Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Jun 15, 2015

Family Camping: Redfish Lake


Not only have I slowed done on blogging, but it has also been awhile since I have shared a family post. Several times over the last couple of weeks I have revisited old blog posts. I have come to a couple of conclusions. I will spare you the ones that effect my self-esteem. I will share with you the positive "hey I miss that" and "why don't I do that anymore" thoughts.

First. I was a little more personal and a bit more witty. I am not sure why I have gotten away from being more personal. I had trouble deciding what people really wanted to read and questioned if I should be more profesh and less personal.  I obviously didn't really enjoy it too much, because I have really not blogged consistently for a year or more. Come to find out it is hard to share oneself when you are not really sharing about yourself.

Second. With the lack of that whole being myself thing, I have steered away from sharing with you the things we do in our everyday life. Adventurous and otherwise. Right there is another contributing factor to my lack of blogging. My life has been a lot more full of the day to day. I still do lots of creating, decorating, cooking and all of the stuff I used to blog about. I just don't always have time to document it or blog about it (AKA stay up late to write. I have become a lot more fond of sleep.).

That is a long introduction to this post. Basically, today I am sharing some family adventures. In the past I have called these kind of posts In a Nutshell or At a Glimpse. When we moved here we decided that eventually we wanted to become a camping family.

Several years later, older kids, and one pop up camper we are finally brave enough to embark on the wonderful world of camping.

Last week we went camping. Like camping for more than just overnight.


From a recommendation, we settled on camping in an area of the Sawtooth Mountains. A lovely little piece of paradise called Redfish Lake.

I was really nervous to venture on almost a full week of camping. With some list making and a whole lot of prep, the camping trip was an easy peasy success.


There is pretty much something magical about sitting around a campfire either early in the morning or into the night. So magical that you can almost overlook the lingering smell of campfire on all of your clothes.





Campfire is not only magical to sit by, but we found it can also cook up some pretty good food. Breakfast was by far our most successful campfire meals. I am not much of a breakfast person and so that means that I don't really cook a lot of it at home.

I busted out all the stops for this camping trip. Man the eggs, hash browns, and sausage were glorious. I pretty much inhaled them.


No matter how good that breakfast was, there is just no comparison to the next morning of campfire donuts.

Donuts. People.


I have made campfire donuts before and simply dusted them with cinnamon sugar. They were DELIGHTFUL. Someone who should remain nameless (ehem...me...) forgot to pack the cinnamon sugar. So I thought a little outside of the box, and rummaged through what we had. 


Pie filling and melted chocolate go a long way on a donut.

They filled our bellies and got us all ready to spend a day on a boat. Our boys were so excited to rent a boat. Someone also thought it would be alright to let all the boys drive the boat.

Sometimes with assistance.





Sometimes with out said assistance. Did I mention I was not the someone who okayed all this boys-drive-the-boat nonsense?




There was plenty of time to stop the boat and enjoy the shoreline.


Not so much the actual water. It was a little overcast and chilly. Well Oldest got in. The rest of us chose to only flirt with getting in.

We flirted with danger by walking on this log.



Don't worry none of us fell in. We have skills like that.


Mostly we just enjoyed hanging out and eating lunch in the boat.


Since we could only rent a boat, we spent more time on land than on water. Good thing the land around us was spectacular.

I pretty much love hiking in a green and glorious forest. Especially a forest surrounded by a little bit of water.



There was one whole day of rain. We stayed in the camper or really close to it. We played some games. Bean even took a little nap.


Then the skies cleared.

Amazing.

We played. We hiked. We were loud. We were unplugged. We were dirty. We were a little tired at the end. Some more than others.


Six pair of happy, tired feet headed back home. There were many declarations of happiness. All of the boys requested that we come back to this place every year. We even drove around the campsite looking for other sites we might want to reserve for next year.


On the way home, Bean requested that we go right back to camping. My lack of showering for three days immediately vetoed that. I am not sure I have ever gone that long with out showering. No one else seemed to mind. So I let it go.

That is what camping will do for you. Let things go. Let schedules go. Let manners go. Let it go.

Let it go and make yourself some memories. Go camping.

Dec 17, 2014

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Infographic Christmas Letter



I have been wanting to make an Infographic Christmas Letter for a while. I first saw them a couple of years ago. This year when The Hubs and I decided not to do Christmas cards, but to do a letter instead I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make one.

I searched around and finally settled on THIS design that I had pinned to my Christmas Board last year. I recreated the letter using PicMonkey.

It was a little bit of a labor of love. However, it was doable. I primarily used the shape cut out frame, choose own overlay, and geometric overlays to make everything you see.


I used three of my favorite fonts-- Thirsty Script Bold, Ostrich Sans Inline, and Egyptienne Light.


One of my favorite things about this letter is the individual circle pics (circle shape cut out over the photos) and the columns of information.


When I was all done making our Infographic Christmas Letter, I sent it to Staples to have them print them off. The quality is insane and I am so glad I choose to do that over printing them off myself.

Overall, I am happy we decided to do a letter this year. At first I was bummed we weren't going to do Christmas cards, but then when I started my creative juices flowing I really enjoyed making this letter. Now we will have to wait and see what I do next year.

I also should probably get these in the mail now. Ha! Here's to hoping they get where they are going before Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

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Nov 16, 2014

Playing in the Snow: A Glimpse of Us


The snow has arrived. The weather is pretty chilly. However, I am not sure you are going to hear any complaints from our crazy crew.

While I still rather dislike being cold, these boys we are raising are going to be full blown winter loving kids.

I mean, seriously?! This kid is laying face down in the snow. FACE DOWN!



They all just bundled up and stayed out there for awhile. Only to be joined by me for a quick photo session.



Even Bean got in on the action. This is the first year he is really big enough to go out there with just brother supervision. He loved it. We had to bribe him with hot cocoa to get him to come in. We pretty much had to bribe all of them with hot cocoa.




Pretty sure this snow shovel is three times his size. That didn't stop him from pushing it around the yard.
 

When they all came in with rosy cheeks and cold noses, they shed all of their winter gear into a giant heap on my kitchen floor. I stood their looking back and forth between the huge mess on my floor and their happy faces. I decided, who the heck cares about the mess. These kids are creating some pretty amazing memories. Memories of time together.

Memories of growing up where it snows.


As a momma, I couldn't ask for more than that.


Nov 3, 2014

Baptism Blanket


This last weekend Middle chose to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a very special event, and our family came together to celebrate. Our family has a couple of traditions on the day of a baptism. We of course have friends and family come. We hold a little luncheon. We give him his own set of scriptures.



I also make them a blanket to help remind them of the Holy Ghost. One of the roles of the Holy Ghost in our lives is to provide comfort. So when Oldest was baptized years ago, I decided that I would make them a "comforter" to remind them of the comfort they receive from the Holy Ghost.

I made a very simple blanket, I loosely call it a quilt.

I found a micro fleece in a print of his favorite football team. I got two coordinating colors of cotton for the front. I cut the cotton into 12" strips the width of the the fleece. I sewed them together and then I bound the striped cotton front to the fleece back with premade biased tape.


Since I made a very simple blanket, I added some hand embroidery to the front. First I added a "hand-written" note. I traced on the note, and then I embroidered over it.


I also added in some coordinating hand stitching on each blue stripe.

While it was a pretty simple blanket, hence why I really can't call it a quilt, it conveyed the message we hoped, made a memory for our baptized boy, and has been wrapped around him almost none stop since.


I love family traditions. I love making memories. This Baptism Blanket will definitely be a memory  for Middle of his special day.


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Sep 21, 2014

First Day of School: A Glimpse of Us


A few weeks ago we joined the masses and went back to school. It was a glorious day.

Now that we are have settled into our new school and sports and piano lessons routine, I want to share some photos and give you A Glimpse of Us and our first day back to school.

The older two headed out the door early in the morning while the two littler ones slept in.

They were pretty handsome.



They were as excited as two boys could be who had to say goodbye to Summer and hello to school.




With the older boys off to school, this handsome Little woke up excited to get ready for his first day of Kindergarten. We started the morning with donuts, chocolate milk, and sweet smiles.


The sweet smiles continued all the way to school.


I did pretty well while watching him slowly shuffle into his classroom.


In a few short hours, all three of them came home off the bus. They didn't look to worse for the wear.


In fact, I think they had a pretty great day.


Three at school and one at home. Wow, how did I get here. That is crazy.

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