Knowledge is Powerful

Jenna just came in and said that she wants to know all the states and where they are located. Then plopped herself down on the floor with our US map.

My Paigey Bear is 9!

I asked Paige if she had a good birthday and she grinned her crazy toothy grin and said, "yes!". 

It began on Friday when we took 5 of her friends to the movies. We saw Rise of the Guardians and had a super fun time!

Then we went back to the house for cupcakes and presents...

These girls are silly!

Then today, she woke up a birthday princess...

Her breakfast of choice was bacon and eggs. Lucky for me, we had breakfast at church and sure enough, that's what they had!

As a side note, Hannah finally wore her hair down to church today. Definitely with resistance, but she finally gave in to my begging...

And presents when we got home...

Paige wanted to help make her own birthday cake. She did a great job. Then came the decorating. All I did was help with the base color blue and I showed her how to use the baggie of icing. Well, the result is totally her design...

We ended the day doing a scavenger hunt of Christmas lights. We found almost all of the items on the list except a dolphin. Yeah, I don't know why that was on the list either. But we all had fun.

Here's to another year in Paige's world!

Mischief Managed

I've been waiting for two years to do this.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Watson Mill Bridge State Park

We took off this fall. As a family, we decided there would be no sports or extra curricular activities (besides the dude doing Boy Scouts) and instead, we would spend our time doing some fun hiking and camping. And we have sure had some good times!

This past weekend, we had (what we believe to be) our last camping trip of 2012. It was just the seven of us and we had a great time! Now, don't think that there was Cinderella-ish birds singing the entire time we were together. But there were memories made that will last!

We had electricity this time so the Christmas lights were brought out...

a good view of our site...

Breakfast on Saturday morning over the hot coals...

There was a small teaching moment when we discussed how some of life's greatest inventions were the result of an accident... 

Such as our new favorite breakfast: thin pancakes wrapped around sausage

We did some fishing (not so much on catching)

Adam is earning his fishing belt loop...

enjoying the sunshine...

Preparing dinner...

the "Before" ribs...

getting the bed of coals ready...

halfway through & just added the sauce...

can't you smell the goodness?!

got the corn on the fire now...

the "After" dinner

this was the MOST DELICIOUS dinner!

2.25 pounds of meat was not enough. I think this group could have eaten 5 pounds!!!

It was Chris's birthday so we decorated the campsite with balloons and streamers. Hannah even made a '44' out of streamers and hung it up. Can you see it?

When we got back home on Sunday, these dogs crashed. This is how they were for about 5 hours! I guess they're a lot like us... so much fun that it wore us out!

It was a great weekend together and a perfect way to end our fall season of camping. The kids love it and are already talking about our next trip. They're asking to go camping when we don't have to wear hats to sleep in and wear layers to stay warm. 

We'll see kids... because then there's mosquitos...

Halloween 2012

This year, we had an 80's girl...

(I'm not sure how I feel about my daughter dressing up as a decade of which I grew up in!)

Here is Black Widow, an Avengers' heroine...

A adorable cowgirl...

Hawk Eye, ready to protect...

A sweet cat...

And I can't let everyone have all the fun...