Hoorah for Family Pictures!!!

Zoo-eee-mama!  You have NO idea how excited for these beautiful pictures I am!  We haven't had family pics taken since 2008... I know, right?  We have ONE family shot with Maelee from last August at my brother's wedding, and that's it.  I realize what you're thinking, "she takes pictures for other people, why can't she take them for herself?!"  Good point.  The answer is that neither my husband or my kids would take it very seriously if I were running back and forth or using my remote.  And, let's face it - they would NEVER have turned out like these ones did!  Thank you a MILLION to Megan for taking these for us, they are incredible!  We LOVE them!

Can you see why I am so madly in love with this beautiful family of mine?

Clint is aaaaaaalmost old!

Haha, aren't I funny?  :O)  Ok, ok, ok... he actually has been aaaaaalmost old for over a month now, but I'm barely getting around to writing about it and I figure better late than never {that's kind of my motto for life, and plus it's always fun to poke fun at the fact that he will forever be older than I am!}  >:O}  That's my evil smiley face!

We were lucky enough to go camping for Clint's 29th birthday this year {I KNOW!  I said he was getting up there!  LOL love you babe!} and since he works 4 tens, we left Friday morning instead of evening.  This was good... and bad.  Good in that we were able to escape the heat earlier, but bad because we had 2 girls with lots of energy and no other little kids to help them burn it!!  Seth and Courtney came up an hour or 2 after us, but were at a different cabin so it took a few more hours to settle in before we got to play.

Saturday morning we thought we would be so adventurous and hike a mile trail up to a tower on top of the mountain... Let's look at the logic... rather the ILLogic behind this expedition:  6 adults.  Two 4 year olds, one 2 1/2 year old and three itty-bitties 14 months and under.  Does anyone else see why we thought this was a good idea and then quickly decided it wasn't so much?!?  LOL  We actually had a great time; the hike was beautiful, the weather was nice, the kids did awesome even though the hike turned out to be more like 2 miles and it was all uphill.

Aw, they're holding hands!!

See?  Maelee gave the hike a "thumbs up".  LOL  Of course, she got carried the whole way...

Such troopers!

Courtney showing off her tough muscles

My girls LOVE dogs and Jess {the pup} liked the way Maelee tasted  :O)

On one of our breaks, we stopped to play stickball with pine cones.  Logan did pretty well!

Clint found this seat cut out of a stump and I took advantage of 2 excited 4 years olds who needed a break and were willing to pose ever-so-sweetly...

When we reached the top, we were greeted by thousands of lady bugs!  The kids were so excited to hold them by the handful.  I've heard about but hadn't ever seen so many at once so it was pretty cool for me too.

Chloe has one on the back of her neck!  That little bug got nice and cozy and stayed there for a few hours.  Too cute!

Madi is getting a handful from under the rock in the above pic.

Then we climbed the tower.  Madi was beyond ready to go all the way to the top, but Clint was the wise Daddy and stopped her at the first landing.

Logan was more than content to keep his feet on the ground and instead enjoyed swinging an Aspen tree around.

I climbed all the way up and had an amazing view!!  I was sad that Clint didn't come up when I went up {he stayed with the girls}.  It would have been fun to give him a smooch in that shaky old tower!  :O)

On the way back, Clint saw this HUGE tree.  Isn't it cool?

Madi ended up hiking all but about 15 minutes {she was just TOO tired and Clint carried her for a small stretch so she could re-charge and we could keep moving}.  I was so proud of her!  She slept VERY well that night!

You may have noticed Logan's cap gun.  He was so stinkin' cute with that thing!  Madi wanted to have a turn shooting it and so he very carefully showed her how to line up the bump of black powder in the right spot.  Then {just like in the movies!} he hands her the gun and puts his arms around her, scoots in close and tells her "you hold it like this and then shoot it like this..."!  OH MY GOSH!!!  I was dying!  It took every ounce of strength to not bust up giggling!  When he saw me watching, he quickly dropped his arms and looked down, SO embarrassed!  Yeah, he KNEW juuuuuust what he was doing!  I wanted to tell him that he's 4 and so I'm not too worried about him hitting on my daughter, in fact I would have LOVED a picture of it!  :O)

It was SUCH a fun weekend for us, and Clint got spoiled {hiking backpacks for him AND our dog, Bear - I know... a pre-order for Halo Reach, money, a dutch oven and a peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream}.  I love my boy and I can't wait for his next birthday when he turns 30!!!  I'm TOTALLY planning a funeral party complete with teeth-shaped ice cubes, a grave yard cake and an invitation for everyone to wear black so mark your calendars!!  LOL

I win

You know, I find rather funny that every marriage seems to suffer from the same argument...

When do you start preparing for Christmas?!?

This includes playing Christmas music, decorating, getting a tree, facing death to put lights up on the house, buying presents, wrapping presents, wishing people a Happy Holiday and being ridiculously happy ALL the time.

While yes, I agree that some parts of Christmas merriment should be left to December {like in our family we HAVE to wait until then to get our tree or it will die and lose all it's needles in our living room - we love the smell though!!}, there are aspects that, I feel, can be enjoyed in November or even {heaven forbid!} October.  I know you're giggling to yourself because this could probably have been written by you!!

Last year, you may recall, Clint left me for a week right after Halloween {for a training out of state for work} with a newborn and a 3 year-old.  That wasn't too bad, Madi adjusted to Maelee really well, but we had had a horrible Halloween and I was pretty bummed that I didn't get to take my adorable little Tinkerbells Trick-or-Treating.  Anyhoo... to make a long story short, I cheered myself up by decorating for Christmas right after taking down my scant Halloween decorations.  I think that was the best thing I ever could have done because instead of only enjoying my December decor for one month, I had it up for TWO and by the time I took everything down... I was READY to take it all down!  In my mind, that totally makes it worth the investment of all those knick-knacks. 

I was teasing Clint that THIS year, I was going to start listening to Christmas music in October instead of November {that's kind of the rule 'round here} and he gave me that look that every wife knows means, "Ha ha, right?"  Oh, that look!

Yesterday Clint and Madi picked out some CD's to burn onto our XBOX because we only have a few on there and need more of a variety.  They picked out the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack and we danced ever so regally with pretty cloth and vivid imaginations... Madi, Maelee and I, not Clint.  He watched and laughed.  We let him.  :O)

ANYway, I was tidying up this morning and found a stack of CD's left out on the entertainment center that, I'm assuming, Clint meant to burn on there sometime today... {which, of course I had to get out the other 4 CD's and then burn them before he changed his mind!!!} :O)

"Do you see what I see?" said the proud me to my giggling friends...  Yeeeeeah, I win.  Hands down, I win!