Day 3...final day of party!

We of course had another windy day but warmer. We did a craft project each day and I forgot to take pics the day before of the pillowcases all the kids decorated themselves...than they signed each others pillowcases including having hubby and me too. To stay with the lake theme the girls filled bracelets with water, sand, and a little glitter to give it some color.

While the worked on those bracelets mama spent the morning filling 32 water balloons for the water relay race.

Team Blue...

Team Green...

Teaser loved this game most of all because he could run than...

SMASH the water balloon. Of course he was suppose to sit on it to pop it but he found that he couldn't get enough weight onto it to POP!! Poor boy is just too skinny.

One of my favorite photos...

POP ... that's COLD baby on your bottom.

Unfortunately team green didn't win...team BLUE won! This was the last balloon popped.

What you want to do it again?!?!? I think my finger is still numb from the cold water and tying 32 balloons the first time.

Hope that was a fabulous 10th birthday party for sweetpea!

Gotta have fireworks BABY!!!

It was a super windy evening so we had to skip the firepit fun...smores, fruit pies, and dough boys of course but we went to the other side of the cabin (road side) and it was perfect weather for our fireworks.

Hope you enjoyed the show!

More party fun...

This man of mine had tricks up his sleeve when boredom came....GAME ON!!

Teaser was caught hiding game pieces on hisself so he wouldn't go to jail...

He went to jail anyhow!

I also planned a scavenger hunt ... we are guessing this was a feather from our eagle that has a nest on the island across from our cabin.

Day 2 party continues...

The kids woke up to chilly weather and strong winds so Dutch Blitz was in order first thing after breakfast. Compliments of the Gurnee's for introducing us to this wonderful game the whole family can play. It's time for dancing while mama cuts up the watermelon for lunch...can I just say that I'll never cut up another watermelon without thinking of Julie when she was visiting us.

Time for LUNCH...Welcome to DaddyO's cafe! You ask for it on your sandwich and you get it.

No matter the weather jet skiing is a must...

Than onto tubing.I love this photo!

Do you think they are having fun yet?

Let the PARTY begin!!!

On Monday we headed to the cabin to start the 3 day celebration of our oldest daughters 10th birthday, we invited 8 girls, only 2 could go but we still had lots of fun. It was a little chilly when we arrived but nutmeg found the water was really warm.

They built sand castles together in the late afternoon but after supper it was time for the games to begin with Capture the Flag...daddy's idea.

Here's one team planning their attack.

It worked well with over half the other team in jail, but look how close they got to the flag (white towel on the ground where they had to drop it when they were grabbed to go to jail). Yeah...daddy isn't that cheating! I know you said they had to touch the tree to be in jail but that's cheating.

Birthday girl getting ready for her presents.

We are an odd bunch when it comes to dessert for birthdays. Mama doesn't like cake AT ALL! Hubby only likes yellow cake with dark chocolate frosting (although he commented that he wants me to make him Red Velvet Cake next year for his birthday), teaser eats anything sweet you place in front of him, nutmeg just likes frosting, and sweetpea likes ice cream cake ONLY!!! Don't even ask if she wants cupcakes because she can't stand them. Since we did ice cream cake at the dinner with grandparents we needed something else for the cabin party. I decided to get creative...it's called a Poke Cake. You take white cake mix, raspberry jello (actually any flavor you want...sweetpea wanted raspberry), bake cake cool 15 minutes, make jello, pour over cake, cool 3 hours. Lastly add cool whip for topping. I hit the dollar section at Target and found red sugar sprinkles for $1 to add some fun color on top. I did pick up the blue sugar sprinkles as well so I can make this again for the big 4th of July party at the cabin...won't that be festive!

This concludes Day 1 at the cabin...stay tuned for day 2.

Summer time fun!

Well it's that time of year again when all the troops are home for the summer so mama needs to figure out how to save her insanity.

It's been HOT HOT HOT this week so afternoons are spent playing in the sprinkler. They have several games they like to play. One is tag with the watering nossle I bought and yesterday they made up this game of splaying in manmade puddles is what they wanted to call it.

I've been searching the net for ideas to implement into the summer so I'm just going to copy and paste a few sites I've found to share with ya all. http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2009/05/oh-what-do-you-do-in-summertime-2.html

Great article on organizing your summer schedule: http://www.organizingyourway.net/featured-posts/making-summer-plans-planning-summer-schedules-for-your-school-age-kids

http://www.makeandtakes.com/keeping-the-kids-busy-this-summer

I already have this made up, just saving it for the next car trip to give it to the kids:

http://lessonplans.craftgossip.com/summer-fun-ideas-tangrams/2009/06/17

I'm also including a butterfly pattern for nutmeg (she LOVES purple and butterflies) from this site: http://www.abcteach.com/free/s/shape_puzzle_butterfly_bw.pdf

One of my favorite blogs to visit. http://lets-explore.net/blog/2009/06/summer-fun-bag-letter-writing/

I've also found wonderful gifts from her shop that I've given as gifts. She has a special right now for free shipping. Our favorites: the big stencils, crayon rocks, sarah silks (we make our own but these are awesome!), bug molds, the chopsticks, Into Space ring flashcards, stationary sets, wikki sticks, and her finger puppets are cute - my daughter told me if she ever carried a hedgehog puppet she'd buy it for me or an owl.

Hope everyone has a blast this summer!

Happy 15th Anniversary Honey!

It's our 15 year anniversary. I'm so excited!
Hubby is taking me out to dinner tonight just the two of us. This photo was taken on Father's day and I just had to share it.

Gathering what comforts me...

(picture from flickr; under my favorites)

As I sit with my feet tucked up under me while on my favorite comfy chair and my favorite creamy, soft blanket wrapped around my shoulders I pray...

It's been a rough day for me as I battle a migraine, not too bad but enough to make me want to curl up in my hubbies arms and cry. Unfortunately, I'm not given that comfort often enough in my eyes so I just pushed through the pain of the migraine and the pain in my heart that cries out for him.

It will be 15 years we have been married come Thursday but I still ache for more from him. I know I can't change him, I've prayed that the Lord would change him, I've prayed that the Lord would change me but day in and day out it stays the same. There are times I don't think of it but it's there in the back of my mind as to what's wrong with me, why am I like this, I know he loves me deeply so why do I need more from him. I've analyzed it over and over again, had many talks with the Lord and a very close girl friend who truly is a gift from God.

As my mother would tell you I'm a very passionate person. I'm easy to please, terribly stubborn, quick to give out hugs, and no mama bear could compete against me when I get angry for what I feel is right or towards someone who has hurt the ones I love. Maybe that is the source of all my questions to find the answer...how to control my feelings has definitely been a great pain for me ALL my life.

But without a doubt I love my hubby more today than I did the day I married him. I love you darlin'...your honeybee.

Day 3...

What a cool dude!

Sisters...we are sisters.

Look what mama found in one of their holes this morning...a turtle. So that took on a whole new idea of making an entire house of holes for the turtle. They had planned to make a tunnel to each hole they made but they ended up finding other adventures.

Here's Jada with the turtle. It was her and nutmeg holding the turtle, no one else wanted to.

Day 2 fun...

One of the neighbors granddaughters was visiting for a few days so she joined in on the fun with us. Look at that dimple...could it be any cuter!

It was a hot one that day, so even mama got water dumped on herself...well just my legs and feet. I took the kids out on the jet ski to cool them off but no pics of those. Of course if mama don't take the pics there isn't any.

Just some cabin fun...

After spending 3 days at the cabin I'm very tired and sore from ALL the fun we had. We have quite a bit of beach to play on so we get LOTS of digging and building sand castles and moats.

I missed the splash that got her good.

This little man is NOT being pulled by anything motorized unless you count two girls pulling the rope from the beach "motorized". I'd call it more like being his "slave". He is still a little nervous about tubing behind the boat.

I love this photo!

Happy 10th Birthday! Happy Father's Day!

We've hit the two digits for the kids birthday's. Happy 10th Birthday Sweetpea! Ten years ago hubby spent his first Father's day in a hospital helping me as I gave birth to this beautiful girl. She did arrive the next morning after lots of complications but our entire Father's day was spent at the hospital.

We love you sweetheart and have a Happy Father's day.

It's game time...

Both of my girls decided this summer they were going to play soccer. So twice a week we have practices in the evenings plus 2 games each Saturday. My hardest time is getting to both games when one is playing and the other starts 30 minutes later. Today I was lucky to have hubby awake and taking sweetpea to her game. I'll get pictures of her games next week hopefully. Here's nutmeg making a block. This age group has no goalie so they have to work that position in with the team.

She is #4!

I didn't get the exposure right on this one as I took it quickly when I arrived not realizing I still had it set from another day when it was cloudy. Today's our first full day back into summer weather finally after a week of rain and cold.

Muscle man

Teaser was just showing off to the camera the other evening while at the playground. My little man...*cough* I mean my BIG man has muscles. Isn't he cute...*cough* I mean isn't he COOL!!!

Btw, those that know teaser or even met him he'll tell you straight away that he is NOT cute nor little...he is BIG and Cool! Which of course just makes you think he is all the more cuter.

Friends visiting

We were VERY lucky to have friends come to visit us from PA for about 5 days. We spent our first day at Valleyfair, what a blast! Unfortunately I lost all my pics from my older camera that I brought along. We than headed to my folks' cabin, which was VERY cold and wet after the first full day so we headed back home to relax. Teaser and their youngest wrestling...this little girl is super strong!

The most popular toy on the beach...dirt digger!

Julie with you middle daughter.

Here are all the kids together just before they left to their next destination.

Thank you soo much for visiting us! We had a blast my friends and plan to make a trip your way within a year for sure. The kids just told me last night how much they missed all of your kids.

Field trip #1:

Okay I decided to volunteer for the zoo field trip for 1st graders but I had to bring teaser along with me which they were totally fine with that. All I can say is, "how many more field trips did you say we had this year?" I went on two more after this field trip but pics are still waiting to be downloaded onto my computer. I was able to drive myself to the zoo which was nice because I don't ride in school buses really well. the play area near the "farm"

here's nutmeg looking at her favorite animal...the flamingo! Baby flamingo's are born white, they will change to pink coloring due to the foods they eat, that is why they are various shades of pink. We learned that during my preschool homeschooling time with each of the kids.

this bear is nappin'!

this is a new area where the kids can play in a sand area with prehistoric bones (fake) to climb on and in.