Family Sunday: An Evening at Marilyn Park

My boys are at vacation bible school this week and since I have my mornings free when Charli is napping, I figured I better catch up on my blog a little. It's been on my mind for a while. Truth be told, I'd rather be working on my next quilt...

This past week JP received a thank you card in the mail from his best friend from preschool. JP had wanted to give him Ninja turtle socks for his birthday, and since we didn't know when it was, we gave him his present last month when we saw him at bible school. Perfect timing as he was airlifted from the hospital here to go to Spokane to have brain (?) surgery. He's doing much better now, and was thrilled to get the present from JP. 

We since have found out they only live a few blocks away. Go figure! We were hoping to see them at church so we could arrange a play date, but must have missed them. Hunter somehow made it all the way to the church and through the first hymn before I mentioned to Perry that his son's button down shirt was inside out...Later during mass I leaned down to pick something up Charli dropped and smashed my forehead into the pew in front of me. Perry and I had a hard time controlling our laughter. Good grief did that hurt though! 

After church we played croquet with Hunter and JP while Charlotte napped. Hunter did pretty good. JP needed a lot of extra strokes and needs to work on his aim a little more... I won for the first time though! Go me! We need to have some people over so we can play again!

We were going to go folfing after Charlotte woke up, but we went grocery shopping instead and then went to Marilyn Park before dinner. Also known as the frog park.

 This was Charlotte's first time playing on the splash deck. 

 I probably don't have to tell you that she LOVED it! 

 She was very curious about the mister.

She even walked though it! 

 It took Hunter and JP a while before they finally decided it was okay to get wet. 

We had a very enjoyable time a the park! I love going to this park because unlike other parks, this one is pretty quiet. There's never been a bunch of people when I've been here. I get really nervous about Hunter with a lot of people. He's hard to keep track of! 

Family Sunday: Crawdad Hunting

Last week for family day, we went to the same camping spot as we had on this camping trip. I'm not sure if Hunter suggested it to Perry, or Perry suggested the idea of crawdad hunting to Hunter, but either way, if you haven't already, you can read a pretty humorous chat about it at the dinner table the night before on this Monkey Shiner Babblings. Got to love JP...

Anyways! Our plan was to surprise Grandma and bring her along with, but when we arrived at the cabin, she was no where to be found...because she was in Whitefish. Instead we went to the Chicken Coop and had a late lunch before heading out to the creek.

 It was SO calm and peaceful out there! And the weather was perfect too! Not too hot, but hot enough that river water felt good. 

 Before I could even get Charli out of the car Perry and Hunter were already on the hunt for crawdads. Hunter was SO excited! Flip over that one, dad!

 JP thought the idea of crawdad hunting was fun, but the reality of it was not. I mean, you have to get wet and put your feet in cold water... I just keep thinking back to the other week when we went fishing and Hunter was practically swimming in the river. JP is on the shore in ankle deep water going, "it's getting pretty deep over here..." I don't want to call him a baby...but he did sit on this rock for quite sometime!

 Charlotte on the other hand was ALL about the water. I didn't think she wouldn't be, after all she can spend an hour in the bathtub if you let her!

 With little hesitation, she plopped herself down and had a blast splashing around! She was so cute to watch!

 She even got a little adventurous and attempted to climb out of the little rock pool.

 It seriously melts my heart every time I see Perry and Hunter doing things like this together. I feel like most of their relationship is them fighting with one another, so I am always a blubbery mess when they interact without fighting. Not to say that they fight all the time, but Hunter has a way with pushing the rules to their limits and Perry is a this-is-how-it's-going-to-be kind of person. They're both leaders- Hunter is like a mini Perry so they kind of clash a little...but anyways...

 After about half an hour of hunting the river for crawdads, they finally brought back two. Although I tried to stop them, Hunter and JP had a lot of fun with these little guys....at one point they were whirling around at a high speed. I'll assume that even though we freed them before we left, they probably didn't make it much longer...

 We're trying *really* hard to take more pictures of the two of us, since we only have a handful...

 Look at this girl! Isn't she just the cutest thing?! She played in the little river pool for at least half an hour and she loved almost every minute of it!

 Before we packed up, Perry took the boys to the island in the middle of the river to look for frogs. They found one and Hunter was able to pick it up. Scared the daylights out of him when it jumped out of his hands! JP hung back by dad for the majority of the search...

 Pretty big pool huh?

 Since we forgot to drive back into Seeley to go to The Ice Cream Place, we hit up Dairy Queen on the way home and brought it to our favorite park to eat. 

 Napkin anyone?

Thanks Google for this video of JP too...

 Charli strutted her stuff around for a little while before hitting up the swings.

She LOVES to swing!

Family Trip to the Park + Our First Campfire This Year

I'm not sure how I was able to keep up so well last year with all the happenings in our lives. I'm completely out of order lately! So this post happens to be from last Sunday when we arrived home after our train ride to Izaak Walton Inn. When we pulled into town around 3:00, it was simply gorgeous out. The weather was perfect park weather too, so instead of napping, we took a trip to the dinosaur park.

 Charlotte loves to swing! She was just a mess of giggles and snot. Ridiculously cute too!

 Dad helped her down the slide, but she wasn't too sure about it. 

 Like usual, Hunter and JP ran around like crazy kids. There was an attempt at playing pirates, but it didn't last long. 

 I feel like every time we go to the park, I take a picture of them in this rocket. Now I need to find all of them...

 This green thing is one of JP's favorite things to play on because it swivels. He and Hunter both love getting dizzy on it. For example, see this video of him last summer. So much fun!

 After being gone for the weekend, I had no idea what to do for dinner, so Perry set to work on getting the campfire ready while I ran to the store for hot dogs. Hunter and JP LOVE roasting hot dogs and again, the weather was still nice enough to enjoy sitting by the fire. 

 Enjoyable for everyone except this chick. She hated it.

 They loved it. 

She told us how mad she was about this campfire the whole time. Refused to eat anything in lieu of crying. Even her crying is cute!

Rain+Dirt=Mud

Aside from swimming lessons, Hunter and JP had quite a bit of fun on the farm.

 Boys and tractors :) Surprisingly Papa didn't give them a ride on the tractor this trip. At least for JP, seeing all the tractors was enough!

 Before lessons the boys spent a good chunk of time just throwing dirt clumps. I remember doing that as a child too. But one of my favorite things to do as a child was...

 ...playing in the mud! I don't recall doing it quite like this but again, boys will be boys!

 JP had entirely too much fun jumping in and landing on his bottom. It wasn't a very deep puddle either...

 I was a little surprised to hear that Perry didn't play in the mud as a young child, but I guess if you live in a city there isn't much dirt. 

 I however was not surprised by his reaction when I sent these pictures to him.

 This would have never happened had dad been watching them!

 If I hadn't been watching them, they would have probably been naked! A little mud never hurt anyone!

And to answer JP's question, no Papa Craig didn't make the puddle. The rain made it, and then mom added more water to it so it was actually mud.

 That evening before Aunt Bobby arrived, I took them to town to play at the "water tower" park. 

 They played pirates, since their new favorite movie is, and I quote, "Disney's Peter Pan."

 Charlotte did a lot of this...

The merry-go-round was a huge hit with them too!