The Great American Campout and other stuff

This is one of those posts where I go through my camera and decide to post a whole bunch of random pictures and try to weave them into some sort of cohesive narrative.

Try is the operative word here.

I'll begin with our backyard camping adventure. Rob and I want to take the kids camping this Fall and so we thought we would do a trial run in our backyard. It went really well, but I think camping in nature would be a lot more peaceful than camping on a Friday night in our subdivision where our neighbors are throwing a house party. I would rather sleep to the sounds of crickets rather than car horns and Lil Wayne. We began with dinner and smores. Of course.

Daddy has to help reload the marshmellows.

Somebody really loves them!

Settling into our tent for the night. Goodnight.....

Okay, so I didn't make it all night. Between the thumping bass of our neighbors party and my husbands snoring, I gave it up just before midnight. I took Will inside with me. Mainly because if he woke up in the middle of the night and I wasn't there, he would have a nervous breakdown. I am not even remotely kidding. He would. But super trooper Bennett and Daddy made it all night.

We are loving our local children's farmstead this time of year. We have a season pass so we like to go as often as possible. I wish every community had one of these. Deanna Rose's rocks. Plain and simple. We have to go straight to the horses. Every time.

Do you notice a theme to my blog posts? And can someone generous donor please send us money so I can start saving for horseback riding lessons? Couldn't she have a cheaper passion?

After riding the horses we decided to go fishing.

Mommy caught one!

And then so did Bennett! She felt it pull and yanked it up all by herself! She was so proud. She has told everyone this week that she caught a fish. Her teacher, her swim coach, her dance instructor, her pediatrician, the mailman....

Will wasn't really into the fish. But he was all about feeding bottles of milk to the baby goats.

And we always end up at the playground.

And here's the BEST part about having a 2 and 3 year old. For the first time since I became a parent, I can sit down and relax. I don't have to help them up the slides, across the walkways, or down the big ladders. I can sit and observe. Heavenly.

Alright, random pics from my camera. I found this cute one of my kids with their best buddies, Levi and Crosby. You can totally tell which set of kids go together.

We made puppets on a rainy day. The kids played with these all day long. Clearly Will needed a little help on how to hold one.

We found a gorgeous patch of sunflowers during one of our family drives. We like to get some coffee, roll down the windows, and see what we can find. I think we had a great discovery this day.

I think that's it for now. Off to ponder my typical Saturday dilemma. Play with my kids or watch college football? The latter usually wins. There are 6 other days of the week to play with them.