Camping Adventures

We had a fun weekend camping in an area our church owns and usually uses for the youth to do campouts. We took my friend's oldest daughter, Ximena, with us to help out with the kids and Heidi loved sharing "the girls' tent" with her. Asher, Leif, and Trevor all shared  "the boys' tent" and Natlaie slept with Austin and I in "the parents' tent". Despite too many mosquitoes, we had an enjoyable time and the kids loved it so much. It was well worth the all the effort it takes to pack beforehand and cleanup afterward.
Here are Austin and Leif carving a stick

Asher digging just for the fun of it

Heidi and Ximena playing in the hammock

Trevor digging

Heidi eating a dinner we cooked in aluminum foil over the fire coals

The boys messing around with marshmallows while the dinner is still cooking

And eating s'mores

Practicing their archery (Leif was the most eager to do this because he loved it so much with his Grandpa in September. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of him because I had to go get hats for the younger kids)

Leif really enjoyed snuggling Natalie in the hammock whenever I asked him to hold her

Here is Heidi warming up after a swim in the cold lake

I made Austin get in the lake with the kids because I had Natalie ;)

Here are Asher and Natalie in the bug shelter to keep all the mosquitoes away from our little lady

The kids made s'mores two nights in a row and were eager to eat them as soon as dinner was over

Austin brought his miniature hatchet with him and found a use for it even though the firewood was already cut at the camp

This was Austin's view from his hammock

One of the best parts about the trip for me was getting to go out canoeing with just Asher while Leif and Heidi held Natalie for me. I had missed the earlier canoeing trip because I was in the tent with Trevor and Natalie trying to take a nap- something that never really happened because Trevor was jumping all over the tent.

We stayed down at the lake and watched the sunset over the water, which was beautiful. While we were there, Leif spotted a fox (which Trevor tried to get me to follow, but it was gone in under 10 seconds). We had intentions to stay up until it was completely dark to do some star-gazing, but as it just happened to be the summer solstice and Trevor was completely melting down from lack of sleep, we decided to just go to bed and try another night. Austin and I laughed later that we would try to look at stars on the longest day of the year.

Asher and Leif will climb up anything they possibly can

On our last morning there, Austin took all the kids in the canoe again while Natalie and I stayed on shore and enjoyed a nice lake breeze- another of my favorite moments from the trip

One thing the kids loved most about the trip (besides loving everything about camping) was taking rides in the ATVs owned by the missionary couple that live at the camp and take care of everything there. On one of the rides, Heidi, Asher, and Leif saw a pair of beavers. We also saw a deer, a turkey, and of course other birds and squirrels. The kids can't wait for our next camping trip (although I need a little recoup time before all that planning and cleaning up happens again)

A Very Happy Half Birthday to Trevor!

Trevor is two and a half and it shows! He is starting to talk in sentences more and more and coming up with a few new words every day. He also loves to do everything himself and is often very contradictory. Although Trevor can be difficult with how independent he is, he is also quite delightful and loves to be helpful- as long as its on his own terms. My biggest struggle by far with Trevor is his food allergies. We realized over a year ago that he is allergic to cow's milk and have made the transition to goat's milk for him, and I often have to make a separate meal for him, but we started to be lax about allowing him to eat things that had a little milk in them (a vast amount of processed foods do) because he wasn't throwing them up anymore, but he started experiencing other symptoms. I finally started reading a book about allergies (I was reluctant because I didn't want to face the increased difficulty finding food for him) and learned that kids often don't outgrow their allergies, but the symptoms just change to something else. Trevor rarely had a solid poopy diaper (I attributed this to how much fruit he eats, but Austin thought it was due to an allergy), has always struggled with eczema, and often has red under his eyes (maybe because his skin is almost transparent), but awhile ago he started getting hives in various places on his body every time he ate. They would last a couple hours then go away before he got more when he ate again. He was also being extremely aggressive and difficult to deal with (normal two year old behaviors, but very exaggerated) so I decided to keep a food diary for him and keep him off cow's milk in any form. After about 5 days he stopped getting hives and started having solid diapers every time. I thought it was all better, but just yesterday he threw up twice- I'm not sure why. Its possible that he was just sick, but he sure didn't act like it at any point during the day. He didn't eat any cow's milk or peanuts, so there might be another allergen. I'm still trying to figure it out. I've started to change the way our whole family eats- cutting out processed sugar as much as I can and including more varieties of whole grains. I've always been pretty good with fruits and veggies. I'm also trying to come up with more dinners and snacks that don't include milk, so that Trevor can just eat with us all. The rest of the family has been less than thrilled with it sometimes, but they are being good sports about it.

Anyway, Trevor is a fun little fellow that is so excited about life and brings lots of fun interactions to our family. A few fun facts about Trevor: He loves Snoopy and has to sleep with his stuffed animal Snoopy every night and nap. He loves peas and will often eat all of his, then try to steal some from his siblings. He is very independent and is often in the kitchen pushing chairs around to help himself to things that I put up high. He loves to relate everything to himself: he likes to point to characters in books and say "me" or if he sees anything he likes in a book or in real life he will point and say "mine". He wants to do everything his older siblings do- he runs around outside with the neighborhood kids like he's as old as everyone else, follows his siblings around everywhere, and watches them to see what they like then follows suit.

Here are some photos that I got of him today:

4 Months

 Our Little Lady Bug is 4 months old today. She is such a sweet, happy girl and a delight for the whole family. She is definitely the family favorite and everyone loves to take turns holding, playing, or talking to her. This little girl loves to smile and laugh. She is almost always happy and we just can't get enough of her. I can't resist how cute she is while she's sleeping (and when she's awake), so I took these photos of her the other day.

 I also can't resist how cute her fat little thighs are, so I had Austin take a few shots of her the next day.

 Here are her actual 4-month photos, and isn't she so sweet :) We are all so in love!