FINALLY.....new family pics!

So, it has been quite some time, like 2010 since we had family pictures made....and these kids have grown quite a bit...as seen below:

So.....here are the new pictures displaying the much more aged Riggles.....we blinked...........

Skins and Skulls

This homeschooling life, while crazy some days, affords us many opportunities for learning outside the box.  We went on a field trip to the Madison County Extension Office yesterday and got to learn all about local animals and explore their SKINS and their SKULLS.  We all learned something, did you know when opossums are well, playing possum it is called SULLING?  Us neither.  We also learned that the eye placement is different for carnivores and herbivores.  Super interesting stuff and these boys of mine had an ABSOLUTE blast.  Did I mention it was free??

Matthew channeling his inner Davy Crockett

Kimber was super intrigued by the beaver skin

A bobcat skull

2014 Miles = 194.68

A fairly slow running year, this crazy life doesn't leave a lot of time for running, but it's better than no miles, right?

Our Annual Galaxy of Lights Excursion

Our 6th journey through the Christmas Light Display at the botanical gardens was as fun as usual.  The weather was crazy nice, the lights were just as Merry and our sweet little crew of friends continue to grow. 

I am still baffled by how quickly we went from this...

 to this....

While the speed with which these kids are growing up blows me away,
I love seeing them become little people, with friends and ideas all their own.

WHAT????

May, it has been since May that I posted.  Summer went fast, as it always does.

Working on some posts to play a tiny bit of catch-up.

Matthew is 7!

7 years old, that is hard for this mama to believe.  I remember this sweet baby at a year old....

and now he is a big 7-year old.

He is the sweetest kid I have ever met.  He loves baseball, riding his bike, star wars and legos.  He loves to help and will do most anything if you just ask him.  He has incredible patience with me and little brother but not so much with himself.  He recently discovered crunchy peanut butter and cannot get enough.

We celebrated his birthday with a special outing that consisted of 7 things for him.  He started off unwrapping a new pair of boots, we then headed off to Krispy Kreme for breakfast followed by mountain biking and fishing at Hays Nature Preserve.  After that we hit up Toys R Us and let him pick out a new Nerf gun.  After a shower and a short break we went to the new trampoline park in town and capped off his special night with a dinner with friends at Mellow Mushroom.

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.