Camping attempt #2

The second camping attempt with my sister was up to Metaline Falls. It's my new favorite place around here for camping stuff. This time wasn't as successful but we did some fun things. Here is the highlight. We found a random "toilet" in the middle of the woods where we were playing in the river....and yes, we used it :)

We ended up getting rained out on friday night and went back home before we even set up camp. We came back up on saturday and played at the river and made our campfire dinner. Here's me and the little boys building our fire to cook our foil dinners on. They were good little helpers and even helped find sticks and logs! And of course they helped blow on the fire to get it going, and were SO EXCITED when the flames started :)
Here's Scott and Alan in the river in a little rapid place that you could float down. This was scott demonstrating how to jump in the little hole to float down the river in. I'm not sure if alan ever tried it :) It was pretty cold that day

The boys building a dam or something.....

Lane showing me his muscles.....arm floaties and all :)

Playing in the river

There are some caves up in Metaline falls that we went too, more on those later, but you can "hike to canada" from them. Here we are on the US/Canada border.

The boys on the border. The sign said "warning. US border"...yadda yadda....pretty securely kept border crossing :)

Here's some of the cave. It's actually a guided tour that lasts about 15 mins. A little dissapointing compared to the spilunking that I used to do in Columbus with my friends....oh well. the boys thought it was fun

Alan in front of one of the stelagmites

More Cave

Me and scott checking out the campsite. This was when we decided to call it quits and go home :)

Here's some waterfalls that we played in. I forget what they are called... but they are pretty fun :)

family pic at the falls.

More pics of this trip to come....

Roughing it

Finally, here's some updates from when my sister was in town to visit. This camping trip was up to Trout Lake. It's a really fun little place with a hike up to another lake called Emerald lake.

Here's my nephews Alan and Nathan at Emerald lake. Alan caught a snake in the water.
Here's Trout lake from up on the trail to Emerald Lake

Here's the crew. It is a 5 mile hike all around. The kids did really well, even the little guys (mostly) They only had to be carried part of the time.

This is the start of the hike.

Here's Alan with a craw-dad he caught in the little stream at camp. He decided to let it say "hi" to his mom. She was really excited. :)

Here's nathan helping chop some firewood.

Testing out the hammock. It can hold at least 6 people they found out!

Lucy testing out the hammock

Lucy in her "cage" She is not really fond of being trapped outside all the action, but she was a pretty good trooper for most of the camping trip.

Lane and Nate

Ann and the "little boys" at trout lake at a little fishing hole.

Me and Lucy at the end of the Emerald lake hike. I ended up taking Lucy on the way back so Scott could carry lane if needed. I decided that 7 month pregnant people should NOT carry their 8 month old babies on a front pack for 2.5 miles. NOT FUN! but we made it :)

Alan with another one of his "catches"

The boys rolling a "bench" up to the campfire.

Cooking Dinner.

Lane.. big fan of the hammock

the boys gathering more firewood

All in all it was a fun camping trip. More successful than the next weekend when we got rained out! I think the boys had a great time, and lucy did really well for her first official camping trip. She actually slept PRETTY good in the tent. IT started to rain in the early morning hours, and we had to scramble to get a tarp over our tent. It didn't work so wel cuz we still had some puddles in our tent but it wasn't too bad. We'll definately have to do more camping next summer. It will be interesting with TWO babies.

Look who's.......

WALKING!!!!!

Ok, I will admit that we have been SHAMELESSLY encouraging Lucy walking since.....well she was born pretty much, but really since I found out I was pregnant. We've been telling her she has till October, then we're going to stop carrying her, and she LISTENED!! :) just kidding. She's So stinking cute when she walks. She's not full blown walking yet, just a few feet, but it's coming!!! She's got REALLY good balance, and can start a stop mid walk. Cutie....

and here's my 33-ish week belly. I think this baby isn't supposed to have a name cuz we've got NOTHIN! Oh well....I can't belive it's september, and that I've having a baby in October!!

Funny kids and other randomness

Sorry, mom, this isn't an update post with pics from Ann's visit :) But it's just some funny things my kids have done lately. They make me laugh so much, both of them are little hams, and it cracks me up. Lane is getting so big these days, and has the funnest sense of humor (most days) and Lucy is becoming quite the little clown herself, and LOVES the attention it brings her.....SO there's hardly a dull moment around here. It'll be a hoot to see what #3 is like! Maybe this will be my mellow one!!!! *lets keep our fingers crossed* Anyways, here's some of the latest antics.....

One of Lucy's FAVORITE things to do right now, is grab something, stand up, and "dance". Which looks like some crazed lunatic trying to break out from behind prison bars. Her favorite spot to do this is in her crib in the mornings.....and a close second is behind the railing all around the upstairs stairwell, and then of course on the stairs themselves. It's pretty helarious to see her shaking the bars, headbanging, and bouncing up and down all at the same time.

This day i came out of Lane's room and saw her doing her dance in the hallway here, Lane decided to join her (i'm pretty sure he taught her this move) and this was a little breather....Lucy is in the middle of the "Yay for lucy" clap

More dancing....pictures totally don't do it justice. I would post a video but i'd rather poke my eyeballs out with a fork than post a video with dial up internet....sorry :)

OH this one is good. Lane took a bath one night, and was especially onry and tired (clearly) Anways, i was tired of hearing him whine and cry so i left him to dry himself off and go get his OWN jammies. Well....after a while all was quiet in the bathroom and i jokingly called out "are you ok? did you fall asleep in there?" no answer.....then i went to check, and YUP he did...

totally passed out! Helarious..untill i had to wake him up for dinner....then it was NOT so funny :)

Ahh,...this has nothing to do with my kids, but this shows one of the reasons I LOVE where I live. This is our fireplace just a few nights ago....and yes, that is a real fire. IN AUGUST!!!! I love it. It' s been getting down to the low 40's high 30's at night here, and my house is like 58 degrees when i wake up in the morning....it's AWESOME!!!

Lately

This pretty much sums up how I feel lately. It's been a busy month, and i think the longest stretch i've ever gone without blogging! I have lots to catch up, and to remind myself (due to pregnant brain) i'm making a list of the fun stuff we've done this month:

1.our chickens started laying eggs!!

2.my sister and her kids were here for 3 weeks to visit

3.two camping trips

4. lots of swimming in the lake...until we discovered it has LEACHES!!! UGH

5.teaching the boys how to ride dirtbikes

6.went to a rodeo

7.went to settlers day, and Lane won a silver dollar for winning a foot race!

8.went on the "hike of death" with all the kids.....:) 7 month old pregnant people should not attempt to carry their 8 month old baby for any length of time in a front carrier!

9.went to the newport museum

10. went to some caves and "hiked" to canada!

I think that sums it up. Lucy has also been sick the past couple days, so that's been sad. Now the next project is to move lucy into the "girls" room, and get the nursery ready for a newborn again....and get MYSELF ready for a newborn again...is that possible? We'll see! :) keep on the lookout for update pics..

Wildlife

We were cleaning out our "garage" and opened up one of the top shelves and found a little bird nest. We were about to scoop it out until we saw these little guys! There were 3 birds and one egg that hadn't hatched yet. They are kinda ugly suckers :) It will be fun to check on them and see how they grow

Lane also has learned how to catch chickens....well at least one chicken. It's pretty cute and he's actually very gently with them when he's holding them!

He loves his chicken! It's almost as big as he is!! We asked him what he wanted to name her, and he couldn't think of anything....we'll work on that :)

We also found our baby kittens!!! Apparently the "Wood Lodge" is a fertile place this year. Baby birds, baby humans, and baby kittens! Just wait till our chickens start laying eggs! hopfully those won' tbe hatching....they'll be eaten... :)

Anyways, our cat had kittens like 6-7 weeks ago, and we could never find them so we gave up and figured they didn't make it. WELL they have been living in our shed too! They are WILD little things. we caught one and it almost tore my arm off. SO we have our work cut out for us taming these things. I wouldn't care to leave them wild but i don't want them to start inbreeding!! SO we need to catch them and get them fixed. They're really cute, but definately little wild kitties.

Equal Opportunity

I can't show one messy kid without giving equal airtime to the other one :) Sometimes I get a little crazy and just let Lucy go to town with her food and dump it all over her tray. She thinks it's pretty neat. If you look closely you can see her first tooth: Bottom Right one poking up. The ones on either side are also coming up and we've learned that Lucy is NOT a happy teether. Just at night time though so i guess it could be worse. But then again, not sleeping for a couple nights in a row just MIGHT be THE worst......:)

Good thing she's pretty cute!

skeletons and wussies

Lane decided he liked skeletons for a day, and last halloween i actually picked up this costume on clearance to use this year (too bad he's already outgrown it....DOH!) anyways, he saw it and INSISTED on wearing it......pretty much the WHOLE day. I had to draw the line when he was running around outside with it in the 80 degree sun sweating his brains out becuase he was so hot in it!! Here's he's showing us the skeletons muscles!

The other day I made Lane a microwave smore for dessert. I was upstairs, and Scott comes RUNNING upstairs and says, "your idea, your mess" I was expecting totally ruin and disaster when I came downstairs, but was met with this:

Seriously??? That's all?? I thought. This is the mess my poor husband was afraid of? Hmm...clearly I don't give him enough opportunities to change poopy diapers or something! :)

First 'do

I decided Lucy was ready for pigtails.....here's our first attempts at fixing lucy's hair! She is NOT a big fan of having someone mess with her hair, so we had to do it REALLY fast, But she actually left it in all day, i was impressed. I liked the one spike better than the two pigtails. For church that day I put a little bow on her spike, and she was pretty much the cutest thing I ever saw :)

Lucy and her spike
the pigtail attempt. Cute, but too much like antennae......

Tho the two pigtails DO give me TWO places to put big flowers......soooooo we'll see :)

A little late

When we were in Ohio we took the traditional Young's Dairy trip. Always a good time for all. We ate ice cream, fed the goats, and rode on some tractors. Young's is getting a little bit crazy though, they've added rides and mini-golf, and all kinds of stuff. I kind of miss the simple Young's, but I guess nothing stays the way you remember it as a kid.

Lane saying hi to the baby cow
Riding the sweet barrell airplanes. We are totally going to make some of these to tow behind the 4-wheeler!

eating ice cream! lucy was enjoying some kind of paper good :)

we had a little bit of a time waking Lane up for ice cream. He TOTALLY passed out in the car on the way to Youngs, and we could barely revive him with ice cream......craziness!

Still out.....I think cousin nathan finally was able to wake him up. It was a good thing we had ice cream waiting for him after disturbing his nap!

Riding the tractor

More barrell planes

Feeding the goats

More goats

Lucy was a big fan of the animals....she REALLY wanted to pet the cows