The last of South Carolina

Hmmm....... That's a lot of posting for just one trip:) This is a picture of the kids eating watermelon on the front porch. Poppy's favorite summer treat is watermelon and the kids had no problem sharing with him.




Since both Stephan and Caleb's parents and Aunt Ashley's parents live in South Carolina, we do some visiting to both families. Ashley's parents have made a little playground in the backyard with some swings and a fort, also their is a bird feeder that the kids got to help fill up. That may have been their favorite part.

Miles showing us his muscles.

This is a picture from the day at the farm, I love this picture. He LOVED the baby animals, but especially the kittens who let him pick them up and carry them around. He was so sweet and gentle, he even changed the tone of his voice and talked to them. He really wanted to bring one home and even tried to just put on in the van. I just could not get enough of watching him play with them.

More South Carolina

Man I am really behind, since this South Carolina trip we have been to Florida, Virgina Beach, Camping twice, had a miracle with Lucy,and River is a crawling machine. Better get to blogging:)





While we were in South Carolina we drove over to a friends farm and spent the day playing with animals. I really enjoyed this, It was a beautiful day and there were so many baby animals, I do have a sweet spot for babies:) They had this huge pig, when he was a baby they let him live in the house with them, but now he is all grown up and lives on the farm with everyone else. He decided to roll in a mud puddle and then rub himself off on the van. The kids thought this was so great, they are still telling the story.

This is my mother-in-law's horse. He is really beautiful and sweet. She looks so happy on a horse:)

All the kids got to take pony rides, Camera was the one who enjoyed it the most. We also say a one week old baby donkey who really liked me and let me pet him for quite a while. It was a great visit.

South Carolna

Back in May we took an awesome trip to South Carolina to visit the fam. I am pretty far behind on blogging:) My sister in law and I were planning to drive down and stay for a week with the kids. Sadly a few days before we were scheduled to leave her grandfather passed away and so she went down right away and I was to follow and we would drive back together. This would be my first major trip alone with all three kids. They did great, traveled well and I just really missed the conversations that my sister in law and I have during the driving.

Miles and Lucy love all the attention they get from their moppy and poppy, they love to take baths in their big tubs.

All the kids can't keep away from watching TV in the big comfy bed, it bought us lots of adult conversations in the other room:)

Aunt Micah and Uncle Kyle, who is not quite sure what to think about this baby thing.

The Pool

Stephan had to work a on a Saturday and it was a very hot day, so I decided that I would go and get the kids a pool to play in. So I loaded the three of them up on the van and took off to Walmart, this really was the first really hot day of the season so it was the first time I used the ac in the van since we got it in October. Hmmmm.......shouldn't it be blowing cold air? I guess it is not working, but no matter the Walmart is just down the road, we can put our windows down and sweat it out, we did sweat, everyone had bright red cheeks. When we got out of the car at Walmart we walked up to the garden center and there was a man there who told us that Walmart was closed. Walmart closed at 10am on a Saturday? That is unheard of! But a water pipe was broken inside and they did not know how long it would be closed. I looked down at two little faces that said, "what about our pool?". So we loaded back up and decided to drive to the other walmart 20 mins away, I felt so committed to this by now. That Walmart was open and we are looking at pools, the little one looked like it could really only fit Miles and Lucy in it, and since we often have other little ones at our house we decided to go with the big one. So off we walk to the car, River sleeping in her carrier in one hand and me having to hold this pool with the other arm extended straight up into the air so it would not drag on the ground, all the while herding the other two to the car. Then we got to the car.......did I even think about having to put this big pool into my van with three car seats. The answer is most defiantly no, but I was so committed at this point, so I pushed and pulled and got that pool in. It did block what ever bit of warm air was blowing out of the vents, but in the end I told them they were camping in the car. We made it home and the pool has provided many hours of fun since:) The ac was fixed the next week! Well worth the adventure.

27 Worms

Oh boy, worms!! Not really my favorite thing to do, digging up worms and bugs, but I said when I first had kids I would work on not being sueemish with bugs, always try foods that I don't really like, ect... in order for me not to influence my kids in a negative way. But I will be excited when Miles and Lucy can just go off and find their own worms without involving me.


Here are all our bugs, just for that one afternnon, don't worry we let them go.

Miles was very nurturing to these worms, saying things like "its ok" and "I gotcha". He also would name them according to how long and big they were. Many were named Daddy and River, but a few in between got Mommy, Lucy and Miles.

National Train Day

River was very excited about our trip to Union Station for National Train Day two months ago. I almost did not go because Stephan had to work and It was my first really big outing with all three of the kids, I'm glad we went!


We got to go on an Amtrak train and walk around exploring and sitting in all the seats, playing with the tables, and checking out every nook and cranny. Miles really could not get enough, he has always loved trains. While sitting in the chairs, Miles loved to read up on the safety manuals.

We decided to metro in because I thought there would be a large crowd and riding the metro really kept with theme of the day, they did enjoy the train ride and did very good with the crowds. They were very patient when we had to stop and nurse River. They also had many model trains to watch and fun kid handouts like train stickers and whistles. It was a good day, I think we will make a tradition of it every year, next year we will make sure Stephan can go with us:)

Creative Obeying

Last night when Stephan put Miles and Lucy to bed he reminded Miles not to scratch the bug bite on his arm he had gotten outside earlier that day. Moments later what was heard on the baby monitor was.....pat pat pat Pitty pat (that is the sound of someone little walking around) then silence for a minute, then "Thank you Lucy" and "your very welcome Miles". First of all gotta love the manners, we are constantly working on them and its fun to hear it pay off, also love the very, Lucy thinks adding adjectives and adverbs into all her sentences is way fun. As for what was going on, Miles was walking over to Lucy's crib and sticking his arm up for her to scratch his bug bite. When Stephan snuck in there to witness this and asked Miles what he was doing, he said "I didn't scratch it, daddy." Oh boy! to the creative obeying!!!