Girls Camping Trip

A camping we will go! My friend BJ asked me on Monday if I was interested in going on an overnighter camping trip with her and her daughter. I thought about for about 1.5 seconds. Heck YES!!!!
So we packed up the Tahoe and took off Wednesday afternoon. We both arrived about the same time and set up camp. She had rented a Yurt, the best thing for this time of year. It has 2 bunk beds and a stove inside. The weather was great, so lucky! The kids took off to explore leaving us girls to bask in the sun. AWWWW mama bliss!

Miss Lucy, the rock start! She is totally into "posing" for pictures these days.

Adventure Mo! This girl knows how to camp!


Moose, we made an exception for him, being a boy and all. So he had to be the man of the camp...



And this.......well I don't think I even need to say anything about this.......


These kids have been friends for 6 years now...do the math, Caymus is only 5. And they all got along great. No fighting, at all!


And the mamas of camp!


My dearest Ethel...BJ is really her name!


I know this one is blurry (taken by a 7 year old), but I had to show this. BJ was kind enough to allow me to cook, she knows how much I love it! Thanks BJ! Its just my element, and according to Caymus I am an awesome cook!


Dinner!!!

BJ built us a rocking campfire. Here are the kids chillin by the fire. They were doing skits and singing us songs. Very funny and sweet.


After smores the kids were ready and excited for bed. They decided that they all 3 wanted to sleep in the queen bed. So we laid out their sleeping bags and snuggled them all in. I warned them that if they started fighting we would separate them all. I did encourage them to make it work because they would stay much warmer if they did! They agreed. Amazingly enough they made it all night along in that bed!
We then started a fire in the fireplace and headed back out to our campfire. And it was the best campfire EVER!!! After about 10 min or so, BJ asked if I felt that....what...that....rain....I denied it. Then when the fire started making sizzling noises I agreed that indeed it was raining. We braved it for a little bit, but then it really started to let go. We put out our fire and headed back in. Fortunately we put almost everything back in the Yurt because it poured all night long.
In the morning it was so cold and we could not get a fire started so we decided to pack up and head out. When 2 woman have not had coffee and are wet and cold they can really pack up fast! We were on the road by 9am!

I promised the kids I would take them out to eat, selfishly because I really wanted to be waited on and wanted a lot of coffee fast!!! So we made it back to Salem by 10 and went to Shari's.




A great time was had by all. I think we will do it again soon. Really it was a glorified sleep over but that works for me!!!

And now I am getting all my laundry done so we can go to Newport tomorrow....camping!

St Patricks Day

Top of the morning to ya! I really enjoy this holiday...not really sure why, but I do. We are not actually Irish, our last name is and Marshall's step dad is and that's where our last name comes from. I actually think that the kids and I are the most Irish looking bunch in the whole family.
Anyway, I made the kids green pancakes and green eggs for breakfast, with green milk. Playing with food is so fun!



Both kids got to chase leprechauns at school and Caymus found some gold rocks in the playground that they left behind.



I made my usual Corned Beef and Cabbage for dinner. The kids and Marshall LOVE it! Always have! And yes that is a GREEN beer I am drinking. Happy St Patrick's Day!!!


On Monday Caymus got to bring home Teddy A Bear, he is the class bear that each kid gets a turn taking home and writing about his time.
We did lots of stuff with Teddy, but the best was when we had Octopus for dinner! The kids in his class all thought that sounded really gross, but my kids LOVE it! And so did Teddy!


Teddy also enjoyed some green white chocolate chip cookies!


What a fun week and now we are having amazing weather just in time for Spring Break! Yay! I am guessing we will be heading to the park a lot!

Life's a Picnic

After sleeping in and watching cartoons all morning, we headed out to the water front park in Salem for a picnic. Lucy loves picnics. She has a really cute basket that my mom got here a few years ago and is always dying to go. So today was the day.
We laid out our blanket and set up....after about 1.5 min we all were freezing. The sun had been shining and it looked like an ok day. Guess we were off a little. We tried to make it through our lunch, but with teeth chattering its kinda hard to chew. So we picked up and took the picnic to the car. Good thing to because it started pouring down rain shortly after we got there. The kids really thought it was cool to picnic in the car!

After lunch we went in and road the carousel. Twice.

Yep they even got me on. Twice.

The water front park has this awesome eco-earth at the very end, right next to a 9/11 tribute. Way cool. The kids have been there "thousands" of times but I had not.

After the park was a trip to DQ. Again I heard that they go there "all the time"....hmmm lots of trips with grandparents I assume!

My sweet little chicka, Moka sure does look cozy too!

And Moose, my little sweetness!

To wrap up our busy day we made cookies and played a game of Operation. Operation is a HARD game!!!

It was a great day.

March Madness!

We have been keeping busy! After Grandma Barb left last week, we started getting back to "normal".
This weekend was the school carnival, put on by the PTC. I have been trying to become more involved in the PTC this year....hope that doesn't come back to bite me......so anyway, I helped paint decorations, went to a meeting and we did more prep, then on Friday spent several hours at the school setting up. I was assigned to the Bouncy House for the first shift. Oh my gosh!!! It was crazy. Thank goodness Lucy stuck around and helped me time the kids or I would have lost my mind. Once my shift was over, the kids and I ate and then played some games. We also stuck around to help clean up.

We also took advantage of some decent weather this week to walk to the park and play.

Lucy ran off with my camera and took some pictures of Caymus in his bed....I did have to delete several of who knows what. But I did think these were really cute.

Here he is showing off his awesome Avitar poster and airplanes we hung from the ceiling. Grandpa should be proud! He built those years ago with my brothers.

Grandma Barb comes to visit

Mom my came out for a visit this week, all by her self! I cant think of the last time she did that!! I guess she decided that if she was to wait for my dad to be free long enough to come down, they would never make it here! (he is currently in Malaysia on a job)

So we all got some good Grandma/Mom time!
Her and I took advantage of the kids being in school during the day and went shopping!!! Pier 1, Victoria's Secret, Old Navy, Target, Wal Mart.....

Lucy made an ice cream Sunday with some fancy colored play doh.

They took a walk to the Aumsville water tower.....

And to the park....several times.


Blue Raspberry Martini's.....mmmmmmmmm

Made homemade pizza and cookies!


And a lazy Saturday morning game of Cranium.

Thanks for coming down mom! I love you!!!