Nature Outtings

Me and the kids head over to our favorite trails close to us a lot during the summer. It's just the place you can load the shoeless kids in the car wearing whatever they are wearing (or NOT wearing)......and it's JUST US!

It's kinda our little place under the bridge. Brooks says he thinks the river is super dirty.......WHAT WOULD EVER GIVE HIM THAT IDEA?!?!?

But we figure if it's clean enough for these fish, it's clean enough for us!

Ready.......set.........JUMP!!!!

Okay, okay, so there's random tires and litter around! But we still like it. Iris calls it the "sparkly river" since it's sparkles (ya know.....with littered beer cans and pop cans and stuff)

The boys made a "dam" and used that to "mine" for their little fish. They usually catch around 20 so it's kinda exciting for them.

My job is to keep an eye on her......which on this day didn't turn out to be too hard.

However it proved a LOT more difficult to keep an eye on these mini frogs they caught. I was under STRICT instructions to not let them escape, so they required my full attention.

We also hike around the trails

We have a saying while we hike that "we're only as fast as our slowest person".....which is usually always Kellyn.

And when Kellyn doesn't meet their "speed" standards, one of them will come back and carry her for a while. (she's so spoiled). The rule is ALSO if the babies are losing it, then we turn around and go home.....so the older ones will do ANYTHING to keep them happy. haha

I don't know why, but I just love this picture of my kids.....all 8, dirty, in nature, and mostly without shoes......and they are ALL MINE!

Everly has to hike on my hip. She does okay since she has her fist and thumb to keep her busy. (The kids have been wondering which finger/fingers she would pick to suck on. The other week Iris came so excited yelling, "She picked a finger! She picked a finger!!! She's like Royce and picked her thumb!" Actually sometimes she does the thumb/index finger combo like Kellyn did)

Iris totally biffed it in the mud

And then Kellyn starts getting REALLY sleepy and the boys are still determine to hike, so here is what happens.

The walking makes Everly fall asleep too

Another time I was watching my friends' two kids and we brought them here too.

We found this awesome tree hanging over the river that the boys liked to jump from.

We played on that tree, jostled it and were really loud on it. As we were wading up the river to leave we looked into the branches and found this HUGE (biggest I've seen anyway) hornets nest.!!!!

Holy cow, that would've been bad.

Girlies

Brooks doesn't love the whole matchy-matchy thing.....

and he told me this AFTER I had already bought these matching skirts for my girlies last year while I was expecting Everly. It never hurts to pre-plan your petticoat purchasing. (How didya like THAT alliteration dad?)

And since Brooks was working on Sunday and couldn't come to church with me, I figured it was the PERFECT time to pull them out.

Such sweet and happy faces..............oh wait......

Wow, THIS should be a fun Sunday without Brooks!

Okay, how about the I'm-scared-to-death look....

Okay, THIS is more like it.

Love them.

Entertainment

Summer is full of entertainment.....and sometimes I'm the kind of mom that will say things like, "You're bored? Okay, go out and make something"

and we get a swing from a tree.....

Or a ramp that the boys made to ride their bikes off of. Here is Bronson's ramp ride as an example

Then there are other times when sitting down and letting our brains die in front of a tv at night sounds like the best kind of entertainment to me (much to Brooks' chagrin).......for example American Ninja Warrior. Yes, we're obsessed.

And the boys especially LOVE the 3 Stooges. 

There is not a sound I like more then the laughter of my kids (followed quickly behind by the silence of their sleeping). I think Bronson laughs the loudest during the 3 Stooges movies we've rented from the library. We can't get enough of it.

This episode is actually their favorite one if you have 11 minutes to kill. 

Three Stooges, "A Plumbing We Will Go"

The other series is "Avatar: The Last Airbender". This was one of those things I got for the kids to watch so I could get things done and then I watched ONE episode and I was hooked. Like, I would get mad if they watched an episode without me kind of hooked. We're talking 13 DVDs WORTH PEOPLE!!!!! (65 episodes!!!!) 

And then we get watching one and HAVE to watch the next....which leaves us hanging so we HAVE to watch the next and so on until it's 1:00 a.m.

Anyway, when we finished I felt a sense of loss and also relief that we could have our lives back.

That is until my sister introduced me to this.......... sheesh, THANKS Jess. (love me some Old English films)

I only have one more season to watch.....then I can have closure and not go to bed so late.

It's probably unhealthy for me to EVER get involved in series I think..........

Double Digits!

My Camden-man is 10!!!

He told me he'll be double digits now for the rest of his life because most people die before they turn 100. Smart kid, that one.

He wanted a baseball piñata! 

He said it was because it's an easy shape for me to make (bless him), and it will probably fit more candy. He's also a thinker.......on top of being very handsome.

He saw a picture of a S'mores cake in a food magazine of mine and wanted it for his birthday party. It turned out fun (the marshmallow part is really ice-cream)

I took pictures of all his presents but I'm just posting this one......him just admiring and staring at the baseball cards. Baseball cards run our home now.

His junk box from us

(Contents: dried mangoes, his OWN ice-cream, gum, hot tamales, Rolos, Oatmeal Creme pies, two different sour candies, cotton candy and those sour watermelon treats)

In July my kids were looking at some pictures of their family across the country having a water-sack fight. Camden said, "That looks fun!"

It was then and there that I realized what a horrible mom I've been. How can I even look my family in the FACE knowing I've deprived them of the single joy of a water-sack fight. I grew up with them.....every. summer. It's like those red marks on my backs from water sacks thrown by my older brothers meant NOTHING to me at all!!!! I felt like I had betrayed my family name!

(my family in Utah......July)

I told Camden I would make it up to him and I would introduce the water sack fight to my family for his birthday party!!!!! I WILL REDEEM MYSELF!!!!!

So I got online and ordered some of those precious and beautiful #2 brown sacks.

When they showed up, I opened the bag and just smelled them. (yes, I'm a smeller)....and it took me back to my childhood. 

So the point is, you have two teams and divide up the sacks and attack by filling up the sacks with water and throwing them before they are too water logged. We broke up the teams with Camden and his 3 friends and me vs. Brooks, Bronson, Emerson, Aleeya and Royce. I knew this fight would be the end of Iris so I handed her my phone and told her to take pictures. She did pretty good.

Bronson took to it like a pro!

And I'm pretty sure Aleeya had that brown sack on her bum the whole time w/o knowing.

Oh, the smiles on my boys' faces!!!!

He clearly is a pitcher....

Camden was having a blast!!!!

This picture is one of my favorites because Brooks came to attack and then ran back to his base with his bags in his mouth still to keep them dry.

Camden said it was the best party! Phew. That's all a mom wants to hear.

Here's to the first of MANY double-digit birthdays for him. ;)

Note: Here's a little personal history that makes me grin. The FIRST time I introduced Brooks to my family it was the day of a massive water sack fight with all my older brothers in town for it. It was kinda throw-him-into-the-fire kinda way to introduce him, I know. But he held his own.....and MORE  then his own. When I saw my brother grimace from one of Brooks' shots hitting him, I knew Brooks was "in" with him. After the water sack fight my brothers said they liked Brooks (which was big because the last guy I brought to my family's water sack fight my brothers told me he "threw like a girl" and I should probably stop dating him) ....... except for the fact that Brooks "talked in 3rd person" sometimes, other then that, he was "a keeper".

hahaha

Camping

We went camping for three days!!!!

For kids that LOVE the outdoors/water as much as our's it is REALLY weird to admit that this was the first time we've ever gone with our whole family.

We've gone with friends before and just the older kids a few times with Brooks, but just us for 3 days (2 NIGHTS IN A TENT!!!!) is kinda a big deal.

We went to Chau Ram Park in Oconee County. 

The campsites weren't my fav but the "ammenities", so to speak, were amazing!

The younger kids liked the "beach" area the most where there was this huge shallow area in the Chau River. There were waterfall/rapids above it and below it (that the kids and I explored) but the younger ones just stuck around here.

 When I say the campsite had much to be desired, I say that because they are SOOOO close together. Thankfully we picked the one at the VERY end with no one around us. Had people booked those sites it would've been a nightmare trying to keep things down a little. Our site was at the VERY top of the hill. When I say "hill" I mean the-slope-that-makes-your-hiney-and-calves-burn-for-days-after-you-get-home kind of hill.

 Chau Ram's claim to fame is the largest suspension bridge there. It moves when you walk on it....it was crazy. But man, that river was the BEST. The whole place was absolutely gorgeous scenery as you can see.

 Unfortunately we couldn't stay by the river the whole time.....we had to.....ya know.....eat. 

Tinfoil dinners are actually one of my favorite things to eat. Period. And man oh man, did the kids and I make some KILLER tinfoil dinners this time. Heavenly.

We were REALLY smart in picking the site at the very end, but apparently it's ALSO the site by the newly-found bees that have set up shop. Lovely. Kellyn kept trying to play with them so we put Royce and Kellyn in the Yeti's front seat to eat together so she wouldn't make the bees mad and get stung. 

 (they shared a tinfoil dinner. I just love how his arm is around her. Neither of these two speak well, but they spend every minute together of their days and they "understand" each other.)

Biscuits over the fire were probably everyone else's fav. Aleeya seemed to make the best ones out of all the kids. They were perfectly golden.

 Biscuits for breakfast. Add honey and it was perfect.

Of course there were creatures being caught.

The totals were

1 turtle

7 lizards

1 slug

23 frogs

2 snake

1 fish

Oh, and this really really nasty spider that was white and gray. It's dead in this picture because a bunch of bees worked together and stung it a ton of times. Nature at its finest.

As if Iris weren't so worried about everything to BEGIN with, she got stunk by a bee....and then bit by a few fire ants. We heard about it for a while, trust me.

Then she was just doing her mumble-grumble-high-pitch-whine-to-herself over and over because "Everyone else keeps catching things and I never catch ANYTHING" (*wail*). 

Thank GOODNESS this slimey slug crawled up next to her for her to catch to temporarily calm her.

 One of my favorite pictures of me as a child has my older brother Matt handing me a frog and me looking down at it just like this. Kellyn is lucky to have older brothers that hand her creatures.

Sleeping arrangements were.....um......fun. We have a huge tent that fits everyone no problem (with the port-a-crib inside too) but the campsite was on GRAVEL....and it's not like we have all the camp supplies that most families do that actually GO camping a ton.....it was camping Princess-and-the-Pea/Gravel style. We brought the usual sleeping bags, blankets to sleep on.......and a crib mattress for me. Oh yea.....I did. I brought a crib mattress to curl up on and sleep. Turns out it's kinda small for an adult to sleep on......huh.....who'da thought?

The kids slept like babies every night though so I guess we can't complain.

The Champ-of-the-Camp award goes to Everly though.

That sweet thing just napped whenever we stuck her down and was a trooper. We pulled the port-a-crib out during the day (it was too hot in the tent) and she would just fall asleep

 THANK GOODNESS IRIS CAUGHT SOMETHING BIG TO BRING HER SMILE BACK!!!!

She caught a snake.

 Not just any snake......it was pregnant.

 Yea....so.....I wasn't disappointed when it "escaped"

Like I've mentioned, the river was amazing. The weather was warm enough (not too hot) that you just wanted to go ride down the river. I LOVE rivers (no sharks, no salt..haha). The older four and I spent hours riding down the rapids just floating down the river and going off a few waterfalls. Then we would make our way back up the river and then Brooks would go down with the older 4 while I watched the younger ones by the "beach" area. It was so relaxing just to kick my feet up and float down a river with my kiddos.

We had a blast. 

And in case you're wondering out of all those creatures only ONE (turtle) snuck it's way into our Yeti on our way home. I would say that's a win for the Smiths!

"But" Theory

I am the #1 PARTY POOPER

I hate that too.

I've been trying to change.

Ya know when you do something fun with your kids and you're having a blast and then the last few minutes something happens and you react or handle it so he negates ALL the 99.9% of the fun that just happened?!?! 

I mean, it really basically erases everything positive that happened before it. Kinda like the "but" in the middle of a sentence.

Example: I love you BUT I can't stand being around you for a long time.

All the person remembers is the negative.....am I right?

Anyway,  I'm a pro at the party pooper stuff in my Mommy-ing and I do NOT want my kids to remember me like that. 

 I haven't left the house much with the kids and I think they were getting antsy and asked if we could go someplace. I told them we could go to the zoo. 

Now I said that BEFORE I looked outside.

Once I looked I thought, "Oh wow, overcast. Temperatures should be perfect"

I get everyone ready, pack a lunch (it takes longer then you think) and sent the kids out to the car. 

It was DOWN POURING by then. 

Like, not being able to see in front of you as you drive.

But they were ALL ready, lunch was packed and I thought, "Why not? Maybe it will slow down by the time we got there."

Well, it didn't.

 Here we are getting ready to venture out in the rain to the zoo.
Getting all of us in the a picture is hard. Kellyn only managed to get her hand in the picture.

(Is this even a "selfie"? I mean there ARE 9 of us in the picture.....

should it be an "us-ie"?)

The BEST part about going in the this rain is that NO ONE WAS THERE. I mean LOOK at the park behind us. Not a soul. The kids really were so excited about it all.

Soon, one by one the kids ended up taking off their shoes and putting them in the stroller where Everly stayed nice and dry. The puddles were CLEARLY calling their names.

My feet kept sliding around in my flip-flops so I actually took mine off too 

(you will RARELY see my kids WITH shoes but on the flip side you will NEVER find me w/o shoes on.....usually flip-flops)

I felt such freedom and in the warm rain and warm puddles, I actually felt like one of the kids.

I didn't have to be mom.

There was NO ONE around to give crusties to my large family.

There was NO way to lose my kids among the crowds with no crowds!

There was no "wait your turn", "stay right close" comments that needed to be said.

I could just enjoy every aspect of the zoo with my kids.

I looked around at my fun kids and couldn't help but feel so grateful looking at my oldest son, as he teeters between still being a kid, but also the mature ever-so-helpful older brother carrying around Kellyn on his shoulders.

Camden carefully planning out the best route to walk for the whole family so we can go through as many puddles as possible

Emerson allowed to be.....Emerson. Free, running around at NO ONE ELSE'S PACE, giggling the whole time.

Aleeya doing everything she can to keep up with her brothers and be in the "big kid" group....and doing it flawlessly. She's one tough and fun cookie

Iris carefully (everything with Iris is "careful") examining EVERY leaf to see if it would be a good one to grab to save to feed the goats at the end of the zoo

And then there's Royce......dear Royce. The kid with the smile as big as his face. That face......

We came out SOAKED, barefoot (except Kellyn) and happy. 

Aleeya even lost her first tooth there while eating her apple at lunch!!!!

(For the record our tooth fairy stinks here. I mean HOW DO YOU FORGET SOMEONE'S FIRST TOOTH?!?!!? She's REALLY good at covering it up though)

Since the kids were still having a blast we went to the park right by there where they splashed some more and played chicken fight.

The rain had actually stopped by then too.

Oh, the joys of childhood....

It was just one of those outings and times that I needed. One of those moments that you just feel so "full" and "fulfilled" and completely happy inside. It's those moments that remind me there isn't anything more important I can be doing.

And then.............

*Enter Party-Pooper Mode on Stage Left*

The kids asked to play in the creek. 

I always say yes. We always DO play in the creek

But I looked at it and it was higher then I have ever seen and faster too. The rain had just made that creek into a full out dangerous situation for the majority of my kids.

I told them no.

I know what you're thinking, "HOW DARE YOU SAY NO?!?! YOU ALWAYS SAY YES! YOU MEAN YOU ARE GOING TO ACT LIKE A RESPONSIBLE PARENT?!?!"

Well, at least that's what my kids thought I'm sure because I heard it.

There were moanings, gnashing of teeth and reasoning with me but I stood my ground calmly. I don't mind saying no. I actually say it a lot so that didn't bother me. It was the ENDLESS pestering and begging that was kinda out of character which set me off.

I mean didn't I just take them to this zoo and park and pack lunch and why didn't they appreciate any of it?!?!!? This is what I was thinking anyway.

They wouldn't let up so I finally just impatiently said,

"Okay everyone, to the Yeti. If you're acting like this after we just had all this fun together because I said 'no' to one thing, then we are going home" 

*PARTY POOPER*

See what I mean?

The older boys gave me the silent treatment all the way home (which was kinda nice, actually) and the girls were sniffling while Royce and Kellyn fell asleep.

I couldn't help but think at the fast turn of events from making a fantastic memory with my kids to ruining the WHOLE event by a quick reaction. Sure I would've probably left anyway if they were acting like that, but I didn't have to do it in such a snappy and guilt-ridden way to produce those reactions from my kids.

The "But" theory at it's finest

"We had a GREAT time at the zoo in the pouring rain running around with the greatest of all joys, BUT Mom totally ruined it when she abruptly sent us all to the car."

*sigh*

Motherhood is hard. Period.

And even though it ended poorly thanks to my quick tongue, I still am grateful for remembering now those moments of what happened during it. I needed those feelings. I needed some of those moments to increase my mom-fuel.......

and for that reason, well, maybe it wasn't a 100% Mom-Fail......for me anyway.