Abby's Almost Two!!

I decided to take a stab at taking Abby's two year picturs :) Here is what I got!

Camping

The dust has settled a bit and I may just have time to update the blog! We went camping this weekend with our care group. It was a lot of fun....very little sleep....but a lot of fun. We had ten adults and nine kids. The kids were 6, 5, an almost 5 year old, a 4 year old, two almost 4 year olds, an almost two year old, an almost 1 year old, and a 4 month old. Pair that up with sleeping in tents, and you get controlled chaos. :) The first night was mostly set up and campfire time after dinner. The next day, we went hiking as a group. It's safe to say we pretty much took over the trail! Most of the rest of the time was spent just hanging out around the campfire. We packed Caleb's toy trucks and the kids' sand toys for digging in the dirt. Another couple brought coloring stuff and beads to make things with. We broke camp on Sunday and made it home around 4ish. We're still doing laundry! I think I counted 8 loads of laundry by the time the sleeping bags are finished. It's all worth it though!! The kids are still talking about it!

This is our van after trying to get all the stuff to fit (I had to call a friend to take some of the food. We were bringing all the food for the group).

Part of our "tent city." Our tent is the second big one from the left.

Caleb always has fun with his trucks.

I think she enjoyed herself, what do you think?

Family Picture-I could NOT get Caleb to look at the camera.

This is on the path when we were hiking. Everyone in this picture is from our group.

On the last day....Brent helped occupy the boys while everyone was cleaning out tents and packing up.

Abby was so determined to pull the boys in the wagon. Needless to say, the wagon never moved. The boys even all started wiggling to try to move the wagon forward.

Waterpark

Wow....I've been slacking!! Two Saturdays ago, Brent, the kids, and I went up to the Kalahari Resort in the Dells. Brent's parents, sister and nieces also came up. We had two rooms, and hung out at the waterpark for two nights. Boy, were we exhausted!! BUT....the kids had a blast. No naps. Yes, that's right. I'm the one who has declared nap-time sacred, and we didn't have naps. We were hoping it would mean they would sleep better at night. We were right. They slept in until almost 8 o'clock both mornings. No, this doesn't mean that I'm skipping naps on a regular basis. Abby was so tired that she fell alseep on me at the outdoor waterpark. I was carrying her, and she cashed it in. I grabbed some of the hotel towels, covered her up, and laid out on the deck chairs with her. She slept for a little over an hour like that....and I even got a couple minutes of snoozing in too. We also went for a boat tour of the Upper Dells. I didn't take many pictures (yeah, I know....I was feeling fine, I promise) Brent's mom took a bunch of pictures and is going to burn a cd of them for us soon. We decided we were just going to use the time to be with our kids instead of worrying about the camera all the time (besides....it's not like it was waterproof!!) So, that's why I'm not posting any pictures yet! I'll catch up with them sometime after I get them. :)

This coming weekend, we're going camping with our care group from church. That should mean roughly 12 adults, and 7 kids. Could be more, could be less. The oldest child (I believe) will be 6 years old. Brilliant me didn't take the day off after we come back....work should be interesting on that little of sleep!!

First day of preschool....

Well, Caleb's first day of preschool was yesterday. I worked, so I was a bit too tired to blog after I got home. He loved it and wanted to go back today....I had to break the news that he's going three days a week, not every day. They send home notes to the parents about how the day went. It was very positive for the most part. He didn't really want to participate in everything, but it was his first day, so I'm not too worried. His face lit up when he told me about it after I got home from work.

And, on the Abby-front: She now can scale the fence in our backyard. Great...I knew she'd be the one to do it, I was just hoping it would be later. No such luck. My neighbor was at our fence, talking with us. Both kids wanted to go into her yard to play for a while. I said no because she needed to go to another neighbor's house. Both Brent and I had our backs turned, and Abby was talking with our neighbor. I turned around to see Abby halfway up the fence. Then, I was just curious how far she'd get...so I came up behind her, and sure enough, she made it up to the top. It's not like I ever leave the kids by themselves outside, but she's sneaky and quiet when she's into things....this could get interesting!