Mother's Day Camping Trip 2014

For Mother's Day we decided to get away for the weekend, the menfolk in the house were thrilled by the prospect of camping so off we went to the woods.

This is the first time we have truly backwoods camped FOR REAL since becoming parents, we've car camped a decent amount but always near amenities if needed.  This trip we hiked all of our gear in a couple of miles, made camp and proceeded to CAMP OUT!

Capturing the LOVE between these two 

 is one of the best parts of being their mom.

 Look, over there.

 We finally found the waterfall.

 With a half mile or so to go on the way to the truck both little people were DONE!  

Our sherpa had no problem carrying their load....

We literally did not see another soul the entire weekend until we were a half mile or so from our vehicle on the way out.  It was PERFECT!!

 We most certainly made some memories and are planning to make this an annual excursion.

Our beach house....9 months ago

So, funny story, I lost the memory card that contained all the pictures from our adventure, and after moving our bed during a little spring cleaning I found it...so the post may go on...9 months later.  

So, a few weeks months ago we rented a house in Seagrove Beach, Florida with two other families and spent some much needed time together.  By the end of our visit Matthew told me repeatedly that he just wants to live at our "other" house.  I wish son, I wish.

The weather was gorgeous, the sand was...well EVERYWHERE and the kids loved digging in it, the water was still a bit churned up from Isaac but that didn't keep us out of it.  Kimber was a little fearless with the waves, Matthew got to snorkel with Willie and thought that was AWESOME.  We had this big giant table we ate most of our meals and there is something dream come true-ish about gathering 10+ people around a big table.

There was a lot of cheeseball consumption.

and a lot of sunscreen applying, though not so many pictures

and a lot of digging

and a wedding

that we may have crashed...well technically they crashed our vacation as we 

claimed our shady spot a good 8 hours prior to their ceremony???

 

and some wrestling

 

and some bucket duty

 

and some pirating of ships

and some eating

and a little resting

 

some hand holding

We were glad to get home and feel ever so blessed by our Alabama family. 

Annual Strawberry Picking

We finally made it out for our annual excursion to the strawberry patch.  This just might be one of my favorite traditions, and I have visions of teenage boys rolling their eyes at me in ten years as I make them fill their own buckets.  For now, they mostly love it and certainly eat as much, if not more, than they pick.

The patch was especially muddy this year, miraculously my two stayed pretty clean.

The second best part to picking them, the JAMAPALOOZA that follows.  We had a new team member this year, between the three of us we canned (53) half-pint jars of strawberry deliciousness.

EASTER 2013

Life seems crazier than normal these days so we thoroughly enjoyed our time together.

We started out the day with little boys peeking into their little baskets.  They were most impressed with their new shovels...and the fact that they got to eat candy with their eggs for breakfast.

We headed to church where we got to serve for the 9:00 service and then took the boys with us to the 11:00 service.  I had the pleasure of attempting to teach 8 very sugared up kindergardeners....wow..what an interesting experience.

We made it back home and after a few pictures we set about cooking and picking up in preparation for our guests.

We had 8 adults and 8 kids and that number doesn't seem that big, but when the weather is icky and we are mostly stuck inside it was well...cozy.

Milk baked ham, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, deviled eggs, cheesy macaroni, potato salad, green salad and strawberry cake filled our bellies.  Once the kids could not stand it any longer Lisa and I went to hide nearly 100 eggs.  They hunted them quite well and set about ingesting nearly every ounce of sugar.  Thankfully some of the eggs had stickers, crayons and even money inside.