So much to highlight since I last wrote! We’ve had a fun couple of weekends! One big thing happening in our lives is that I am currently unemployed. I am not sure how I feel about this yet. I am super sad about losing a job that I LOVED, and sad that the economy has taken it’s toll on the company I worked for. I had worked there for quite a few years – on and off since before I had Braelyn. Anyway – summer is obviously a fairly good time to be home with the kids! I am looking for a part time job though, so I will keep you posted on how that goes!
Two weekends ago we had a wedding to attend for a cousin of mine, and it was fun to get out and see family and go out with no kids! Here is Kyle and I before the wedding
And during the week last week I decided to try to potty train my 3rd (final) child! I figured since I wasn’t working any longer I could save money by potty training Gracyn! I loosely followed the 3 Day Method – letting Gracyn run around all day basically sans clothes/diaper. She thought it was fun and special to do that! I just told her that if she wants to go potty that she can tell me and we can go on the toilet. Low and behold she totally did just that! Not just once, but all day the first day. She had no accidents all day. She did wear a pull-up at nap and bedtime of course. So Wed. and Thurs. she did great. and then Thurs. we headed out for camping and I just figured that she would wear pull-ups/diapers all weekend while camping. And she did, but she actually told us before going potty almost the whole weekend!!! Only once or twice did she go in her pull-up! I am so proud of her! She loves it too. Oh yeah, we have used the treat bribe as well, which helps a bit too! ;) I picked right back up on Sunday and today and I think it’s safe to say she is potty trained! Wore big girl undies all day, and told us each time she needed to go – # 1 and #2!!! To say I am excited is an understatement! We have been buying diapers for a little over 6 years straight – no breaks in there! And a few of those years we were buying diapers for two! I am so glad to be done changing diapers, and to be done buying diapers! I think we are going to celebrate by taking Gracyn to Chuck-E-Cheese for her big girl party!
And now for our camping pictures! We borrow my mom’s inherited motor home to go camping usually once or twice a year. This year we decided to try out Grand Haven State Park because we thought it would be great to be right by downtown Grand Haven and right on the beach. We were a little bit upset right upon arrival because of the extra $42 we had to spend on State park passes for both the motor home and for our vehicle. I guess we were expecting at least the motor home to be covered under the cost of camping there – just like a travel trailer is, but no. So after we got over that we got all set up. Some major storms were happening south of Grand Haven, so we hunkered down and got the kids to bed and went to be ourselves – no fire.
stormy skies:
the sweet Travel Craft
(I so need a class on taking night pictures by the way – they NEVER turn out and I play around a TON with my settings!)
The next morning Kyle went to work and I hung out with the girls. It was very humid and still pretty wet, so we laid pretty low. We did go for a walk to check out the beach/boardwalk, and I got some fun pics!
Yeah – she’s crazy for crazy bands (Thanks Sadie!) ;)
By the way – did you notice in the last few pics of Selah that she has bangs?! Yeah – I didn’t do that! And I have always been adamant on no bangs on my girls. Grrr. :)
We enjoyed lunch together too – for some reason lunch together while camping is more fun?!
And then I put the girls to work. We had SOOOOO many green and yellow beans and we didn’t know what to do with them, so I decided to take them camping and I set up a table for the girls to sell the beans! Told them that the money they made they could use for ice cream that night! I think they sold like $8 worth, so not a ton, but I think it covered their ice cream! They got pretty bored with it, but it was a fun lesson in entrepreneurship. And we figured some people might just love fresh garden beans to cook with their camp dinners!
Kyle finally came back from working and Braelyn and he played catch for a while (I had played with her too while the other girls napped – she loves catch on the beach)
After naps and dinner we decided to head out to the real beach to do a little jumping of waves.
Selah was crazy in the water – almost too comfortable! She would dip her head right into the water – this is the best pic I could get of it because she was being so crazy!
After that we got cleaned up and went for a walk on the boardwalk to get ice cream. When we were leaving we saw and heard a bunch of police and an ambulance coming into the state park. We had heard chatter that there was a person struggling in the water. We decided to go on and get our ice cream, but we kept hearing new sirens and saw the dive team trailer fly past. Kyle is very intrigued with this kind of stuff, so he wanted to get back (instead of head down to watch the Musical Fountain). We decided to do so, and upon arriving back on the beach we had seen the Human Chain doing their search and numerous Sherrif’s boats and Coast Gaurd boats searching the waters. It was a very disheartening experience. Everyone on the beach was very quiet, the sky was eerie looking as a storm was looming, and sun was setting. We stayed and watched for quite some time, and then decided we better get the kids to bed. After getting them to bed we each took turns going down to the beach watching the rescue efforts. The Coast Guard helicopter came in and was flying right over the beach/water – again amazing to watch and yet very very frightening. The story written by the paper is here. Such a sad night, and I continue to pray for that family.
Saturday morning at the campground was pretty quiet. The girls slept in pretty good, and we made a little breakfast, played in the sand by our camper, and kind of got bored. We decided at 4:00 to head home and take good showers and give the girls a good bath because we wanted to go out for dinner that night. Kyle’s parents called us and wanted to come out and visit, so we told them they should join us for dinner. We met back at the campgrounds by about 6:30 and walked up to Snug Harbor for dinner. And of course ice cream on the way back up the boardwalk! After putting the kids to bed they joined us around a fire for a bit. It was a great evening.
Sunday morning we woke up, had breakfast, and packed up. Lunch at my mom’s and a pretty relaxing rest of the day, except for the 4 loads of laundry!
And that’s that! Pretty long winded huh?! I only have a few LO’s to share. The first two are quickpages that Jacque put together and they are on sale at TLP for only .99 now thru tomorrow (Tadpole Tue.) I did both of these LO’s in about 20 min. start to finish! I love that! That’s only .25 cents per LO!!! WOW – there is no way you could do a paper scrapped LO for $1.25 (factored in the .99 cents to print it in 8 x 8)!
And a gorgeous kit by CD Muckosky: Together
Oooo…this yummy collab by Shabby Miss Jenn Designs and Kate Hadfield is a must have too!!! This kit is HUGE and would encompass so many different summer activities and so many other things as well!
Alright, alright…I am done! Whew, it’s getting late and I have a few things to wrap up! Hope you enjoyed reliving our camping trip with us! ;)
MandaKay
2 comments:
Love the bangs on your little girl--but it's difficult when they do it themselves! You do such a great job of documenting your lives in photo and blog. I always forget my camera! I'm going to try to remember.
Mark Scheuer's 9 year old son, Danny, was on Cobe's football team last year. Such a sad, sad loss- sorry you guys had to watch that.
Post a Comment