May in a Nutshell

I feel like I didn't blog as much as I wanted to last month and now it's already June. I can't believe it. Leah is completing her last week of kindergarten and I can't believe how quickly the month of May flew by. When I was posting the camping blog and saw all the pictures that I had and didn't share I wanted to take a few minutes to put some pictures out from the last month. Enjoy!

At the begining of May, Noah had a birthday party at a skating rink. Leah loves skating and by the end was doing really well and picking up some speed.

Alissa tried skating out for the first time, but wasn't a big fan.

Caleb and Leah took each other down.

Caleb did better with Fisher Price Skates, but he wanted to try the regular ones first.

Alissa preferred the eating part.

Leah hasn't given up on playing beauty shop with Harvey. This time she colored his nose blue.

Alissa can't choose a binky, so she uses two.

We went to the circus as a family.

Before the circus started we went out to visit the animals.

The kids enjoyed the circus, but got tired out toward the end. Luckily the tigers were at the end and got their attention back.

We celebrated Leah's actually birthday by opening presents in the morning.

I picked Leah up from school and we went to dinner at Chucky Cheese.

We had cake and icecream after Chucky Cheese.

In May, we also made a trip to my Dad's farm. Caleb apparently loves all aspects of farming as you can see here.

A cat had kittens at the farm. As you can imagine Leah spent hours out in the barn. Alissa was excited about them too.

The kids were also excited to ride the tractor and cut hay with Papa before we left. Yes, all three are in there with him.

The weather has been so warm that we were able to get out the pool and slip and slide. The kids were funny with the slide since they only wanted to walk down it at first, but then Daddy started pushing them down and they loved it! Alissa ended up being the most daring.

Caleb was playing in his barn and I couldn't resist this picture.

Camping Fun

No, I haven't completely forgotten about my blog. Things have been crazy this past couple of weeks. Now this week, I have to recover from the weekend. There's lots of extra laundry and some unpacking left to do after our first camping trip of the season. This was also our first camping trip in our new camper. We went to Burr Oak State Park and Rod wasn't overly thrilled with my pick because of the whinding, hilly roads we had to use to get there, but it was Memorial Day weekend and the pickings were slim for those of us who didn't plan way in advance. We made it to the camp ground safely and the truck did the job.

The camp ground was nice, but it was a very hot and humid weekend and we didn't have many shade trees by the camper. Luckily our air conditioning worked great. The camper was perfect after we got everything set up. Everything worked like it was supposed too and the kids loved their room. We went camping with my brother, SIL and the cousins so things got a little crazy in the camper a couple of times when we got all 6 kids in the back room. Overall the trip was lots of fun. We did get some rain in the morning before we left. It was a huge down pour, but it didn't ruin any fun since all that was left was packing up. We did have a big mud puddle outside the door, but we managed to keep most of it outside.

Here are some pictures from the trip. (I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked, but I kept forgetting.)

Getting Ready for Swimming

Swimming and Playing at the Lake

My brother, Adam and SIL, Stephanie, just bought a couple of Seadoos. We had to drive to the river to ride them. All the kids tried them out. I had to drive at first to get Caleb and Leah to go on. (We didn't get pictures of me driving because I am generally the only one that thinks of pictures.) After riding with me, the kids were comfortable enough to go out again. Alissa even went out with Aunt Steph. Leah had a blast and ending up going a second day with while we stayed back at the campground.

Mommy, Alissa, and Caleb watching from the dock.

Caleb had some crazy hair after his second ride with Aunt Steph. I guess he didn't appreciate how fast Aunt Steph was going and said he wanted his mommy again.

While Leah was out on the river ride Seadoos, the rest of us went fishing. Rod found us a good spot and it didn't take long for Caleb to catch a couple of fish. Alissa is more interested in picking flowers and throwing rocks in the water. I forgot my camera, but took these on my cell phone.