When the fair Princess Reagan finds herself in peril, who can she call on for help? Who will always come to her aid, no matter the danger to themselves? Who are those brave young men, so gallant, so handsome, so adorably costumed?
It can only be…
The Three Musketeers!
All for one and one for all! Happy Halloween!
We promised the kids months and months ago that we would take them camping this summer, but we put it off at the beginning because Zachary wasn’t potty trained yet. Then we put it off because this summer was hot as blazes and who wants to sit around a campfire in that kind of heat? And then before we knew what had happened, it was October!
The first weekend of the month was plenty warm in the daytime, but nighttime temperatures were pretty chilly. Jim and I went back and forth about whether to camp out in the backyard that weekend. We spent Friday night setting up for Saturday’s garage sale and still didn’t make a decision. All day Saturday we discussed it. Finally about 6:00 Sat. evening, we finally decided to just do it! If we got too cold, we could always go inside. If we didn’t do it that weekend, we wouldn’t have another chance until the end of the month.
So we, mostly Jim, went to work. I put the kids in warmer clothes, and they went out to help Jim put up the tent.
Daddy built a fire and we ate dinner outside. We roasted marshmallows to make s’mores and just had a blast! The kids LOVED it! They especially loved getting to use the Coleman LED Quad Lantern Bud and KayKay gave them for their birthday! It’s the perfect lantern for a set of quads because each of the four lighted sections detaches from the base as an individual lantern too.
It was no hardship to get them to go to bed either. They were thrilled to get to sleep in their sleeping bags in the tent and had been begging to “go to bed” all night. Luckily, they had had no nap that day and really were exhausted, so they fell asleep in no time!
Reagan and Jonathan on one air mattress
Zachary and Thomas passed out on the other one
It’s a pretty sight, isn’t it? After the kids fell asleep, Jim and I stayed up awhile talking around the campfire. It was a fun night for us too! Then we crawled under the blankets on our own air mattress, and it was sleepytime for all!
Now, it really was cold that night, but since we were right in our backyard, we hooked up a couple of electric heaters and kept them in the tent all night, so it was quite comfortable in there. Still, Daddy worried that the kids would get cold and constantly got up to check on them and cover them up. Me? I’m not the worrier. I figured if they got cold, they’d start whining, and I’d deal with it then. As it was, the kids slept great! Thomas was the only one that made a sound all night. At one point, he sat up and said, “Daddy?” Daddy answered. “Momma?” I answered. He was satisfied we were both there and laid back down and went to sleep. Poor Daddy hardly slept at all. I slept somewhere in between.
It was a great experience, but kind of bittersweet. My kids slept in a tent in the backyard. We CAMPED with our kids! That means…MY KIDS ARE OLD ENOUGH TO CAMP! It’s just one more example of how they’re growing up, which is both joyous and sad at the same time. I don’t have to explain it. All you parents know exactly what I’m talking about.
Next time…the woods!
Well, like all things blog-related, this is late making it, but we have successfully completed our first season of organized sports! This fall the kids played soccer, and they really enjoyed it!
We signed them up with AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization). Their “team” was really just a huge group of boys and girls in our area who were all 4 or 5 years old. Every week we had one practice/game night. When we arrived for practice, the kids were split up boys and girls. They would practice for the first half of the evening and then be split up into teams of four to play a game. The four-person teams were different from one week to the next. The main goal of the season was not to teach the kids all that much about soccer, but rather to have them out on the field having fun.
Here are a few shots (okay, a LOT of shots) of the kiddos having fun:
Jonathan #14
Can you tell how much the uniforms swallowed my kids? Especially Jonathan! The shirts hung down to their knees and the shorts hung almost to their ankles.
Thomas was always falling down, but he often seemed to be doing it on purpose. I know many of you and not surprised to hear that!
Zachary #16
By the end of the season, the boys had really made some progress. In the final game, all three of them scored at least one goal!
Reagan had a lot of fun, but I think she enjoyed the social aspect of it more than anything. She just liked running around and playing with girls for a change!
Carter played too! (In fact, it was Josh and Cris’ idea in the first place!)
(Notice where Carter and Reagan are sitting!)
We had a lot of fun playing soccer this fall. I’m sure it won’t be the last season we play. Thanks to all of you who were able to come out and watch! The kids loved having an audience they actually knew!
Just when you think I might actually write about something else, here comes the beach again!
I just wanted to mention what fun we had that week watching Carter and Reagan together. Carter was not shy about sharing his preference for being with Reagan. He regularly wanted to hold her hand or sit beside her, and she was generally accepting of his attentions. So we, especially Cris and I, had fun imagining ourselves as future in-laws and planning to use some of the following pictures in the wedding video when our kids get married.
Ah, young love!
Gracious, it takes me too long to do things! I hope to finish off the beach trip here. There will probably be a lot of pictures and not so many words!
These first pictures came from Josh and Cris and would have gone on previous posts if I’d had them at the time.
Jonathan, Reagan, Kennedy, Carter, Zachary, Thomas—outside the Old Oyster Factory, our first dining adventure of the vacation. The 5 big kids all got free shirts and had to wear them immediately!
The rest of the pictures are all from our last night in Hilton Head. I forced everyone to participate in formal beach pictures! :)
Thomas
After the formal pics, we just ran around and enjoyed our last evening on the beach.
And that ends the beach trip! We spent the rest of the evening packing all our things back up, then got up at the crack of dawn and hit the road.
But the fun times didn’t stop when we left Hilton Head! We’ve been super busy ever since with all sorts of other exciting adventures! Stay tuned!
