Journey Off the Map

A couple weeks ago, our church hosted their summer VBS program.  It was called Journey Off the Map and the kids were treated to rooms decorated like the jungle.

My mother in love and I were in charge of the meals each night.  Using the *jungle* theme, we came up with some creative options.

Chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and graham crackers with chocolate frosting and mini marshmallows

Taco salad using Fritos instead of shells, chips and salsa, cookies and juice

We also had Knapsack bites (pizza rolls) and firewood (french fries), butterfly wings (sandwiches cut to look like butterflies) and survival sacks (bags of chips).

The last night was the program and we had snacks.  I ended up decorating 5 dozen cupcakes with sharks (Squish really wanted sharks), spiders, snakes and flowers.

All in all, it was a lot of fun.  I'm already looking forward to next year and the crazy meals we can plan =)

Winter...

is almost over, and it finally decided to show up here.  

While I might not enjoy the cold and snow, the kids have been having a blast sledding, building snowmen and having snowball fights.

Hiking through the woods during the first snow.

Gotta make sure the birds get enough to eat.

The boys' masterpieces

View from the front deck

My little snow owl

One of the roads I run on.

We've Been Busy...

The summer has once again flown by.  And we've been pretty busy.

We took a trip to the Tulsa Zoo.

Squish got into a bit of a sticky situation ;)

A pic of the kids in the rain forest area.  My parents traveled to Peru to see the Mayan ruins and we just went to Tulsa.

The farm has been growing...

Six new baby chicks.  We now have 33 chickens (and 3 ducks).

We've had 2 litters of bunnies...  11 kits between the two.  This is a picture of Spot.  We'll be keeping this one =)

Progress has been made on the house.

Now the hard part (for us)- filling in the walls with cordwood...  But first we need to chop down and debark a bunch of trees =)

Girly made her first quilt.

I finished up a cardigan.  Now to wait for winter so I can wear it =)

The First Warm Day...

In a couple weeks and the kids are all outside playing.

I went out to see what they were up to and this is what I saw:

I guess because it's over 50* out you don't need a shirt or shoes?

Almost Walking

It's been a long journey, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

When Sweet Pea was born, we knew she wouldn't hit milestones on the same timeline as her brothers and sister.  But still...

Almost 3 and she's only now taking an interest in pulling herself up and standing.  And then the other day she did this: 

Of course the first time I didn't have the camera ready and didn't catch that she pulled herself up and did it by herself.  So the second time, so I could have proof, I had to *encourage* her =)

We've Been Busy...

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at Camp Berger.  Between my parents visiting and Squish's birthday, there has been plenty of things to do and food to eat.

While my parents were here, my dad and I had a chance to run a local 5k race.  The race was run on a Friday night in conjunction with the local Balloon Fest.  The weather didn't really cooperate for us.  A couple minutes before the gun went off, the rain started coming down.  But that didn't keep us from running a good race.

My dad took second in his age group (4 seconds behind 1st) and I took 1st female.  The medals were really cool laser engraved wood.

On Saturday we spent the entire day at the festival and then went out to eat at a local restaurant.  And there was a little bit of excitement.

We were able to watch one of the balloons crash land in the parking lot across the road.  Thankfully everyone was okay.

Since my parents were here, we decided to celebrate Squish's birthday a few days early.  He requested a construction cake, and this is what I came up with.

I think he was more excited that he got to play with the decorations after the cake was gone =)

Papa spent some time fixing up the kids' bikes...  And then took one of them for a spin. (anyone else hearing the clown college theme song?)

Safety first!

Papa built the kids some new toys.

Sweet Pea took a break reading a book.

Out of the seven eggs we wanted to hatch, we got five chicks.  Sweet Pea wasn't too sure about them and tried to keep her distance. 

Sarge picked up a new cooking toy.

We filled it up with some meat, potatoes, carrots...

And set it to cook.

It was delicious and was more than enough for the 12 people who ate that day =)

So, you can see that I've been keeping pretty busy.  I'm hoping that things start slowing down just a bit so I can catch up on all the chores that have gotten missed the last couple weeks (the kids don't really need clean clothes, do they?)

Wister Lake

This last weekend Sarge's uncle and aunt came down for a visit.  He's an avid fisherman, so we took him out to go fishing.  We found a beautiful spot over by Wister Lake.

The kids were excited to get started.

He didn't care what he caught, as long as he had his boots and glasses.

Learning from the pro.

After a little bit, we headed over to the docks.  This one had a sign posted that said "No swimming, no wading and no shin allowed."  We think it meant no fishing, but since we all still have our shins we decided to move over to the other dock ;)

By this point she was really bored and didn't want to be fishing anymore.  But since I don't have a license, I have to have a kid by me to pretend I'm fishing.

She finally cheered up when we headed over to the playground.  It was full of things that spin (and make you dizzy and nauseous)

This one was easy to get stuck in and hard to stop spinning.  I had to have Junior help me stop it and let me out.

I'm so thankful we live in an area that has so much to offer for family fun.

Happy Birthday Junior- A bit late =)

Nine years ago, Sarge and I started one of the most incredible journeys.  

We became parents to an eight and a half pound little boy.

We're so proud of the person he's becoming.

Scrapes and near heart- attacks included =)

So, I obviously started writing this a couple weeks ago when Junior actually had his birthday.  Time somehow slipped away from me lol!

He had an awesome birthday weekend.  We started off with Planes at the drive- in theater, visited the USS Batfish and had cake with his cousins.

I am looking forward to what this next year brings us with Junior =)