A Little Obsessed

I am obsessed with watching the progress of deconstruction/reconstruction of the boys' school. Most of what was happening was inside...until last week. These pictures were taken only ONE week apart. Crazy.

Give Me a Mom Patch: Host a Child's Birthday Party

I realize that we're a bit late to this game, and still haven't managed to actually let other kids in the house during a birthday party. Following my sister's example, we plan on doing "friend" parties every four years. So we celebrated with friends when he turned four, and now that he's eight, we had to do it again.

He wanted a camping theme, and as we have most of the stuff for it, (and we love camping) we said YES! He invited five friends and all were able to make it. As I'm a little wary of posting pictures of other people's kids on my blog with no permission, I'm only showing the ones with my kids only. But believe me, we had six 7- and 8-year olds and Ollie. They were all adorable.

The kids made their own trail mix...


...decorated wood slice necklaces...


...shot bows and arrows (the PVC bows worked out great, the arrows could use an improved design)...


Ollie may have pouted a bit.






We also roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.


Not pictured was the fishing, wherein the boys cast a fishing pole into a baby pool full of 20 goldfish. Only six goldfish survived. (See above about seven little boys.) We also had sleeping bag races, which were a bit harder than you'd think. Finally, we ate Oreo pie for dessert. Good thing because it was HOT.

Was it hard (ahem) for us? Of course. Chuck and I think two hours would have been much better than our three. But we survived. Good thing we have four years to recover!

I Made Stuff

One of the few positives of Chuck being gone is that I get stuff done. (This may have more to do with the time of year. Now that it's not freezing, I can crawl out of my blanket downstairs and work on stuff once kids have gone to bed and not have my hands freeze.) I was only a couple of days away from my current purse's handle being shredded from use. Whilst checking my Pinterest board, I found this duffle purse tutorial and remembered that YES! I wanted to make it. So I made it.




P.S. I also made this "Congrats on your wedding! Sorry I can't be there" card. Kinda love it.


P.P.S. Just realized I didn't post these drool bibs. I don't get to make much baby stuff any more so these were fun.


P.P.P.S. Anyone else troubled by the spelling of "duffel?" I've never been comfortable with it, going back to my college days at Kirkham's.

Solo Parenting

A friend recently told me that she likes to see me and my family because we're always together. Of course this isn't 100% true, and she knows that. But really, we're not that big of a family and our kids aren't yet involved in a bunch of outside activities, so we are together a lot. Grocery trips, walks around the neighborhood, whatever. It's all four of us!

Want to know why? Because neither Chuck nor I likes to be left alone with the kids. In that unusual way, having kids brought us closer together. So when one of us has to travel, it's hard. Because it's usually me that travels alone, it doesn't affect me (ha). This time, however, Chuck got a turn to solo travel. This week he's visiting his parents in (mostly) sunny, (mostly) warm Arizona, I'm at home with the boys in cold, snowy (if just for three minutes) Maryland.

If the boys weren't constantly fighting, it would be no problem. But they just can't keep their bodies apart. And if their bodies are together, it's poking, pinching, punching and then tears. It's incredibly frustrating. Thank goodness I'm pretty good at ignoring it. Plus dinners of pancake tacos, frozen pizzas, ward BBQs, are pretty easy and crowd pleasing.

But still. I'd rather Chuck be here.

Dr. Mudd House

It has come to my attention that Smallwood State Park is infested with brown recluse spiders who bite like crazy (well, I can't be sure it was brown recluse, but a terrible biting spider is enough to keep me away). So, um, I don't really see us returning there. I guess it's lucky that we decided to stop by the Dr. Samuel Mudd house on our way out. Wait, what? You don't know who Dr. Mudd is? Kidding. Of course you don't. (Well, maybe you do in which case I'm impressed.) Dr. Mudd's house is the place that John Wilkes Booth rode to after shooting President Lincoln. Yep, that Mudd. Anyway, they offer tours there and we took it. The tour was much longer than anticipated (they take themselves very seriously down there) but the boys were amazing. I don't know what got into them to behave so well. Anyway, it was interesting as history gets for me.

First Camping of the Season (State Park #14)

Because the baptism was at the very start of spring break, we were able to get in a little two-nighter at the end of spring break. Thank goodness we had the scamp because it rained every morning! But at least it was warm.

We went to Smallwood State Park, which is right across the Potomac River from where I grew up, as an elementary schooler. There wasn't too much to do at this park, but that's okay. Both boys were very excited to fish, Ollie especially so. He caught one fish and Rhett caught two, one of which being decently-sized! Of course, neither boy was a very patient fisherman.

And the second night some friends joined us, which is always amazing. I had no idea we  had talked until 1 a.m. until I crawled into bed. I honestly didn't know my body could do that anymore.









Already planning the next trip!

Rhett's Baptism

Saturday was Rhett's baptism. We had most of our good friends there to celebrate and it was a really simple program...just how I like it. (And how Rhett likes it, I'm pretty sure.)

He was given a gift of Pokemon cards, his first new set. He may have been slightly preoccupied at the start of the program. Ha.


Before...


...After. It should be noted that Ollie spent the entire service sitting in the back row, pouting (see top picture about Rhett getting Pokemon cards and him not). Well, at least he was quiet and idle.


Beating up his brother. Well, guess he has something to repent of now.