Girls camp

I was looking forward to girls camp this year but also stressing a bit for it because I didn't really feel like I knew what was going on and I was supposed to be the Stake Assistant Camp Director. Its hard living so far away from other areas of the stake because its hard to coordinate meetings...plus everyone shoulders more than one calling and so everybody seems to operate on a most last minute 'whats-the-next-thing-on-my-plate' kind of planning schedule not because we're procrastinators but because the human brain can't be in so many mental states/worlds at once. (at least thats how I feel).  So I was able to get there early early and stay almost to the bitter end so I have a much better idea of how an entire camp week flows. I've been told I would be the next Stake Camp Director in the coming years.  The first night was just with some Stake Leaders, the cooks and the YCL's... and we had laid back meals and activities... but mostly just set up and prepared the camp. I got to sleep in the air conditioned leaders building this year (well for all but 1 of the nights) and it was fun to bond more with the ladies I've been working with. Its interesting how sleeping in the same room as someone really does bring your closer. 

Our first night with just the YCL's was the most beautiful sunset. We lit off these cool lanturns and I held my breath that we wouldn't start a forest fire as we saw them sail miles away in the sky over the half-woods, half-farms countryside. Luckily we've had some steady rainfall the past month so I worried a little less than if it had been bone dry.

One of my favorite parts of camp is hanging out with my 'daughters' from my trek group last summer. Jessica, Madelyn, and Emma Grace.

Also I loved working with my old Stake YW presidency buddies. Allison has some of the most beautiful hair I've ever had the pleasure of braiding. So thick and soft and clean (even at camp!). Jessica let me practice on her hair too. 

The first night was dutch oven dinners which is always good and we spaced the skits out this year across the week. (not sure that was a hit, but it did break up the LONG night of watching skit after skit). The YW from my branch memorized the YW theme in sign language. Really impressive. 

We had an out-of-stake special speaker one night, and passed out these glow LED balloons and spelled our the letters: Be The Light. Then we had a spontaneous sing-along session in the dark with our glowing paraphernalia. A lot of the stuff this year wasn't planned exactly but ended up being great. It stormed one who afternoon and we had a dance party in the pavilion again. An awesome way to tire everyone out. The ropes course was open to all the years this year (something I was pushing for) and I was in charge of making sure we had enough workers to keep it safe for everyone (we've had some injuries in the past). It was a lot of fun and I was able to rock climb and rappel for the first time and go through the course twice. 

Me and some of the girls and a few leaders goofing off with masks one night. Its kinda crazy how much you can love people without really knowing them for very long or being able to see them very often. One of the cool things about the way the church is organized is how we get the chance to serve with people you would never have been able to otherwise... doing things you would never have asked to do, or even thought you wanted to do... and yet you come away happier, stronger, deeper and with meaningful relationships. 

Summer Activity Jar

I can get so focused on my own projects and household needs and the kids generally are so self-entertained that I found, after just the first week of summer, that we needed to have something specific to do with the kids that was 'fun'.... and also we needed to pick up the playroom at least once a day or I would go crazy. So we started a Summer Activity Jar. Alec and I came up with lots and lots of ideas of free and fun things to do together at home and wrote them on strips of paper and stuck them in a jar.  Each day, as soon as the playroom was clean, each of the kids could pull out a slip and then vote on which activity to do. Alec put in "watch 2 movies" and "watch 4 shows" so most days they would get all excited and try really hard to pull one of those two out. (Once or twice I MAY have pre-pulled those out so they wouldn't even be an option) 

Heres two pictures from the first week of summer that show how crazy the playroom can get after just an hour or so: Also, aren't those motor-home duplo creations awesome!? My older kids still love playing with duplos. 

Painting with pudding:

Stomping in the rain:

Visiting the library's Summer Reading Program (Not specifically in the Summer Activity Jar, but still a fun activity we did this summer)

Making home-made Play-do:

Picking Blueberries: (Again not actually in the jar)

Flying kites:

Make a volcano:

Paint with our feet:

Run through the sprinklers:

Make card towers: (not in the jar, but the kids LOVE to do this.. then they'll flip dominos or matchbox cars at one another's tower and see how many it takes to knock it all down)

Eventually the kids did pull the watch 2 movies and watch 4 show strips. They were in heaven. 

Gwen's birthday

Happy Happy Birthday, Dear Gweny! We had a quick and easy breakfast in bed: cereal with chocolate poptarts and berries because we all had early meetings at church. Chris leaves at 6:45 and the kids and I need to leave at 7:30.  Grandma and Grandpa were able to watch her open their gifts before church: new pink cowboy boots and books! Then I took the kids to church and they played in the nursery, like normal, while Chris and I have Branch Council, like normal... we get a break for 1 Sunday a month. 

Grandma and Grandpa had to leave right after sacrament meeting so they could see Thom and Brittany's kids before they went to bed so they couldn't eat cake with us but it was so helpful to have them stay and help me with the kids during sacrament meeting (the kids are all at really tricky ages for sitting kindly and quietly for 75 minutes). Gwen was concerned about them not getting cake and wanted to make a few cupcakes to send with them. Which would've been really nice if I would've remembered to do that!

She requested a chocolate crown cake with chocolate jewels and pink frosting. 

In keeping with our pact this year about no birthday gifts or spending money on parties, we celebrated by letting her choose the activities to do that afternoon. She had us all think of ideas and then she picked which ones to do. We did a scavenger hunt, played a game, and then pampered her with simultaneous hand / foot massages, painting nails and playing with hair.  She LOVED that part how we were all treating her really nice at the same time. Charlie painted her nails, Alec played with her hair, Chris massaged her hands and I did her feet and Freddy filling in the gaps. :) She sighed to herself, "This is the best day ever!" as she sunk back into the bean bag. 

We love our talkative, sing-songy, sometimes shy, helpful, playful, joke-loving, huggy, emotional Gwen. She currently loves My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, fairies, skirts, riding bikes, swinging high, and playing with her brothers. 

Grandma and Grandpa Archibald!

Grandma and Grandpa Dixie came for a visit a few days after the 4th of July!! We LOVE LOVE LOVE having visitors come stay with us... especially grandparents. We can never get enough extended-family time. I tried to meal plan ahead of time with simple meals so we could spend more time playing together and hopefully be more of a restful vacation for them. We switched Alec and Charlie's beds so the big room had the big bed and I really enjoyed thinking that they were comfortable up there in a big room, with a nice view of the backyard and a comfy chair to relax in. Chris actually was pretty busy at work because he was working on this big NSF Career Proposal thing that was due the day after they were leaving. He went in early and stayed late and worked on it at home even but we managed to get in a few evenings of chatting and eating Blue Bell ice cream. After hearing about our strict grocery budget, they wanted to provide a few splurges for us and went shopping and brought home meat and ice cream! Grandma made cinnamon rolls and worked on the crosswords (got Chris hooked on NYT online puzzles) and Grandpa did some reasearch reading and they both did a lot out in the yard. I feel like, with their help, we were FINALLY able to get the yard looking nice... weeding, trimming, branch burning, garage/porch sweeping etc. We took them to Lake Tiak-o-Khata on Saturday (Chris' first time, too) and despite the impending lightening were able to spend a good few solid hours in the water. It was really fun having them here. Looks like I only took pictures when they were playing with Freddy...he's just so cute! 

4th of July - A true day of independence

We invited some friends over to celebrate the 4th of July with us and bought $30 worth of fireworks to try lighting off this year. The three things to make it a perfect 4th of July for me is having a flag cake, watching fireworks and having some kind of party.  We had 3 for 3 this year. 

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Freddy didn't understand about keeping the burning part of the sparkler away from people and accidentally burned his little friend. Luckily, she's tough and it wasn't too bad...at least I don't think it was!

We moved to the front yard to light of the bigger fireworks. It was Chris' first time and 1 of them required a wooden trough to shoot off at the right angle. He scrounged one up and lit it off. It was impressive and the perfect 'finale.' Nature was giving us her own firework display with thunder and lightening.  I was actually glad to have our own show over, so that we could head inside where it was safe. 

Now when I say that this year it was a true day of Independence.... let me explain myself.  For years now, the kids (mostly Alec) will occasionally ask for a whole day where they can {enter some ridiculous idea here}... usually its {buy as much stuff as we want} but since they stress the fact that its JUST for ONE day like that makes it totally doable. "You know, like for ONE DAY, we could probably only get like 3 laptops and 4 or 5 power wheels, " Alec tries to be very convincing.  Well, at the beginning of the summer they asked for JUST ONE day of as much screen time as they wanted. My first thought was, 'Huh, that's actually do-able and wouldn't cost a penny' and my next thought was, 'How much screen time could they actually take in one day?...especially if it was on a holiday where other fun stuff was going on?'  I tentatively agreed to talk to Daddy about an idea...like maybe we could try it for the 4th of July.  From that moment on it was a done deal and they kids were SO SO excited about it and would talk about it with such awe.  We agreed as a family that we would need to save up some screen time for it, and not watch anything for the 3 days previous and that they would need to go to bed early the 2 days after it to help catch up on their sleep since part of the experience would be staying up as late as they wanted (capped at midnight). 

The kids went to bed SO WELL during the days leading up to July 4th because that meant they were one day closer to as much screen time as they wanted! It was super cute to see their giddy excitement. Monday, July 4th dawned bright and the kids came in our room at 5:45am ready to start! But its a known fact in our house that days don't ACTUALLY start until 7:00am, so they had to wait a bit longer. At 7:00am on the dot they started their first show. I'm trying to remember what it was, either Phineus and Ferb or Lego Ninjago. The morning flew by for them and they were still going strong around the early afternoon. We made them pause it for meals and eat at the table (Charlie wanted to eat lunch in the living room so he could keep watching).  We had friends coming over for an early dinner and I thought they would be ready for some play time. Nope! Their friends just joined them on the couch but at least convinced them (just before dinner) to switch out Netflix for Wii to play some video games like Mario Cart. 

They paused to eat dinner and have cake, then went back at it. I was shocked. Aren't their brains, eyes and backs just hurting from sitting still staring at moving pictures for almost 12 hours straight?!?  Nope! We got them to pause it again to come out back to light off fireworks and sparklers for an hour or so. But when that was over they happily plopped back on the couch and continued to play. We put Freddy to bed around 8:00 and told the kids that they can still watch but its parents choice after 8:00.  We tried to pick something boring so they would fall asleep. Chris thought that watching HIM play xbox would do the trick. It worked for Gwen, she fell asleep next to me around 9:30. The sports xbox game was too interesting for the boys so we chose an old school made in the '80s, an Agatha Christie mystery set in the 1920's: Poirot.  That did it for Charlie, he zonked out around 10:30. Alec loved it and was still ready for more. We talked about not wanting to watching anything too scary right before bed, so he decided on a gentle Sofia the First episode. That put me to sleep and I fell asleep around 11. By 11:30, I woke up and declared the day over and sent Alec up to bed mildly protesting in his 1/2 awake, 1/2 asleep state.  

The kids were decidedly cranky the next few days, but told everyone they met for the next month that they got to watch as much TV as they wanted for an entire day and even stayed up late! I'd say it was a success and that the kids won - apparently I'm a terrible judge at their screen-time stamina. 

My favorite part was the FIRST thing Charlie said the next morning: *in a super whiney voice that Charlie is a complete pro at* "Yeah but our friends came over and we had to stop watching to play with them so we didn't actually get a WHOLE day of screen time. We wasted it!." Hahaha. I guess having a party and lighting off fireworks is a big waste of a day. Man oh, man. I will bet anyone $10,000 that the kids think they get to do this again next year because doing something once often makes it a family tradition in their mind and I'm not sure what I'll say. Should we do it again, or not?

Last trip to Memphis Zoo and musings on budgeting

This past year we've had a membership to the Memphis Zoo. It paid for itself after just going twice with our family and it made a nice place for one of us to take the kids while the other went to the temple and sometimes Costco. It is a really nice big zoo and has some cool water features that the kids can play and practically even swim in. I forgot my purse as we left Starkville and didn't want to make Chris late for the temple session so I just played with the kids at the Stake Center Gym across from the temple while we waited for Chris and then we all went to the zoo together. Since usually just one of us took the kids, this was our first time going as an entire family and it was nice to have both parents there.  We really enjoyed their new Hippo / Zambezi River exhibit. 

We watched them feed the crocodiles... really cool. Everything looked SO BIG under the water and it was really cool to see them so close.

Charlie and his polar bears. He's getting a little less excited about them, I wonder if he's found a new favorite animal. 

It is super hot and humid in Memphis in July so the kids were very happy to swim in the 'river'.  I don't think we'll renew our membership for another year. We may try to make it to the Birmingham Temple and I think the kids would enjoy trying out a new 'thing to do.' I'm hoping we can find a more interactive children's museum or science center or some parks, or even just play in the Stake Center again. We brought some of our soft IKEA soccer balls with us and the kids had plenty of fun playing with those in the big gym. We also put on some short plays on the stage, which was really cute to see. We did Caps for Sale and Little Red Riding Hood. This one sweet older Catholic lady was wandering around the building about 2 hours ahead of time for her neighbors baptism. At the suggestion of another gentleman who was there cleaning the church, I invited her to wait in the Gym with us and watch the kids' little plays. She loved it, and I love it when people think my kids are cute.

Anyway, after the zoo, we stopped at Costco on the way home and managed to keep to our strict grocery budget and only spent around $150! We're having fun using a budgeting system (a combination of a free App, MINT and our own spreadsheets) that actually makes it easy to budget ahead of time how much we can spend in a certain category and give us updates on where we're at in that category on any given day.  Its very empowering to be so on top of finances. I just have to try and not dwell on the depressing thoughts of how little all our efforts to save a penny here or there make in the face of big random out-of-your-control expenses like car repairs, or hospital bills.  If we stick to staying on budget, its going to make a difference somewhere someday, right?? We have so many dreams to improve our house and pick out furnishings and take future family trips.  I just also need to try and remember to balance these dreams with gratitude and content in my current situation. I get a good glimpse every now and then of how different my life could be if I had been born to different parents and it offers me good and needed perspective.