Camp-Out

we had a little backyard camp-out over the weekend with all of the hubs siblings.

except we used my in-laws backyard, cause i’m pretty sure its against all kinds of rules to use our backyard for a camp-out.
this was the first time we really camped with our kids…you know…beyond just pitching a little tent in the backyard and hanging out in there for about an hour with flashlights and calling it “camping.”

how cute is the Boy with that little boy bowl cut?? oh my…

this camp-out was for real this time around, cause we were determined to stay outside all night!

so we got a fire going:

grilled up some food:

and made sure to have lots of yummy snacks.

now i know what you are thinking…cheese balls do not qualify as all natural eating. but…the crazies have been begging me for months to buy these things for them, and i’ve always said a big fat emphatic NO! but…we live real life over here, and in my opinion a treat that has zero nutritional value once in a while isn’t gonna harm them too badly, so i decided to surprise them. they were pleased, to say the least!

half of that container was gone by the morning, and i’ve been able to make quite a dent in the remaining half since being home…uh oh!

and what’s a camp-out and campfire without roasted marshmallows:

turned into smores??

the weather was low 50’s, high 40’s, which is quite chilly for Floridian blood, so we stuck close the fire for the majority of the night:

before bundling up for bedtime:

i put the crazies to bed and within 10 minutes, this is how i found them.

although there were many interruptions in that sleep throughout the night…such as:

“I’m SO cold!”

“Bella is taking up too much room!”

“I have to go to the bathroom!”

“Is it raining?”

“I’m SO SO SO cold!”

but all in all, it was a great night. we were, of course, up at the crack of dawn, literally, and enjoyed a breakfast of buckwheat pancakes with blueberries and walnuts to offset the half container of cheeseballs that we downed the night before.

i’m still feeling a little sore. not sure if it was from sleeping on the ground, squished between two crazies and the hubs, or because i had done manuel labor for a large part of that day as i prepared for a new adventure for our family, that i can’t wait to come back and tell you all about!!

but for now, i’ll leave you with this little tip.

a few years ago, since the Boy skipped out on Pre-K, and i started to think that i just might need to teach him a few things, i went out and bought a bunch of workbooks to work through with him. but i was struggling to let him write in them, cause i knew that we wouldn’t be able to use them again.

so i came up with this plan. its no secret really, and i’m sure you’ve all seen it before, but its really been great for our fam, so i figured i’d share.

i took those workbooks, tore out the pages, and slipped each page into a clear plastic page protector, stuck those in a binder, and bought some dry erase markers (they are even selling washable dry erase crayons these days, which bring these workbooks to a whole new level)

…and voila…

workbooks that can be used over and over again! we’ve even been able to save them until the time was right for the Bug….

who just so happens to think its the greatest invention in the world, and is happy to spend lots of time working on them by herself. i’m really convinced that tracing those letters over and over again is really improving her handwriting!

although, we still have some work to do in the “vocabulary, correct word usage, and proper sentence structure” areas.

last night bella told me she needed to tell me a secret. she whispered in my ear,

“Mommy, you are the most beautiest women ever.”

and then this morning, after a time of discipline because she decided to chuck her entire cup of green smoothie across the floor in anger, covering my floor in ground up spinach and kale and breaking the cup, and all because i turned off the TV, she told me,

“Mommy, even if you are ever a mean mommy, i’ll love you for 11:30 years.”

well there you go!

have a great day!