100% Chance of Marshmallows

Whose the messiest kid in the house these days?

It couldn't be MY little girl. But, now that she is walking, she's into everything! She and Katelynn found an entire bag of mini marshmallows. Jenna decided it would be fun to throw them all over their bedroom floor along with the socks, underwear and whatever else she could pull off of shelves and out of drawers this morning. Katelynn thought this was a fun game, so she decided to help with the fun, then started cleaning up.

I'm happy to say that Katelynn has picked up over half of the marshmallows.

There's no sign of them anywhere.

It's Madison and Jasmine, reincarnate.

I Miss Her

Her room is perfectly clean.
There's less spills on the kitchen floor.
No Hannah Montana playing endlessly on the t.v.
We've ate at the kitchen table for every meal.
The little ones sleep and the house is completely silent.

A storm blows through and there's no one to comfort.
I haven't heard "Yankee Doodle" on the piano for over 4 days.

And yet, it's just not the same without her here.
Camp will be over in 2 short days.
Then, my life will once again be turned upside down.

I can't wait.

No Kids Allowed!

My Hubby gets brownie points - again!

This time?

He cleaned the van inside and out this afternoon.

He took out the seats and cleaned under them.

He vacuumed.

He washed.

He scrubbed.

He even made me wash the car seat covers.

No longer does the dash look like a petri dish.

No longer is there nuggets and fries sandwiched under the seat cushion waiting for a hungry child to find them and start knawing.

How long will it last?

Pickles and Ice Cream

Today, I asked Frank if he was still in it for "better for worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health..."

It seems like in the last week or so, we've had our ups and downs in each of those categories. (I'm happy to say I feel much better now than I did over the weekend, by the way.)

I asked him this because today we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. Cool. Our 13th on the 13th. We didn't do anything too special today. As a matter of fact, I ended up helping Mom and Dad can bread and butter pickles. 18 pints, to be exact. We had planned on canning on Tuesday, but Mom is going back to the doctor tomorrow to have them check her new pacemaker. Every time she lays on her right side, the muscles around the pacemaker thump. Please pray that it's something they can adjust without her having to have another surgery.

So, since we got the pickles completed pretty early, I asked Frank if he'd like to go out on a little date.
But, unlike 13 years ago, we had 4 kids in tow as we drove away. And, rather than traveling down the highway toward Front Royal and that beautiful little cabin by the creek, we headed to the Cone Zone.

Four ice cream creations later, we sat with our kids, enjoyed the cool evening breeze, fed Matthew his first ice cream, and couldn't have been happier.

Oh. Franks answer?
Pretty much the same thing inscripted inside my wedding ring:
"With all my heart."


Happy Anniversary, Honey. I love you!

Them There Varmints!

Camping Trip #2 lasted for five beautiful days at Raystown Lake in Pennyslvania. Of course, it rained as we were leaving and as we set up camp on Thursday afternoon. The middle of the night, I watched as a raccoon came to visit. Every evening thereafter, it wasn't the coons eyes we saw glowing in the woods behind our camper, it was the skunks. We are pretty sure their den was located about 10 feet from our fire pit. Lucky us.
Frank was just a little "skeered" of these varmints and was not afraid to admit it. I, on the other hand, don't have the bladder control that others have and had to face our enemy head on. Fortunately, they were just as scared of us as we were of them...atleast that's what we kept telling the girls.
I'm happy to report that even though we saw many, we smelled none.
The other varmints that we came into contact with were of the two legged variety. Apparently, we camped in the same campground as a couple teenagers who decided to go a-hunting. They caught many things including the radio out of our truck. I wouldn't have made a big deal about it, but Frank is planning on trading the truck in for a Suburban and now we have to deal with replacing the radio before we can deal with trading vehicles.

On the up side of this trip, Lacy and Katelynn made some new friends and got to hang out with them everyday. Lacy really impressed me on her scooter. Our campsite was on a hill and she had no problem riding it down the hill, around the curve, across rough patches in the road and never fell even once.

We took the opportunity to go to Del Grosso Amusement Park in Tipton, PA on Friday since we were only about a half hour away. We highly recommend it if you have younger kids. With our $3 coupons I cut off of our spaghetti sauce, paying for 4 tickets, all our food and even extra snacks, we left there having spent less than $80 for the entire day. We had no waiting time for rides and the girls rode every ride they could to their hearts content!

One more thing. I have to gush about my hubby for just a moment.
He's amazing.
Thanks to his handyman skills, our little popup now has hot water. Talk about an upgrade! Ah, the comforts of home!
I couldn't help but look at others campsites and compare what we have to them. Some of these campers have lavish, amazing RV's with fireplaces, walk in showers, big shiny trucks, and their big boy toys like jet skis and boats.
We, on the other hand, have our little camper and truck. All in all, what we've put into our camping gear is chump change compared to many.
But, in the end, everyone ends up sittin' by the fire at the end of the day, watching the flames and enjoying the great outdoors...
Until them there varmints come to visit...