Camping Adventures

We went camping to Ensign Ranch with Jeni & Kevin and their kids and Marci. It would be an understatement to say we had fun. The kids were looking forward to this all summer. We had planned it back in March. My parents and Sara & Derek came out on Friday for the day. It was fun to have them and maybe next year they'll actually camp with us. :) We did lots. We rode bikes everywhere and called ourselves the Buttercream Gang (like the old school movie), we canoed, did the slip n' slide, rode horses, did the rope swing, did impromptu skits, swam in the river, played Mexican Train, ate lots of yummy food and got dirty.

Picture overload here!!! Thanks to Sara the photographer I had lots of pictures to choose from. It was hard to leave some out!

On Friday morning, we had the slip n' slide to ourselves. It was chilly, but we got used to the water. We went down the slide a lot and made trains galore. Kevin, Marci and I were the brave ones to go down the slide.

Lindsey and Hailey would sit in their little chairs and have cute conversations. My Mom brought back to school kits for the kids and so they had fun coloring in their little books.

We found a rope swing and the kids loved it. They went on it a million times.

Zane's face was killin' me in this picture. So serious!

We were loaded to the hilt! We had 4 bikes and a bike trailer on the hitch. Then the car was packed with kids squeezed in. Camping is a lot of work! So we make sure to go for 2 nights to make it worth it.

When Zane and Chelsea first saw each other Zane was giggling and it was so cute. Chelsea would stick her finger in his mouth and they had this baby conversation/interaction going on. It was pretty cute to watch.

Our Camp Home. Jeni and Kevin's tent is on the right, ours is straight ahead and Marci's tent is way in the back in the grove of trees that the kids found for her.

I was concerned I didn't bring enough clothes for Chelsea. The first 2 minutes we were there I changed her out of the romper she was wearing because of mosquitoes, then she ate watermelon and got sticky then fell on the ground. Thankfully, we made it through the weekend with enough clothes for her. :) We were laughing about it. She was all over the place though. She would climb on top of the tables and get into stuff. It was interesting! Thank goodness for the older kids that would entertain her or watch her so I could do stuff.

The kids were having fun in Jeni and Kevin's ginormous tent. I had tent envy. I wanted their big tent. haha!

Our tent, that I thought was big until I saw Jeni and Kevin's (ha), all neat and ready for sleepers. It didn't stay clean for long. The kids slept great at night. The first night I slept good and Kyle didn't. The second night I could not sleep and Kyle slept great. Gotta love camping!

Chelsea kept yelling for Kate and Kyle. She was trying hard to get to them.

I was trying to get a picture of our bicycle gang. It was fun to ride bikes everywhere and go exploring. We haven't brought our bikes before when we've come camping with Kyle's family (we just brought the kids' bikes) and I'm glad we did.

This picture of Preston cracks me up because first, he is wearing Kate's old pink water shoes, I didn't want to buy new ones. He didn't care. Secondly, he was stuck in the tube like this and couldn't get out. It was hilarious. He finally got the hang of how to go down and get out on his own. He is Mr. Independent.

Kate found a little frog in the slip n' slide water.

I love the picture of my Mom painting her nails while camping. I actually painted mine right before her. haha! Jeni and Kevin are in the background getting the grill ready for dinner. We had yummy food like BBQ bacon burgers, tri-tip and chicken shish kabobs, french toast, pancakes, grilled chicken BBQ wraps and croissant sandwiches. 

Jetty Island

We went to Jetty Island for playgroup and the weather was great. It got a little windy before we left. The kids had fun. You ride this little taxi boat to the island. It's fun to do, but I only can handle it once a summer because you have to reserve tickets to go over and come back on the boat, it's free though, and haul everything with you. Thankfully, Kate helps me carry stuff. It was a lot of fun to go there with a bunch of friends from Church.  Kate found a dead crab, ewww. I'm not a fish person. They are slimy and gross and stink.

The water was far out when we went. They mainly played in the sand and puddles of water near us. Some of the older kids went out to the water. Here is Chelsea, Wilson (a friend), Lindsey and Preston.

Elevated Sportz

Thanks to Groupon, Living Social and Amazon Deals we have been to some fun places around here this summer. I love finding good deals so it's a win win for me. Kyle is probably wishing I didn't get their emails. haha! We tried out Elevated Sportz a few weeks ago. We waited until Lindsey turned 3 yrs old so she could do everything. We had some friends go here before us and they liked it so I knew it was something we wanted to try out. It's just super expensive so the coupon is the way to go. 

We did the combo Jump and Play deal. They could jump on the trampolines and play in the play structure. They went back and forth between the two. You have to wear socks in the play area and no socks on the trampolines, kind of annoying having to put on socks then take them off then put them on...you get the idea. Oh well. They LOVED the foam pit. They spent most of the time there trying to do tricks.

They had this huge play area with climbing toys, spinning toys, balls, slides, air guns and mazes. It was pretty cool. The tree thing with balls hanging from it spins around and the kids sit on the balls. Then the ball looking cage thing spins around as they sit inside it. 

Chelsea didn't know how to handle this ball pit. It was pretty funny watching her. She didn't know how to walk through them to get to the stairs to go down the slide. She started throwing the balls out so that ended that. 

She did find a rocking toy and loved it.

Shooting balls at one another with the air guns. The kids had fun and want to go back. Hopefully, another deal comes along so we can. :)

Lindsey Turns Three

Happy 3rd Birthday Lindsey!!!

She turned 3 on Sunday Aug 4th while we were at my parents house for the reunion weekend. My Mom did a yummy family dinner and I made her a Dora cake. 

I'm glad my Mom has a fancy camera because she takes lots of pictures now. She took this one of Lindsey before Church. Cute. She's a sweet girl, but definitely likes to tease (she gets that from me so I can't get too mad, right?!). She is growing up fast and follows Kate and Preston around so she is learning things fast. She still likes to cuddle so she's still my little girl. 

Super excited for her Dora fruit snacks and Dora movie from Kevin & Jeni and kids.

I LOVE her expression when she saw the Dora dress my Mom made for her. She loves it. 

My Mom and Dad also gave her Dora and Boots dolls.

The Dora cake I made her. Kate also had a Dora party when she turned 4 so it was easy to make the same cake for Lindsey. :)

Dee Ann came out for the family dinner and gave Lindsey adorable owl pajamas and a Tangled bag.

All the kiddos around the island eating the yummy dinner of pasta with alfredo or meat sauce, homemade french bread and caesar salad. Cari and her family came out for the day too since they were still in Tri-Cities so it was fun to have them there too. Too bad we all don't live closer!

Singing Happy Birthday to Lindsey and Chelsea was trying hard to get to the cake. ha!

I did a friend party for Lindsey on Tuesday when we got back home. I had to plan and shop for everything on Monday so I was exhausted come Tuesday afternoon! Of course, we did a Dora adventure like we did for Kate. I made the gift bags to look like Dora's backpack (love pinterest and the internet!) then printed off the map and drew on it. Swiper stole the prizes for the goody bags and put them under the chocolate tree. We looked at the map to see how to get to the chocolate tree. We had to go through the bubble forest, down the slippery slide then to the Chocolate tree to get the prizes.

The kids saying, "Swiper, No Swiping!" 

And I have to say that Preston was hilarious and a big help. A couple of the girls have never watched Dora so they didn't know really what we were doing or who Swiper was. But Preston was good about repeating the directions on the map like they do on Dora and saying other phrases from the show. It helped make it more authentic. 

The slippery slide was blocked so we looked in the backpack and found scissors to help us cute the crepe paper. 

They made it to the Chocolate tree (a tree off a Dora show)! I hung chocolate candy bars from the tree. The big box had their prizes for their goody bags which were their backpack bags. They got a ribbon wand, Dora fruit snacks, Dora stickers, Dora washcloth that grows and chocolate candy bars. 

I went low key and made cupcakes with Dora cupcake toppers that I printed then put on the scalloped punch cut out. 

The girls also got a Dora bracelet (yellow with a blue flower, but I didn't have blue flowers so they are butterflies).

Rylee, Ashlynn, Lindsey and Ellie

We gave Lindsey some paint and a giant paper pad for painting. We wanted to take her to Build a Bear to pick out a stuffed animal. When we went there one night we found it was closed! They are moving locations inside the mall and closed their store down until the fall. I couldn't believe it! We never go there and the one time we need to go there it's closed. We ended up getting her a Sofia the First dress-up dress a couple weeks later. Good thing she's 3 and doesn't realize she didn't get a gift from us for a couple weeks!