Week 3

Well it actually got pretty hot this week so plans got changed a lot! I had a friend over for dinner Monday night and I rocked the grill! I may be the new grill master of the house! Tuesday we rented a Wii game for something to play inside and got out the sprinkler for evening fun. Wednesday we were supposed to go to 6 Flags but the temp got to the upper 90's so we made a fort instead!

Of course the kids , being kids, wanted to sleep in the fort.....Maddy I guess didn't think it was such a good idea sometime during the night!



Thursday we got everything ready to go to the lake for Father's Day weekend! We love camping and go ANY chance we get!!!

 I love hiking so I drug my lil ones, puppy, and hubby with me for a hike on trails I had found while out riding my bike last time we were out. They thought it was a good idea at first...See the big smiles?

Away we go!

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Still smiling with mama....

                       

Absolutely beautiful trails!

Well we got a little lost....

And very hot....

So luckily I am trying to get back in shape after 18 years of smoking and stopping all exercise because it was too hard to breath. When I quit smoking I expected some weight gain but never expected all that I gained. I finally went to the doctor to find out my thyroid went crazy at the same time and that was the cause of most of my weight. Well, I have stopped gaining because I'm on medicine now but can not loose the stupid weight so I started to track everything I eat and do. Fortunately I have an awesome app on my phone called Map My Run that is kind of a GPS so when we got WAY off of the paths we intended to hike I was able to navigate us back to our original path. I saw places I didn't even know existed in that park! The kids had their fill of bugs, the hubby had his fill of their whining, the dog had anxiety about loosing me and I was covered in ticks! But through all that I had fun. I don't think I can say the same for them but whatever!

Our crazy route! I didn't start it from the time we took off but thank God I did start it!

Don't worry the girls recovered quickly and were out fishing with Papa in no time!

The puppy didn't quite bounce back as quickly!



We had planned to stay until Monday but it rained Saturday night and Sunday morning and it was soggy out so we packed up and went home early. It was such a fun weekend! I always hate coming back! Morgan made a fire in the backyard and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows with the girls and I caught up on my DVR. I think even though we left the campground early Morgan still had a good Father's Day. Vacation Bible School starts Monday for the lil girls so that will be most of next week but hopefully we can squeeze in one or two extras if the weather cooperates with us!

Week 2

What a beautiful week of weather! We visited some local parks this week to picnic play and enjoy the outside before it gets too hot!



How cool is it that there is petting zoo in the park?



Izzy watching her girls play

The next day the girls and I went to Barnes and Noble to get their summer reading logs, then the mall and to a movie. Not to far into the movie I saw Kylee looking pretty miserable.  She wanted to finish the movie but then we headed straight to the nearest Urgent Care Clinic right after. Poor baby had strep throat :(

She obviously needed extra rest so we had a laid back couple of days.



Madison's grades ROCKED!!! So we took her to get her free Krispy Kremes and movie vouchers from Family Video

We checked out the disc golf range at our local park and decided we definitely needed to give Frisbee golf a try! And we hung out with our many pets in what I like to call our urban farm!

Dogs, chicks, rabbit and guinea pig

The hubby is a chick magnet!




playing with the chicks



Sparkler time!

I also experimented with puppy treats this week! They LOVE them!




Lazy spoiled puppy....



Julius eating his puppy ice cream, ignore the dog hair on the rug!





Izzy watching me mix her cookies




Horrible yucky fat moment picture of me but look at Izzy watching me turn her cookies! Too cute!

So with Kylee finally better Friday morning we packed a picnic grabbed our kids and Lexis boyfriend and headed to Six Flags! One of our favorite places!!! We are Season Pass holders so we got to ride the Boomerang before it opened to the public! So FUN!!!

 

Maddy and daddy ready to go!




5th row back...








We gave the Boomerang our approval!

 





 








They got me on the Tower of Terror! Yikes!

  



How I felt going on the Tower of Terror!

 







Kylee's first time on the Batman! She loved it just like her mama!

   



No pictures of Alexis :( Teens!

So all in all aside from strep throat we had a fabulous week! So far so good.... Lets see what next week brings!





Proud Mama Here!

Sometimes you just have to look at your kids and think, Damn I did good!  My oldest daughter was a bit of a ....how do you say....handful? Challenge?  Lets just say she kept me on my toes from the age of 1 to 16! 

My baby turned 17 in April, I still find it hard to believe! She really has blossomed into such a wonderful young lady, thank God, because she really made me question my parenting skills OFTEN!!! Haha  She has a job in our little town which can be difficult on its own. She works hard and doesn't mind walking to and from when I am not around to drive her. She doesn't have her license yet but she is close.

She has saved up all of her checks so far and she bought herself a car! Amazing! What kid has that kind of determination and discipline anymore to save up every penny from their first job to buy a car without any help from their parents? My kid that's who! We are so proud of her!

We had to let her take a little drive in her new car after it arrived! Look at that smile! She is beaming! That is a smile that is from hard work and self respect and pride, which is exactly how she should feel! Anybody can be handed stuff it takes an amazing person to want to work hard and earn it themselves. There are many adults who could learn from this little girl.

Never mind the no makeup and bad hair, I had just came from the lake :)

Week 1

Well this week was pretty uneventful, the kids picked up there last report cards and we got ready for them to go to Wolf Creek Lodge for the weekend with Girl Scouts.  Maddy was 1 point from straight A's! That means lots of running around to different places that reward for A's!

The girls and their teachers

Leaving for Kansas City!

So my parents bought a camper last week and some friends who were kid free this weekend and my husband and I declared it a kids free camping weekend! So off to the lake we went for 2 relaxing nights of no fighting, no tattle telling, NO WHINING!!! Woohooo! Little did we know some nasty storms were heading our way and it probably wasn't a good idea to be in campers during but we survived and had a great time!

Here are some tiny baby raccoons we found walking around the campground! So cute! 

We bought a camper!

We didn't even know we wanted it Friday night and we owned it (well kinda) Saturday!  So our summer started out immediately when the final bell of the school year rang and it just so happened to be Memorial Day weekend! Yay!  So out of the building the girls and I ran ready to meet dad and get busy camping! On our way to the lake we stopped at Walmart to get groceries for the weekend and decided to surprise our youngest with a new bike that we had been promising her that we would buy as soon as she learned to ride with no training wheels.

(Nevermind the outfit and hair, it was fun day at school and she needed to wear a swimsuit!)

So off to the lake we headed for a fun filled weekend! Friday we got there early evening so we started a campfire and roasted hot dogs and made smores, just a laid back night.

With an amazing full moon!

The next morning the girls and dad were up bright and early and went for a boat ride and then when they came back we went on a little hike...

and a bike ride.

Throughout the day we had lots of visitors, one of them being the girls BFF who came and spent the night! While out exploring they came across a tiny baby fawn sleeping in the tall grass! So sweet!

We had such a blast on our first camping trip of the year and our first trip in our new home away from home! New tans were started, the girls made tons of new friends and our princess Kylee made a few new freckles!

This is the picture my husband took when he went to tuck the 2 little ones in Monday night after we got home!

Thankfully he didn't take a picture of me because I was probably laying a lot like the monkey on the bottom there! Notice the spoiled puppy taking up half her bed though :)