely sore, but it is DONE!  I'll do a one over on it on Thursday, but at least the bulk of it is done.  

This morning I took one of the tires from the camper down to get looked at.  It's had a slow leak for a while now and we figured with the trip we are going to be making, it was time to get it taken care of.  Turns out it had a piece of wire in the tire.  Dishes got done today, along with banana bread and cookies.  Bills are paid and I'm currently uploading pictures to the computer.  The list is dwindling down!  

Tomorrow you will all get a good post I promise :)

Busy week...

This is one of those weeks that I need to make myself a to do list!  I have a lot to do before we head to visit with my sister!  I'm finally finished with the camping laundry.  The goal today is to get it all back in the camper and remake all the beds.  I also need to make the girl's 4th quarterly reports and all that good jazz and get that sent in.  That however has only been complicated by the fact that we came home from camping with Doug last week to an error code on the printer that I can't resolve, or at least don't have time to mess with it right now.  I'm hoping I can fix it, but if not I need to decide on a new one.  All of that will have to wait until we return though.  I'm very thankful for family being right down the road who are willing to let me use their printer for a couple things this week!  Hopefully tonight I'll get pictures uploaded off the camera and edited so I can post about some of our adventures!  Until then, I need to get my list made and start checking it off!  I hope you all have a great day!

A very odd day for me...

Today I'm home with Lily all by myself!  I do have Molly and Chloe with me, but the girls are with Grandma and Grandpa, playing with Owen and Ashton.  It's so odd to have such a quiet house!  To top it all off, I did all the laundry and cleaned the whole house before I left for Darien Lake....so now what do I do?  LOL  Molly is enjoying a well deserved nap in her chair...she loves camping, but she misses being home as well.  Chloe is napping in her chair...I planned on leaving her with the girls, but she wasn't going to be left and jumped in the car, so she is enjoying being home too!  Lily is in the pack n play napping....it's sooooo quiet!  I had plans for another blog today, but I left my camera in the camper so I don't have my pictures!  So this will have to do. 

 Enjoy your day!  I hope you all have an awesome one!

1st vacation of the year...

Ok, so maybe vacation is pushing it a little bit.   Sunday evening, we headed out for Darien Lake State Park.   We didn't make to bad of time and were there about 9ish.  We had a beautiful site and although we had planned on setting up in the rain, God held it off for us!   Monday morning we got up and got ready for an awesome day at the amusement park.   My parents arrived and we were off!  We were able to leave Molly a lot easier this year since she hasn't been crated at home lately.   We were hopeful that this year we would not come back to anything eaten or destroyed.   What a beautiful day we had!  There wasn't much for lines and the weather was perfect!   Marissa's favorite ride this year was the mind eraser.  Madalyn loved grizzly run.   Both were new rides to the girls this year.   This was the first year Marissa could ride on that coaster and grizzly run was always shut down in previous years.  We all rode the motocoaster many times again this year and again the girls loved it.  Dad,Doug and I rode the superman this year.   I forgot how much I love that one!  Doug tried out the Brain Drain this year...it's a new ride where you stand in a tube and the floor drops out on you.   I can't remember how long you fall for, but the ride is only 7 seconds long!  He liked it :)  We had probably one of the best years we have had yet.   The park closed at 8 and we headed back to the site and pretty much got ready for bed.   It makes for a long day.  At 11,the Lord woke us up with some good wind and we decided to put in the canopy and put everything that was outside in the back of the car.  At 4:30am,we woke up to a very nasty thunder/lightening  storm...so bad that even Chloe was in our bed shaking! It lasted about an hour and then started to calm down.   Madalyn slept through it, and Marissa said she was awake, but she stayed in her bed.  Everything stayed safe and in thankful for another great year there!

It's done!!!!

 We are back to a two bathroom family!  This bathroom was easier in the aspect that we had more room to work in there, but we also had a few major hang ups that made laying the tile a huge pain in the butt!  Thankfully when everything is said and done and the tiles are all in, you can't tell all that we went through to get them in there! :)  

I'm so thankful to have a weekend where we don't have anything hanging over our heads!  The girls are SUPER stoked to be showering in their own shower today! ;)

My baby girl is growing up fast!

Yesterday we all got up, got Daddy out the door and began our day.  I started the laundry and then got in the shower.  Before too long, I hear one of the girls enter the bathroom.  She announced that she was gathering garbages because it's Wednesday and the garbage needed to go out.  She gathered every garbage, and the recycleables, and dragged them all outside.  She got herself ready for the day, cleaned the cat pan and had plans of doing the dishes as well!  She is such a hard worker and so dedicated to helping wherever she can.  

I'm so thankful to be her mom! 

Saturday....

Saturday we got up, had a good breakfast and set out for a nice bike ride.  Doug had to practice for a special on Sunday at the church and then we had a graduation party to attend down the road at the park.  It's all down hill on the way... which in turns means its all uphill on the way back.  Things were going really good until we hit one portion.  We still aren't sure what happened exactly, but Madalyn crashed.  God was good as we were spaced out pretty good and she didn't get hit by Marissa or I who were both behind her.  We did have a few band aids with us as well as water so we cleaned her up best we could until we could get to Grandma Jenkins house and do a better job.  She jumped back on her bike like a champ though!  I'm so proud of her!   All in all, we rode between 15-20 miles and the girls did great!  When we got home I cleaned up her wounds again and sprayed some of this stuff on it.  It's for animals, but we have had such good luck with on the dogs in the past and its safe for puppies, kittens, ferrets, and nursing animals that we figured it was fine.  Doug doubled checked with a vet friend of his and he confirmed that it would do the trick.  

It worked great!  Within 4 hours, her arms were scabbed over and no longer oozing and her knee looked a lot better.  We both said later that we should have taken crash site pictures for the blog, but maybe you would all have rather we didn't! ;)  Anyhow, this is how she looks as of Monday morning...

Her knee even has new skin on it already!  We are hoping to get her knee healed up good before we head to Darien Lake next week!

Despite it all, we did have a great day and we really enjoyed our bike ride!

More fun with Grandma...

Wednesday night after everyone left, Mom and I stayed up and waited for Dad to get home.  Both the dogs were exhausted!  Can you find Chloe?

The next morning we got the play-dough out...nothing beats the smell and feel of fresh play-dough!

My little dude :)

Madalyn's one of many faces...

Mom's almost perfect ball!

#2

Getting close!

#3

#4

Mom turned her almost perfect ball into a soccer/golf ball ;)

While we were busy play with our play dough, Molly snuck on the couch...LOL  She doesn't look like she is sorry about it! ;)

We had so much fun on our little vacation....the only thing that would have made it better would have been if Doug could have joined us!  Next time ;)

Spending time with family!

It had been over a year since we had seen Caleb, Cristale, Casen and Arya!  Time really flies :)  I couldn't believe how much the kids had grown and changed!  When we first got there we spent most of the time outside.  Mom and Dad have a baby swing and a horse swing that hang from one of their big pines out back.  So a good share of the afternoon was spent switching the swings out from one to the other so a different kid could ride.  We also spent a good share of time playing kickball!  The three oldest especially got alot out of that.  Casen was so funny playing and really got into it.  By the time we were done playing, Grandma and Aunt Sarah/Mom were beyond beat!  It was pretty warm out so we headed inside to cool down with some snacks and drinks.  We ended up just staying in and the kids split to go do their own thing.  

Arya wanted to color...I can't get over how big she is and how much she talks!  

So sweet!  She looks so much like her Mama.

:)

LOL

These three were all over the house and played so well together!  The girls are really going to miss Casen!

Grandma and Grandpa had makings for Sundaes and the kids enjoyed making their own creations!

Arya was so funny with these balls...she found a bag full of them downstairs and she had so much fun playing by herself with them.

They Grandma joined in...with the help of "Gumby" who had to place the balls where Arya said to....so cute!

Love the look!

And this one too :)

The older three had gotten pretty quiet and I went downstairs to find these two on the phone with Marissa...I love them!

So thankful for the time we had to spend with them!

I'm back!

Tuesday late afternoon, the girls and I, (all 4 of them) headed up to spend some time with my parents.  It's been a little while since we have seen them, almost a month so it was really great to see them again and spend some time relaxing away from home and all that needs to be done here.  Wednesday afternoon, Caleb and Cristale and the kids stopped into Mom and Dad's for a while and we got to spend some time with them.  The kids had a BLAST together!  They have both grown so much!  We taught Casen how to play kickball and I think that was the kids' highlight of their afternoon!  I got back last night about an hour before Doug got home! :)  We snuck in a bike ride, got the floor grouted, and mowed the lawn.  This morning I got up, finished up the bathroom and I need to string trim the yard, fill in a hole in the back yard, and RELAX tonight with my husband!  The bathroom is all set until Sunday night when it needs to be sealed.  Unless Doug gets home during the week this coming week, it is official that by Friday evening or Saturday we will have 2 completed bathrooms again!!!  I'm beyond excited and I can NOT wait to be done with projects for a little while!  

Youth Group

This month we had an awesome meeting.  We met an hour early so we could clean the church.  Once we finished cleaning, eating, and having our devotion, we cleared the basement and played "Who can blow up the most balloons the fastest?"!  It doesn't look like it, but they blew up over 100.  

Then they chose teams...

Goofing around ;)

After a good countdown, we set them loose to play the human version of Hungry Hungry Hippos!!!

Afterwards, we headed outside to play a version of Capture the flag with the balloons.  9pm came really fast, but before we left, we had to "dispose" of the balloons...

I wonder if from now on Preacher will lock his truck when he isn't home on a night that we have Youth Group ;)

Poor Daniel didn't fare well on his first night at youth group!

We had a blast!  Looking forward to our next outing in July!