Lydia's Fairy Birthday

Sophie occasionally asks for a (single) braid in her hair. As we've discovered, after taking that single braid out, her hair is "bumpy." What on earth could happen with a whole head full of braids then, you ask? We did too, so we experimented to find out. We did it in preparation for Lydia's fairy birthday party.

Here is the result...all-over bumpy hair. Cool! Sophie's working on decorating some fairy wings here.

Drew, Sophie & Owen playing in a (tiny) sandbox while waiting for other birthday activities.

Fairy face painting...ooooooh.

Look at all the pretty fairies! Try not to notice the uncooperative one who refused to wear her wings and headband. At least she let us take her picture.

Checking herself out in the mirror...she decided to follow the crowd after all. She decorated those wings!

Getting sprayed with "fairy dust" so she could flit about the yard looking for treasures.

The girls found bags that had their names on them hidden in the trees by fairies.

Running off to find more hidden bags.

Making a fairy house with all of the treasures found hidden in the yard.

Owen wanted in on some of the action, so I painted his face too. No fairies, though.

Baseball.

Waiting for cake.

Also waiting for cake.

Here it comes!

It's a butterfly! Good job, Laura!

Opening presents by the butterfly tree.

Good buddies.

Happy Birthday, Lydia! Thanks for the magical party!

Camping...Days 3 & 4

There were Daddy Long Legs all over the place, and our kids were fascinated with them. I guess I'd rather have those than mosquitoes (which we had none of!).

Owen and Sophie kept checking on the ones under our table.

On Saturday morning, we took a guided nature hike. Our guide pointed out various flora and fauna. Owen lagged a bit behind.

Sophie loved to touch anything she was given permission to touch. This was something from the mint family.

Owen was eventually carried by either Greg or I.

On this hike, we learned about "black caps," a wild, tiny raspberry-like fruit that grows in the park. We decided to pick a bunch and cook them in campfire pies with our pie irons. (I thought we took pictures of those, but I'm not finding any of them.) They turned out really tasty!

Owen liked helping pick the berries.

So did Sophie...the helmet was because we had ridden our bikes there.

The following day, we visited a nearby beach before heading for home. It was the last day and finally warm enough for swimming.

Greg was a little creeped out about swimming in the Mississippi, so he didn't venture in very far.

But the kids had fun playing in the sand. Here, Sophie is watering the rocks.

On our way home, Owen fell asleep before we even left the parking lot at the beach. Sophie even fell asleep too for a while (yeah!). We had a really nice weekend together and didn't have too many mishaps while doing it all on our own for the first time. Although, I did neglect to bring more paper plates (we had about 6 for the whole weekend, so we just had to wash real dishes after that), my makeup, brush, & hairdryer (which I can live without while camping, but it was annoying to have non-intentionally forgotten), and the appropriate jeans (I grabbed the ones at the bottom of my jean pile, not realizing they were my painting jeans which are a bit snug. I survived, and perhaps they kept me from eating too much as I had to wear them basically the entire cold weekend!).

Camping...Days 1 & 2

We made our first solo camper trip with the kids this past weekend. It was also our first trip to this particular state park, so we weren't sure what to expect.

Our first meal of the weekend. Sophie's a good helper.

First s'mores of the weekend.
Last time Owen had a s'more he got upset about the mess it created on his hands. We bypassed the fit by giving him just the graham crackers this time.

This was just a momentarily sweet moment.

We took a hike to check out some scenic overlooks. Cool!

This is Owen's "smile!" face.

We went out to breakfast the next morning at the Whistle Stop. It's the thing to do, apparently. We had an amazing breakfast in the rinky-dink joint. Our kids ate like they were never going to be fed again, and our waitress kept loudly (the place if full of seniors) calling us all sweetheart. We also mingled with some laid-back country folk who gave us some tips on things to see/do in the area.

Owen could not pause to get his picture taken. He's pointing to the cinnamon roll we were all sharing...the one he ate at least half of.

Sophie chose to order eggs and bacon (weird!), and she ate a ton of it!

This was a park we visited based on the recommendation of the laid-back country folk.

It was right by the water. It was also quite cool out, but the kids had a good time.

I took several pictures like this, but this one made me laugh because of the expressions on each of their faces.

This was at the end of a bike ride we took...another scenic overlook. Very pretty.

While Sophie picked "flowers..."

Owen was climbing a little wall...

over and over again...

always making it up alright...

but then getting stuck and yelling, "Hope!" [help!] to get back down.