Marching and Retreating

Here's how our last two weekends went.  Last weekend, the whole family had a chance to walk in the parade with our Girl Scout Service Unit.  Everyone was pretty excited until we actually got there and they realized that A) they weren't going to get to watch the parade and B) People were going to be watching them.  Why neither of these things occurred to our children, I don't know, but either way we pretty much told them to suck it up because there was no turning back!  Elle actually really took to it and enjoyed passing out little cards encouraging people to buy the Girl Scout cookbooks to help raise money to fix the scout house.  We got to see friends along the way so that was pretty fun!

Here's all the girls from our area that showed up for the float.

I love this shot of Ava.  She's in the last month of being a Brownie and will bridge to a Junior at the end of May!

Here's how Levi did the parade...in style...on the shoulders of Shawn.

Elle doing her thing and with confidence!

This weekend, I went to our annual Ladies retreat and had a wonderful time.  I was in charge of the craft and was in my element.  I love how the craft turned out!  The only negative of the retreat was the fact that I had full blown insomnia and didn't sleep a single minute all night.  Not too fun.  Worth it for the time with my Christian sisters though!

Here's my finished craft!  There were six verses to pick from and 6-7 colors of paper to pick from so everyone's was different.  

While I was at the retreat this morning, Elle was competing in her first Solo and Ensemble contest with band.  She was required to play two different songs for a panel of judges and the scores range from 1-5 with 1 being best....she got a 1 on both songs!!! Super happy for her!

Best Gift

Shawn and I had a hard time coming up with birthday gift ideas for Elle.  She is still into "kid" things but is starting to like things like clothes and accessories too..but she's pretty picky and hard to nail down on style.  So we decided that part of her birthday gifts would be a date night with me to go shopping with some of her birthday money.  I have never seen her more excited!  We set the date for yesterday and as soon as she came home and saw what I happened to be wearing, she ran upstairs on put on the exact same things so that we could twin on our date.  I love that about her.  So, we started at Target, which also has a Starbucks inside of it.  We shared a Vanilla Bean Cream Frapp and it was the best drink I've ever had from there.  I can't wait to get another one!!!!

She really had her eye on a Rubik's Cube so we headed quickly over to the toys and she got a 2x2 one, which she hasn't put down since.  

We also hit Kohl's, Old Navy, Claire's and Bath and Body.  She found some great summery shirts at Old Navy and a pair of jean shorts.  At Bath and Body she wanted a lotion that smelled fresh so she got Sea Island Cotton and now there is a cloud of Sea Island Cotton following her everywhere she goes.  We had such a good time together and I think this will become an annual gift.  Oh and Ava said she wanted to do the same thing for her birthday.  :)

Six and Twelve

April is a month FULL of stuff!  Maybe it's not really that full, but when you have kids with birthdays within two days of each other, it feels like crazy town.  Friday began the festivities with celebrating Levi's 6th birthday.  

Donuts for breakfast, of course!

Then with 5 minutes to spare before leaving for school, he got to try out one of his birthday presents.  

We ate lunch with him too, and then turned right back around 2 hours later and brought a treat for his class.  These are the BEST Rice Krispie Treats I've ever made!

After his little treat with his classmates, we picked Elle up a little early and headed on a camping adventure at Palmetto State Park.  It was awesome!

We were able to borrow a friends pop up camper and this was a game changer for camping.  This was our first time to stay in one and we are sold on it!  After setting it up and getting a fire going, we let Levi open the rest of his presents.

Then we let him have a Gigi's cupcake and candles to blow out.

Dinner was great!  It was good ol' hobo dinners.  I think I've figured out the key to those things tasting good....lots of BBQ sauce.  

Later we roasted marshmallows and I tried out this recipe for a delicious spin on S'Mores.  It was so so good...and I can make this at home too!  Then we put the kids to bed about 9....not a peep from them once they got in bed.  We were able to sit out by the fire for about an hour and just soak in the night sounds and the big bright stars.

Good morning sunshine!  Seriously this is so much better than tent camping!!!!!

It was pretty chilly all night and when we all woke up Levi immediately jumped into my bed to get warmed up.  :)

Then it was time for breakfast!

This was the meal I was a little nervous about.  I was trying a new recipe and using a cast iron biscuit maker that I bought just for this trip.  New stuff all around so I really wanted it to turn out good.

Getting ready to see if this recipe is a keeper!

It was AWESOME!  Everyone ate every bit of their breakfast!!!  I made Campfire Breakfast Burgers and they were so so so good.  Of course I add blackberry jelly instead of ketchup or whatever else the recipe suggested.  

I did bring powdered donuts as backup in case I burned the biscuits or they stuck to the cast iron.  Ava REALLY likes them...too much.

Then we shooed the kids away to dig in the dirt while we had campfire coffee.  Okay we kept them around long enough to take our picture but then we shooed them.

This was our campsite.  I truly think we had the absolute best site at the entire state park.

We needed to wash dishes between meals and I had actual eager helpers!  Ava was the dryer.

Elle was the rinser and Levi was the runner, as you can see in this picture.

Then we explored the park.  It's a mix between a swamp and a forest and it was beautiful.  I can imagine that in the summer it might not be quite so fun to go there with the mosquitoes and humidity, but our weather was just right!

We saw "Watch for Snakes" signs everywhere and finally towards the end of our hike, Levi happened to look under this rock and said he saw a snake!  I had to turn on my flash and zoom in to see if there really was and yep, there was!  ewwww.

We headed back to our camp for lunch which was skillet nachos and they turned out great too!  Then we tried Ritz cracker S'Mores.  No one was really a big fan, but I thought they were pretty good.

And of course no campout of mine is complete without roasted Peeps!

We finished the trip with fishing down at the pond.  Ava was the only one to catch a fish but we all had fun.

Sunday morning we celebrated Elle turning 12!

After church we headed to Elle's pick for lunch...Longhorn Steakhouse!  After she finished her steak dinner for her birthday dessert she chose..key lime pie.

It was a busy and yet wonderful weekend.  We made sweet family memories and watched my oldest and youngest grow to an age that I still can't believe.

A wonderful weekend

We started this past weekend with April Fool's Day!  I scaled back this year because I was putting a lot of work into fake food and the kids were figuring it out way too fast and then they were not acting that impressed....so time to fool them in other ways.  This year we switched all of the cereals around in the boxes and that was fun to watch.  I also told the kids that I was making brownies for when nana and poppy were here.  When it came time to eat the brownies, I served them brown "E's."  I used a spatula and put them on each plate.  They did get a kick out of that.  Win-win because this was pretty easy to do.

Saturday morning, Shawn and I went garage saleing and got some great bargains on things we had been hunting for...and a few things we weren't.  At noon, we took the kids to a free tennis clinic that went until 2pm.  While the kids were learning tennis technique we took my parents out to eat as a late birthday for my dad.  After we finished eating, I told my dad that I wanted the four of us to get tattoos in honor of his birthday, and I said that I wanted it to be Van Gogh tattoos.  They looked at me kind of crazy and then I pulled out some Van Gogh temporary tattoos, a wet washrag and some scissors.  Everyone started laughing.  We proceeded to give each other tattoos.

This is the first self stick photo my dad has ever been in!  Only took 69 years!

Later that evening, we headed to the Hula Hut with my parents.  The food was delicious and our kids behaved quite well....despite the 1 1/2 hour wait!  Mercy!

We stumbled upon Red Bud Isle Park after dinner and found such a pretty little piece of forest, smack dab in the middle of the city!

We finished the night with delicious Amy's icecream!

  

Sunday was first Sunday meaning we had church, then a potluck lunch and then a shorter service right after.  This also means we had the entire afternoon free to do what we wanted!  We had a little bit of time between when we got home and when we headed to our last adventure so my dad helped Ava with an extremely tedious paint by number.....now THAT is a grand patient parent!

Then we headed out to our friends pond for some fishing!  Within two minutes of arriving, I snagged this bass.  Yes, I wear a glove, and no I don't care if you think that makes me a wimp.

Poor daddy....this is what it's like to go fishing when you are a dad...you spend most of your time fixing peoples fishing poles and baiting their hooks.

Biggie got a tiny perch.

Shawn caught a HUGE bass!  He made up for having to spend so much time helping the kids!  I was only 7% jealous.

Here's my dad helping Levi.

My mom caught a good sized one too!  She said she hadn't been fishing in a long time so I was super glad that we decided to go and that she caught a bass!

The way she casts cracked me up.  She's all in!

I took a picture of my parents taking a selfie.  That is too cute...almost 50 years of marriage and more in love than ever...and sort of embracing technology.

After a picnic and some roasted marshmallows, we headed out.  We stopped at this beautiful area and took one more photo.  It was such a wonderful weekend!