Camping

We had such a fun time camping with a few of our homeschool friends at the end of August. We actually slept in a tent. If you know anything about me that is quite the feat. I'm not a big camper. But we ended up having a really good time.

 In the morning, our two oldest girls decided to go exploring without telling mom and dad. They came to the tent slightly giggling calling for us to come help them. When I opened the tent door this is what I found. I was less than amused, especially since we didn't bring extra clothes!

The mud was SERIOUSLY CAKED ON!!! 

The mud had to be scraped off!

This is the creek they decided to explore...

And this is where they got stuck! Thankfully a nearby camper heard there cries for help, got a stick and pulled them out.

 Once they were all cleaned up there was no shortage of snake hunting . . .

 and frog hunting. SO MANY FROGS!!!

 Porkchop shot his first bb gun.

I think he liked it! 

 We were sad we couldn't stay the full weekend with our friends, but the hubby had an international flight he had to get back in time for. But on our way home I was able to snap this shot of the Manti temple. So beautiful! Can't wait till we can do this again. Hopefully we can stay the full time!

Snapshots of summer

We were pretty consumed with wedding stuff this last summer, but we did fit in a few things here and there. Cousins came to play for a week. Summer doesn't get any better than late warm nights. The girls took advantage and played cups till the mosquitos started to eat them alive.

 And free slurpee day at 7/11! The perfect treat on a warm day.

 And while getting our free slurpees the girls spotted this and they "made" me get it. :)

 And summer is never complete with out swimming in grandma and grandpas pool. This last summer Porkchop became super brave and learned to do flips into the pool. If you you know this kid at all this  is quite the feat. He didn't even like to put his head under the water just a couple months before this picture.

 And my amazing uncle entered our kiddos in a soap box derby race. He built and painted the car and it turned out AMAZING!!! The kids LOVED racing and Honey did some serious maneuvering when another driver crossed over into her lane. She kept her cool and swerved out of the way and won the race. Oh! And the other driver ended up being totally fine. It was such a fun experience! 

Bake Sale

Last weekend the kids had a bake sale. Honey has a church activity at the end of the month and they have been encouraged to try and earn the money to buy fabric for blankets they will be making at the activity. I thought this would be a good way to make some money. Here are just some of the treats we made . . .

Jumbo Chocolate Chip Cookies

White Chocolate Chunk and Dark Chocolate Mint M & M Cookies

I happened to pick up a plethora of lemons at Costco so we had to make some goods with lemon in them.

Lemon Blueberry Muffins with a Lemon Sugar Topping

Lemon Pound Cake with a Lemon Glaze

 Here are the kids helping pit the cherries for the cherry crisps in a jar.

 Oh! And if you happen to see a pin on Pinterest where they use a straw to remove pits from cherries, let me save you some time and frustration and tell you IT DOESN'T WORK!! Chopsticks however do.  I know I have a cherry pitter somewhere, but I couldn't find it, so this is what I could come with and it worked pretty well other than the cherry stained fingers.

And here are all the goods packaged and ready to go!

 We had several advertisers. This is my brother. Ladies . . . He's available!

 I think these guys have a future as the Jamba Juice Banana advertiser! 

What do you think?

Update on the Uh-Oh Jar

So it's been a little while since we first started using the uh-oh jar and blessings jar and let me just say it's AWESOME! It's worked soooo well! I mainly started doing this for Porkchop due to some listening and whining issues he was having and this has been a great solution. The first couple days I wasn't so sure though! He wasn't quite getting it. 

He first got a slip for not cleaning his room and then whining about it. I said, "Do you want an uh-oh jar slip?" His reply was, "Sure." So he got one. It was mopping the kitchen floor. Then he whined about that so then I said, "Do you want another uh-oh jar?" To which he replied, "Sure!" 

Anyways, this continued several times until he finally realized his chores were continuing to pile up and he was missing out on outside playtime. He quietly finished his uh-oh jar slips . . . all FIVE of them, plus cleaning his room, and then went on with his day.

The next day, he again complained about cleaning his room. I said, "Do you want an Uh-Oh jar slip?" Anyone want to guess what he said?  Porkchops reply was "Sure!" So he took a slip and it was clean the kitchen floors . . . AGAIN! After his first complaint about cleaning the floors I said, "Do you want another slip?" He quickly said, "NO!" Ahhhh... SUCCESS!!! 

Since that second day, all I have to say is "do you want an uh-oh jar slip" and he quickly says "NO!" and moves on without attitude! HOORAY!!

I'm one happy momma. As for the blessings jar, I have to be honest. I haven't been as good about handing those out. That's partly because of our chore system which I will touch on later, but mainly because I'm probably more of a negative Nelly. :) I'm working on that though!

Pooh Sticks

Every year when we go camping it's tradition to play the game "Pooh Sticks". This game comes from the classic Winnie the Pooh and is really quite a simple game, but the kids LOVE it and look forward to it every year! And truth be told, we (mom and dad), do too! To play, all you do is find a stick. Go to a nearby bridge with a river flowing underneath it. Starting at the upside of the river, everyone drops their sticks in at the same time. You then run to the other side of the bridge to see whose stick comes out on the other side first. The first stick to show up on the other side is the winner!

So here we are doing our first round of Pooh Sticks. This was the first time that Piglet was really involved and it was a lot of fun to watch her discover the excitement of this game.

 Here they are waiting for their sticks to come out on the other side.

 And here is our winner!

 Look how excited she was! LOVE IT!

 Even Porkchop was SUPER excited!

But shortly after our first couple rounds of Pooh Sticks, Piglet found a nearby field of buttercups and had to stop to smell the flowers. 

 She's our free spirit . . . or should I say strong willed!

 These really are silly traditions, but we LOVE them and look forward to them EVERY year! I only hope that my kids don't become to "cool" for Pooh Sticks!

A New Camera Lens

My hubby got me a new camera lens for my birthday! I have had the stock lens that came with my camera for a long time now and have wanted a nicer lens for a long while now. I am pretty happy with this little lens. It does a really great job of blurring the background when I want it to, allowing for my focal point to stand out. So here is what I did today, in no particular order. 

I'm still learning how to use it!

Uh Oh Jar and Blessings Jar

So here is another attempt at making our home run smoother. I have made up these 2 little jars. One is an Uh-oh jar and a blessings jar. If I find a child acting up, being disrespectful, fighting, tattling, etc. they get to pick a slip from the uh-oh jar. These slips contain chores that I might need to be done around the house, mainly ones that I don't want to do. If they complain about having to get a chore from the uh-oh jar, they get another one and will continue to get more chores the more they complain! Crossing my fingers that this works!

And as to not be a complete negative nelly, I decided to do a blessings jar as well. These are for times when I notice one of the kids being extra good. Inside this jar are little rewards, like a piece of gum, chocolate, extra computer time, etc. 

I'm hoping this will make me notice more of the positive things my kids do and not just focus on the negative.  

Wish us luck!

Mothers Day

I hope everyone had an amazing mothers day! Hopefully you were pampered and loved on as much as I was whether you have children or not, but just because you are a woman and that makes you amazing! And if you weren't, make sure you recognize your own awesomeness and go do something for yourself. Happy late mothers day to all you fabulous women out there!

Milestone

Today Porkchop accomplished a major milestone! He learned to ride his bike without training wheels. It's so crazy how quickly he picked it up. We took off his training wheels and pedals on Sunday just so he could scoot around and get used to the balance. Today he told his dad, "maybe we should put the petals back on." Then he thought about it and said, "maybe not. We can do it another day." Then a couple seconds later, "Let's put them back on now!" His little vocalized thought process with a hint of anxiety was pretty cute! So my hubby put them back on and within maybe 2 minutes he was off and running. I guess not running . . . more like riding.

And look how pleased he was with himself. So proud. I tried to convince him he was able to do it because he ate all his dinner, but he didn't believe me.

*side note: Porkchop NEVER wants to eat dinner unless it's pasta with sauce and cheese, pizza, mac and cheese . . . the kraft variety, dinosaur chicken nuggets, or sandwiches. So when he ate all his Sloppy Jane for dinner, after quiet a bit of coaxing, we were pretty pleased and tried to convince him that's why he rode his bike so well. I'm very sad he didn't believe me!