Arkansas Adventures

A couple nights after moving in we decided to go have dinner by Lake Dardanelle which is only a few miles from our house. It's actually a cool lake that hosts a ton of bass fishing tournaments and one that was broadcasted on ESPN recently. 

The twins LOVE watermelon

They get so juicy and sticky though! (Wynn in front)

They also like finishing off chicken wings. :)

I see little curls.......

Right by where we are eating is a "beach"/swimming area that the kids really enjoyed.

The water actually feels dirty ish. I know, I know, it's a LAKE, but maybe it felt like that since the temperature was close to bath water. None of that bothered the kids though.

Brooks and I made a VERY strong mental note to not take the twins there for a looooooong time. They love water TOO much and it's so hard keeping track of two babies head diving in all the time.

Once again......moving boxes used for a fort/battle-shield.

The babies play outside most of their awake-time. As funny as this sounds, they keep using the doggy door and go out in the (fenced) backyard whenever they want. It's like the door was MADE for them......and I don't have to deal with flies coming in or AC going out the door.

With all their outside-ness they are always looking like this.

(Iley)

Thankfully we can just hose them off.....AND they get hydrated at the same time!

Have I mentioned they love water? hahaha

My mom gave us some chalk balls which were a BLAST to play with!

The best part is, you can line your kids up and have REASON to therapeutically throw something at them.....and they are smiling after! 

This picture is my favorite......

Aleeya happened to have hit him a *cough* certain place *cough*, and there's proof! :)

Not EVERYONE enjoyed it the whole time though.

We got a family membership to the Golf Country Club here. It's nice to just drop the boys off and say, "See ya in a bunch of hours!"

Cute little golfer.....I call him the Blue Plaid Monster #outfitshouldbebanned

The country club is about five minutes from my house (farthest place I have to drive too. 🙌)

THIS is actually part of my drive there....... it's beautiful here.

There's a stream down the road that the kids keep walking to and bringing back "friends" to put in my vases. Ummmmm. #stinkingmyvasesup

Bronson has missed all the fun because two days after we moved here he flew out to Utah for 2 weeks. OF COURSE he's the worst at sending me decent pictures (even though I LOVED seeing pics of his calf and shoe to appease my "one pic a day sent to me" rule, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind). I'm grateful my sister-in-law snapped these of Bronson with his cousin Jacob going to EFY.

That was only a week. He spent the other week being spoiled by grandparents, hanging with other cousins, aunts/uncles..... all while pulling as many pranks as he can. #icantsendhimanywhere

He really had a great time being on his own and living the easy life.

Glad he enjoyed THAT, because the minute he walked through the door, he was put to work putting toether a trampoline. #welcomehomepunk #dontthinkhemissedus

We moved

The SUPER fun part of moving is all the boxing, packing and cleaning..... am I right?

Brooks had to leave for a few days (he did a ton before he left) so we just cranked out more boxes..... and made forts.

PERFECT wall to hide behind (they had me pull it out from the wall) to shoot weapons from.

And then it became a place to sleep and play house on.

(Yes, Everly is naked....as usual. I had her put the buffalo on her lap for the picture. You're welcome)

Everyone helped out a ton....even with the babies. I needed two diapers changed.... Kellyn and Everly to the rescue.

I had to run out and left Aleeya, Iris and Royce in charge of cleaning the backyard..... for a reward. There's a ton of tall grass on the hill and there was trash and things I needed them to dig out. 

I came home to this note from Iris on the door.

"Mom we are finished but Royce berly cleaned anethings 

he had a lot of breakes

mostly he was killing rolly pollyes"

#rascal

So Royce didn't get his Airhead...... which is what I started "paying" the kids in. I bought a box of 60 (best purchase of the MONTH) and assigned cleaning jobs to whoever wanted Airheads.
They were begging me for more work and jobs to do.(Insert evil laugh)

My sweet friend Laura offered to give me and Aleeya new hair cuts (and me a highlight) before we moved.... and brought us lunch that lasted for days.....and sat with me at church when I was solo, etc.

We love her.

Brooks got back Monday night late and Tuesday morning the truck was being dropped off. 

But FIRST Brooks and I went to ONE last 5:30 am session at the temple before moving. I will miss those dates together.....

#ineedtocleanmywindshield

The kids were just mesmerized seeing the truck "come apart" when the guy dropped it off.

And WHY is it that moving trucks have THE dirtiest floors (more dirty than a pile of dirt)?!?!? Let's call this picture "Moving Truck Feet"

(Royce kissing his bicep)

The truck had a great ramp/slide for Royce too.

Now the loading begins!!!! I turned on some Beach Boys loud and my family went to work.

The kids (mostly boys) and Brooks loaded the whole truck. They know the drill and just get it done. I kept boxing behind and cleaning out rooms to block them off.

It was a pretty hot day!

The truck was picked up and we had a night just to clean and enjoy our.....air mattresses.?

Next morning bright and early, into the the van we WENT!

Another friend gave us an envelope with some $ and told us to stop and get the kids anything they wanted to eat on the way. The kids were so excited. We love the Hintzes. 

Brooks and I went to the closing, got our house keys and went to show everyone (including Brooks, he had never walked through it. haha) the house. They were kinda pooped.

And just like that, we are in debt again. :) It was nice while it lasted.

It's actually really enjoyable having the truck come the NEXT day after we arrived because we really just wanted to kick back and relax. Basically not worry about packing/unpacking.
I love my open kitchen.

For as skinny as our living room is, w/o furniture in it, there's not PLENTY of room in the  to give the babies rides in luggage.

We celebrated with rootbeer floats.

(I love my marble countertops)

The truck arrived the next day.

All right you rascals..... back to work!

(Love this pic of Royce and Kellyn bringing this in)

St. Louis Lasts

Knowing we were moving in a few weeks there were a a couple last things we wanted to do.

I wanted to see the Nauvoo Pagent. It's a three hour drive so I grabbed Emerson, Aleeya and Iris and we drove up with the intention to drive back that same night. 

I know, I'm getting crazy in my old age.

We drive through some country roads that are straight, go on forever and no one is on the road. 

PERFECT for letting Emerson take the wheel since he keeps asking.

The temple there is just so pretty. It's fun thinking of my ancestors helping with the building of the first one that looked like THIS. (the first one was burned down after "The Mormons" were driven out of Nauvoo, so this was rebuild with the same plans/etc to look just like it)

The Nauvoo City fair was SO fun. Had I known it was going to be THIS fun and entertaining for the kids to do all the old-fashioned stuff I definitely would've gotten there earlier.

I don't mean to brag, but I DEFINITELY was a pro at the stilts thing. #heelsgoodforsomething

We did the potato sack race a ton of times.

Riiiiiiiight before the little cheater turfed it.

Payback..... gotta go all the way to the line before turning around!

They braided these headbands out of fabric.

It's hard to describe out refreshing and dreamy this outing was. The weather was amazing and we played "500" with this knitting loop and two sticks thingy. 

There were a lot of groups there with reserved seats so we opted for the VERY back row! This way we could sit on the backs of our seats and see over all the heads. So pretty with the temple in the back.

(the stage temple)

There is a two lane road to get out of Nauvoo and a bazillion people there. So we slipped out early to beat traffic. We TOTALLY did since we had a long ride home. The kids wanted a night picture with the temple though.

We also had a few last baseball games to wrap up. This one I was doing solo since Brooks works later and I just could NOT keep the babies from drinking out of the puddles......MUD puddles! (iley)

WHILE I took that picture, Wynn started drinking out of another.

I kept cleaning them off in the bathroom and they would do it again!

One more family trip to the zoo. St. Louis zoo is pretty amazing, big and IT'S FREEEEEEE!

The twins look so much alike here.

jellyfish accentuated by the cutest little face.

I was having St. Louis guilt that we lived there for a year and NEVER went up into the arch. Apparently it's grounds for kicking us out! 

I grabbed Camden, Emerson, Aleeya and Iris and headed there one morning.

The little bubble elevators to go up are NOT very big at all....and kinda jerky.

Mississippi River view on one said, St. Louis City on the other! (Cardinal stadium on the left)

Apparently on really windy days it kinda sways up at the top. Thank GOODNESS there was no wind!

Afterward we went to go try St. Louis' famous homemade Fitz's rootbeer and watch them make it.

I'll admit. It WAS pretty amazing.

Camden bought his own six pack because he said it's the best root beer ever.

Bronson didn't come with us because he was gone for a week on a church trip to New York. He wasn't very good at sending me pictures (I know HUGE surprise) but I DID get a few from his leaders.... which I can't find now. But it looked like he had a blast at Niagara falls, Palmyra, Cedar Point (tallest roller coaster in the US or something) and Kirtland.

(Brooks wasn't there to make him smile)

NOW it is time to box up everything..... Brooks did a ton while I was off galavanting around, but now it was time for him to go out of town for work for a few days. This is how I felt about packing up.

#didntiJUSTdothis ?!?!