Camping again, and fishing too!

This past weekend, we went camping again.  Because, hey, when you have a new toy, you want to play with it, right?  ;o)

We camped in Columbus at a place called Ceraland.  It is a GREAT place for families, as you will see in our pictures below:

Friday night we went for a long walk that included a trip to the park:

...where Chaille LOVED the swings!

A picture of the camper all set up again.  I was unaware that pictures were being taken though!

My pictures are a bit out of order, but I had trouble moving them to where I wanted them!  So, this was Saturday afternoon.  Steve took Avery and Silas to the pool while Nolan and Chaille napped.  Here is Silas enjoying the water!

And Avery and Silas together!  They had a LOT of fun!

After lunch we stayed inside while it rained a little more.  Avery and Silas put puzzles together.  They played together VERY nicely!!

Cheese!

Nolan did the alphabet train puzzle that is 8 feet long (with a little help putting the letters in order!)  But he did the assembly!!

Chaille sat on my lap.  She took this picture (with a little help as well!)

Avery learned how to tie his shoes at school on Friday.  He was so excited that he practiced off and on all weekend.  He said that he watched a girl at school tie hers, and realized how she did it.  He learned basically all by himself, after MANY attempts from mom and dad to teach him....

Saturday evening, after supper, we played at the park and fished.  Chaille liked playing in the rocks.

Silas liked being a monkey!

Nolan did too.  He's such a big kid these days with his climbing!

And Steve and Avery fished at the lake, where we could see them from the park.  If you click on the picture to enlarge it, I have used red arrows to show them.  They were fairly close, but the picture makes it look so far away...

We did lots of fishing over the weekend.  On Sunday, after camping, we went to grandma and grandpa Frye's.  We fished in the evening there too.  I put our fishing pictures all together here:

Avery taking his own fish off of the hook.  He caught several "keepers!"

Nolan fished just a little here and there...

Chaille sat on my lap while I fished some on Sunday evening.  While she was with me, we caught a bluegill big enough to keep.  We are calling this her "first fish" because she "helped" me reel it in!  She would tug on the line, and it kept making me think that I had a bite!

Silas played more than he fished!

You might think that Silas caught this fish.  Nope... He was only holding it while Avery ran and got a bucket to put in in!

I have to note that Avery had some "funny" catches this weekend.  One fish he caught with no bait on his hook.  He casted just the hook and caught a nice bluegill!  Another time, he had a fish bite his line, ahead of even the bobber.  He reeled it in, and Steve even had a hard time getting the fish to LET GO of the line. There was no hook involved.  It was a strange catch!

One last video.  This was Nolan reeling in his line on Saturday.  He's talking up a storm, but I can't make sense of what he is saying.  He didn't catch anything, but maybe a leaf???

First Day of Pre-K!!!

Today is Silas' first day of pre-k.  He was more than excited to go!  There were no tears and no worries for this boy on his first day.  When I woke him up, he asked why he had to go "in the middle of the night."  He's not much of a morning person, so being out the door by 7:15 is not going to be his favorite thing, I'm sure.  Here is our big five year old on his first day of school:

Before I left, I got a picture with his teacher, Mrs. Morton.  He is so excited to be in her class, and is GLAD that there are 8 boys and 4 girls in his class.

I can't believe that it is time for yet another child of mine to be in school EVERY day!  Oh my, how the years fly by!  I'm proud of you Silas!  You are growing to be such a great little man!  I can't wait to see how you grow and learn so much this school year!

15 Months, New RV, and Camping!

Chaille turned 15 months on Friday.  Thanks to a confirmation call, we made it to her well child visit Friday morning.  I had sort of "forgotten" the appointment, so the confirmation call Thursday afternoon saved us!  Chaille weighed 25.5 lbs (the 85th percentile) and was 32 3/4 inches tall (97th percentile).  The doctor says that she is proportionately big for her age and has no concerns with her.  He thinks the reason she is not yet walking all over is strictly a lack of confidence.  I hope that he is right.  We are ready for her to take off, but she takes 3 or 4 steps at a time at best.  Here are a couple of pictures from her appointment:

Playing in the waiting area while waiting for her turn to see the doctor.

We just LOVE the mirrored ceilings in the elevator!  I love her happy smile, especially since this was after her two shots!!

We picked up our new motorhome on Thursday.  What we thought would be a morning at the dealership ended up being an all day affair.  My dad was our hero that day for going along and being a HUGE help with the kids and lunch.  He's wonderful!  Anyway, after our long ordeal when picking up our new toy, the younger three were pretty exhausted (Avery was at school!)  Here they are on the way home:

Somehow Nolan stayed awake the entire trip.  Chaille and Silas were lulled to sleep by the hum of the road!  We LOVE it!!!

Over the weekend, we headed to Versailles State park for our very first camping adventure in our new RV.  But first, we had to make an important stop...

Our least favorite part of the weekend was filling the 75 gallon tank!!  Thankfully we didn't use TOO much fuel this trip!

All set up and ready to camp!

A look at the slide out side with the awnings over the window.

Saturday morning the boys walked a mile each way to the lake to go fishing.  They didn't catch anything, but they still enjoyed some time together.

While they were gone, Chaille rested to make up for the short night the night before.  She and Nolan shared a bed, and she didn't sleep very well!

I failed to get pictures of the boys' favorite aspect of the camping trip, riding bikes over a big dirt pile near the park.  But on Sunday, we took a long hike as a family down to the creek.  The kids enjoyed playing in the water a little:

Silas filled his pockets with treasures!

Avery found some crawdads and some fossil rocks.

Nolan found a spider and RAN!

Steve took this picture of me taking the following picture:

of a silly boy with his tongue stuck out!

Cheese!  He loved throwing rocks into the water. As usual!

These boys love nature.

Fussing at me for not letting her play with the camera.

There, NOW she is smiling.  I let her play with the boys' "scavenger hunt" bag.

The MEN, hunting and gathering ;o)

Cute smile!

Still looking for yet more excitement in the water.

Nolan and Daddy on the trail back to the campground.  I <3 This picture!

When we got back to the campground, I took the kids to swing while Steve packed up the camper.  I thought it was so adorable seeing them swinging here, all lined up from youngest to oldest! :O)  We had a wonderful weekend and look forward to MANY camping adventures together!!

First Day of First Grade

This morning we walked Avery over for his first day of school.  I find it hard to believe that he is starting into school ALL day!  I didn't think it would bother me, but I'm a little sad today.  I'm more sad a the realization that it seems like yesterday that I was going to school in that very same building.  And I've been out of school for TWELVE years, the same number of years that he has left in school.  It hit me that, as fast as these past 12 years have gone, so too will the next 12.  I had to stop myself when I began thinking of the milestones that we have ahead.  One day at a time!!

Avery was estatic to be going back.  He met Mrs. Linder last night, and he really liked her.  I think the structure she provides will be a wonderful fit for Avery.  Also, If you know Avery very well, you know that he is big on counting down the days until big events.  As soon as one big event passes, he's counting down to the next.  Well, he has been counting down the days to start school as well as the days until we get our RV.  So, while he was happy to walk to school today, he was even MORE excited about tomorrow.  I love Avery and his excitement about everything in life.  And then I wonder what the next big countdown will be??? Hmm....

My New "Momma" Blog

Our family blog has become sort of a scrapbook of the things that we do.  I want it to be a place that my children can visit for memories, and to watch themselves grow.  But I also enjoy keeping track of some of the "Momma" incidents in my life.  I don't think that everyone who reads our family blog will enjoy the misadventures of a misfit mom struggling to survive the challenges joys of toddlerhood.  But some of you will.  So, I'm keeping another blog just for some of my "Momma" thoughts and such.  This blog will continue to be updates and will remain here for you to just keep up on this family as the chidren continue to grow up.  If you are interested in following the other blog, though, here is the address: http://just-call-me-momma.blogspot.com/

And yes, my children DO call me Momma! :O)  And I love it!

Snapshots

Here are a few snapshots of our day "down on the farm" on Saturday.   We got to Grandma and Grandpa's at 2:30, put Chaille down for a nap, and then headed down to the woods to cut up some trees that had fallen, and to haul it back to the house.

Silas rode in the "wagon" (aka. manure spreader turned wood wagon) behind the tractor that daddy drove back.

Nolan rode on the front of the four wheeler that Mommy drove.  We pulled the splitter.

Avery rode on back of the four wheeler with Mommy.

Headed into the woods.  Daddy and his biggest fan!

Silas atop the smallest of the logs.  They seemed HUGE to me when I was splitting them though.

If you look closely, Avery is up the hill here with Nolan.  Nolan wanted NOTHING to do with the noise from the splitter and the chain saw!

In the second log, Steve kept finding critters with each cut he made with the saw.  Here was the first critter, a baby snake.  We saw 2 snakes on Saturday.  Lets just say the score for the day was People 2, Snakes 0!

Avery atop the wood pile. (This was BEFORE it was heaping over!)

Silas too!

Nolan and mommy :O)  He was DONE with being in the woods.  We had been cutting and splitting for almost 2 hours, and he had been running around AWAY from us the entire afternoon.  So mommy stopped to comfort him for a bit!

After we got back and Grandma fed us a delicious supper, the boys played in the garden (and ROLLED in the dirt!)

But they were super happy!

Nolan trying to keep up!

And they were SUPER dirty too!

Chaille loves animals.  She was trying to pet the horse.

Great Grandma Frye and Chaille.  Precious!

Great Grandpa Frye and Chaille.  She's pointing at one of the cats.  They are such buds! :O)

I neglected to get fishing pictures from our day too.  It was getting dark, and the younger two got baths and ate peaches while the older two fished with Daddy.  After giving the older two showers and allowing them to have some peaches too, we finally headed home at TEN o'clock!  It was a long day, but so much fun.  We really do LOVE life DOWN ON THE FARM!