vacation

I've had this week off work and the break has been wonderful! I love my kids but even when I leave for two weeks every July, I'm still taking care of kids - just different ones! :) So as I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my week off, I decided I wanted to get out of town just for a few days. Not the entire week. Just part of it. Then I decided I really wanted to go see my friend Rebekah and her sweet family. When I mentioned this to Lauren she said, "Yeah, but you'll never do it!! You hate going places alone!" Or something to that effect. To which I replied, "True. Which is why I had considered dragging you with me!"

So after a quick chat with her mom, promising to take her schoolwork with us (one of the pluses of being homeschooled!), and an email to Rebekah to make sure it was a good time to come, I started looking at hotels in her area.

My mom has given me expensive taste in hotels! Name brand clothes, etc. I could care less about...but I like nice hotels. For the clean factor, for one thing. Growing up my brother and I used to say that we would get the best hotel rooms because "dad would hesitate and mom would negotiate". I definitely do not have the negotiating gene. As I looked at hotels I found one that I reeally like and wanted to stay at but the price was out of my range. The next night I found the same one with a "summer deal" of 15% off...which made it a whole $10 cheaper per night. Oh great. :-p That didn't help any. So kept looking at all the hotels and the ones I knew I would probably choose from just because they were so much cheaper than that cool one. Finally I thought, goodness, I should just get my mom or my friend Leah, who can both negotiate great deals, to call and get a cheaper room rate for me. My next thought was...or I could just pray about it! Duh. Why is that sometimes our last resource when it should be our first?? I kind of felt selfish praying for a nice hotel room when there are people starving in the world...but I figured He already knows I want to stay here anyways, so why not? So I prayed that if there was any way to find that hotel at a cheaper rate, that He would show me.

The next night I was looking on one website I hadn't checked before and they had "mystery hotels" where they show you the star rating, the general location and the reduced price...but don't reveal the name of the hotel until after you book your stay. I figured whatever the hotel ended up being, it would be a nice once since I had looked at all the three star hotels in that area and they were all nice. And maybe it would end up being the one I wanted to stay at in the first place. Before I went through with booking it, I clicked on the reviews. You're not allowed to actually name the hotel in the reviews but by the descriptions I was getting more sure by the review that this was the one I had wanted in the first place. Finally, I got to one review that I realized I had actually read a couple nights before on another website - they had just taken out the hotel name on this one. So I was 95% sure it was the same hotel. I was a little nervous as I booked it just because it was a "mystery"...but sure enough, when they revealed the name, it was a hotel called Aloft - the very same one I had seen and liked - only for $40 cheaper per night that the original listed price I had found!! It was so kind of my sweet King to care about something as silly as a hotel room!! :)

Lauren and I arrived at the hotel Sunday evening and could hardly wait to see Rebekah the next morning. In the meantime though, our hotel was so cool! It was very modern, which is not my personal decorating style for my own home, but was very fun to stay in for a few nights!

More to come about our visit...working on pictures is going very slow because the internet is out at my house and I can't get into the big house to restart the router...which I'm guessing is the problem. :)

toddlers

With my kiddos away at the beach for a few days, I got to spend the day with two of my favorite toddlers...and their mommies. :) Here are a few of the photos from this photo session...

I remember my own little red wagon. :)

Aiden loves to dance to music!

Flirting already?? Uh-oh! lol :}

so cute.

step away from the cheerio snack cup and nobody gets hurt! :}

so happy! :)

can't wait for the fall edition in a couple months! :)

kid quotes before i forget

Kiki reading a pop-up book with fairies in it:

"We are the luckiest fairies ever!"

Mr. Happy's comment:

"Doesn't that just make you wanna CRY??!"

:)

*********************************

LM Giggles, out of the blue in the car yesterday:

"Kiki, can I marry your brother when I grow up??"

"Haha...yeah, sure!"

.....

"Why do you want to marry my brother??"

"... Why not?!"

Hmm. Good point.

"He's so cool!"

Another good point.

:)

memory lane

i was recently back in the town where i grew up for a memorial service for a friend's dad and afterwards, i just had to drive down some very familiar streets. each picture brings back a flood of memories. m, do you know what each street is? :)

growing up, i could tell where we were in the car with my eyes closed by the feel of the hills. on this particular stretch of the road, this was the biggest hill.

soo many walks. bike rides. trick-or-treating. friends. a dog.

more walks. turn left.

i hated riding my bike UP this hill. i usually got off and walked this section. turn right.

this picture makes me smile. :)

tennis.

mailbox.

circles in the street.

statues.

just to name a few...

hahaha...nightgowns. teehee.

babysitting.

my bf's house.

major.

leo.

townsend.

legos.

piano.

bell bottoms.

energy pills.

"i hate math!"

a lizard. ew.

THE knock.

oh my goodness, i could go on forever.

MY house.

lying on my bed looking out at the trees i loved.

(the ones that aren't there anymore. :( )

a toddler who decided bathing suits should be optional...in the front yard.

knocking on the window.

bringing home my baby brother.

blowing fall leaves with the leaf blower...into the outlines of the rooms i would have if i built my own house.

a dog bite. oops.

have to stop. could go on even longer on this one.

the room on the corner was mine. over the garage. freezing in the winter. warm in the summer.

the deck that my dad built.

learning to ride a bike.

rabbits.

button.

the green car.

paper route.

one day in the snow when i turned out to be more important than andy griffith. :)

reading books while i walked.

hated it in the rain.

more babysitting.

the scary house.

walking to the burch's house.

and holly's house.

a green truck.

games in the back yard. ha.

leaving the neighborhood.

it still feels like home.

:)

if you knew me when i lived there, leave me a comment and tell me the first memory that pops into your mind about my old house. :)

just for fun.

sock puppets

So I was walking through Hobby Lobby a couple months ago and happened to glance at one of those little free tear-off craft ideas. Which was followed by a "well, DUH!" moment. It was such a simple idea...why hadn't I thought of that already??

First we pulled out my big box of buttons, some rainbow yarn, sharpie markers, and socks (from the $ tree). Add a hot glue gun and we got...

...some cute sock puppets. :) After my kiddos made theirs, I had extra socks (and "hair") left over, so I made one too, just for fun. I was so focused on helping them make the puppets that I forgot to take pictures of them working on them... oops. They love my big box of buttons and had fun examining them all to find just the right ones. Mr. Happy's first puppet needed four eyes. We decided it was a happy monster puppet. After gluing everything on, I let them decide how they wanted the hair on their puppet to look...Mr. Happy was just excited to get to cut it with "grown up scissors" (with my help, of course). The girls needed braids in theirs, which I also helped with.

After that, we needed a puppet theater...which is where the HL idea came in...modified just a bit...since I do not sew.

Simply a curtain rod (that I already had from my first classroom a few years ago), some clippy curtain rings, and king size pillow cases! The great thing about this is that 1) you can put it up and take it down and put it up again in whatever room you want! and B) when you want to put it all away, it can all go in one pillow case!

Mr. Happy cracked me up. Although you can easily just go under the curtain rod, through the pillowcases, he evidently thought that to get to one side or the other of the puppet theater, one must run down the hallway, through the family room, living room, and dining room to get to the audience side in the playroom! He did this several times back and forth. In this pic above you can see he left his puppet hanging and is tearing down the hallway to come watch the show with me. :}

My itouch was playing music on the stereo in the background, so there were several musical concerts by the puppets. I think this one was Hannah Montana for a few minutes... :}

kathryn kamp 2010

Finally! :) I tried to write this post right after I got back from camp but couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to say about it this year - I don't want to just repeat myself every year! :) In some ways, this year was the hardest yet...but in a lot of ways every year gets easier because my kiddos get older and older and can help out more and more. A house filled with twelve girls ranging in age from 5 to 14 is loud, crazy, happy, fun, exciting, once in a while frustrating, and most often pretty hilarious!

But instead of just me talking about kamp this time, I decided to enlist the help of three of my kampers! (Another plus of them growing older....) ;) I asked them to write a paragraph or a list of their favorite (or even not-so-favorite!) parts of kamp, their favorite memories, or just whatever came to their mind. All three responses fit each personality perfectly! :) Some comments they make are kind of inside jokes and might not make perfect sense, but if you want to know the full story on anything, just ask! I may make some comments of my own on what they write...I'll comment in a different color though.

So, here we go! First up is Lauren. If you have read my blog for very long, you know who she is already. In case you are new, Lauren was in my class a few years ago when I taught 3rd grade. Since then, I have become close friends with her family and I am her unofficially adopted "big sister" and she is my "little sister." :) She and I are very much alike and we know each other pretty well so she is a huge help to me at kamp! She often knows what I need help with before I ask and knows how to take charge of a situation and get things done.

(This is Lauren and baby Caleb. :)

This is what Lauren had to say:

"This is what Kathryn Kamp means to me... Kathryn Kamp is my happy place. It's the one thing I look forward to all year, even if it is full of screaming kids, slamming doors, treasure chests, rules, water bottles, and movie nights. That's what makes the essence of KK so magical. Nicknames, make-up, songs, bonfires, tattoos, all to name a few of the things that make KK so wonderful. The sisterhood and bonds we make at KK will never leave us. They're not just friendships like the kum-bye-yah-sing-around-the-circle ones you make with the girls at camp for a week, these friendships will always be bonded. So, that's why I love Kathryn Kamp so much."

Next up is Emily. I have known Emily since she an adorable chubby little baby! (Well, technically even longer than that...but you know...) Emily is cheerful and bubbly and happy almost all the time. She makes me smile and laugh every day I'm with her! :) I love getting to hang out with her and I do not get to see her nearly enough!! :)

(This is Emily...being made over as Cleopatra! :) Doesn't she just have the most perfect lips?? :-p)

Emily LOVES to make lists. Any kind of list. Any time. So, of course she made me a list!

"Here is a list of the most amazing, epic, awesome, groovy, cool, sweet, beautiful, pretty, happy, peppy, lovely, and everything you could ever think of thats nice (about K.Kamp):

1. QPW lets me make LOTS AND LOTS of lists:)

(QPW would be me...it's a long story...!) :)

2.kathryn finds somebody to clean up your puke if you chug your water bottle.

(so i want to be sure my kampers are being well hydrated in the hot summer weather, so we always have water bottles every year. i give points to those who finish their entire water bottle...but at first i didn't specify that only ONE water bottle full was enough throughout the day (they're usually pretty big)...so one kamper chugged several in a row...ran to the bathroom...came out and said very cheerfully, "um, kathryn? i just threw up!" sigh... :}

3. she lets you use the color orange

(?? um. yes. we at k.kamp do not discriminate against any color of crayons OR markers! lol)

4. you get LOTS & LOTS of hugs:)

5. if you're not satisfied then you get a refund and a ride back to wherever you came from;)

(em, are you referring to miss leah?)

6. she always brings back the cat that sneaks in the car

(yes, yes, there are always kittens at kamp and one year i was backing out of the driveway ready to drive back home when i felt something watching me. i looked over and there was a tiny black kitten just sitting on the passenger seat staring at me! ha!)

7. she allows you to sit on the couch & not the floor;)

(lol... oook...)

8. she lets us play practical jokes on people:)

(i know of NO practical jokes played on anyone at camp or kamp (there is a difference...)!! that's my story and i'm stickin' to it...!)

9. SHE GIVES US NAPTIME!

(ha! funny...a few years ago they hated nap time! this year, when i asked everyone to just be quiet doing whatever for about 15 minutes so my two youngest kampers could have a chance to fall asleep, emily and a few others were soo excited i was letting them have "naptime!" cracked me up.)

10. she justs lets the phone ring instead of answering it which i love;)

(ok, so i do answer the house phone if it's someone important...like one of the moms down at camp...)

11. SHE MAKES YOU FEEL LOVED BY EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING AROUND YOU!

(aww!)

Thank you for your time:)
Remember that Kathryn Kamp is an all exclusive camp and if you're not wanted we sick the dogs AND kids on ya!"

(just kidding, just kidding!! lol Thanks Em!)

And finally, it's Abby's turn. Abby is Emily's older sister and I have known her since before she was born. :) Abby and I are generally opposites. We like different music, different movies, just lots of differences. However, we do have several things in common. We both like to write (watch for her book...it'll be published and widely read someday...!), we both love photography, and we both love Lauren to death! (well, so does Emily, for that matter...) Lol! :)

This is Abby dressing up as Cleopatra...which she'll explain a little bit below.

Being the writer she is, Abby wrote a list AND a paragraph!! I was very excited. :)

81 things I've learned from Kathryn Kamp...
(I'm just playin'!)

1. Miracles come with attitude.
2. Never trust Leah with toilet paper.
3. Never trust Kathryn, EVER.

(hahahaha!!!)
4. Never sneak out at 12 AM to preform unspeakable acts on a certain truck.

(i have no idea what she's talking about...really)
5. Prepare for chapel...
6. Long straws CAN be considered lethal weapons.
7. Lauren really loves Lady Antebellum. Really.
8. Washable paint is not washable.
9. You need at least 7 boxes of mac n' cheese to feed those stinkin' kids properly.

(it's true...12 girls will eat you out of house and home!)
10. Four people in one room = ewww...
11. Eyeliner burns.
12. We have met the future Queen Latifah.
13. Black wigs don't look good on most people.
14. Pretzel M&M's are delicious.
15. Dead fish stink.
16. Kirsten actually says 'jammers'... geez.
17. Thomas Scibbe cannot pronounce the word 'careth'.

(HA! Lauren...that one was for you... ;)
18. Bonnie the Truck must be really in shape to carry all us kids...
19. Erin is fun to shoot at!
20. Toilet paper is a very precious thing. Never take it for granted.
21. Food is a very precious thing. Never take it for granted.
22. Best friends are a very precious thing. Never take THEM for granted.
23. Guard the homegrown tomatoes carefully. They tend to disappear.
24. Showers are a beautiful thing.
25. The strawberry scent smells like Tylenol.
26. You CAN go one summer without killing an animal!

(hooray!!! we've had issues with cats...who like to hide...under cars... :-p )
27. The Prouts cannot appreciate Johnny Cash.
28. 'Pocketful of Sunshine' is hard to sing.
29. 'Party in the Usa' is a most addictive song.
30. Little orange people do not cut corn, Lydia and Emily.
31. Lauren Beck is a very good colorer.
32. Joseph was a very wise man. (Well, that was a duh.)
33. "Hey, hey, man, do you know my Lord?"
34. "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted and forgiving one another."
35. David Brown says 'crap'.
36. CANTEEN SAVES STOMACHS!
37. Boys do not appreciate the Cleopatra look. JACKSON.
38. Claudia sure knows her glitter.
39. Bethanie likes that Avril Lavigne song off of the 'Almost Alice' CD. A lot. A lot a lot.
40. People smell during camp.
41. Boys smell beyond smelling during camp.
42-54. All of the Kampers are awesome.
55. Kirsten is a Vanilla Pudding. ♥


Kathryn Kamp... How shall I describe you?
Perhaps the smelliest, loudest, diritiest, most uncomfortably crowded (oh brother! get over it A and K! it's just for one week! lol) week of the entire year, next to Girl's Camp. I think we take the rest of the year off just recovering from it.
Here's how it works:
Kathryn's in charge. We do what she says. We have fun.
There's a lot more that goes into it besides that, of course, such as endless hours of jewel sorting and coloring points onto the charts.
You see, each team (there were four this year) tries to earn as many points as possible throughout the weeks. The team's combined number of points earn them something for Thursday night... i.e, 80,000 points, you earn a movie night (the ultimate prize we all work for) 85,000 points earn you the right to wear pajamas that night, and so on. The team with the most points (that would have been the Jackals, my amazing team!) picks the movie. The single person with the most points (excluding helpers) picks the candy for everyone to share.
We keep track of points through jewels, which are given to campers for cleaning, obeying right away and with a joyful heart, etc. Games also earn points.
Now that the boring explanations are over...
This year, the theme was Joseph: From Prison to Palace.
Our crafts included stuff like making our own scented lotions, and the games involved lots of toilet paper... sigh.
Mummify me.

(we did...)

:}
The whole week we focused on Joseph and his journey from prison to second in command, memorizing verses such as Jeremiah 29:11 (For I know the Plans I have for you...) and Romans 5:1 (For there is now no condemntation...)
Snacktime, a bonfire with s'mores, dinner down at Boy's Camp, and memorizing the 'Chicken' song all capped the experience off.
Like the gold point of a pyramid, haha...

Signing off, Abby

Thanks girlies!! You made my job writing this post much easier...hmm...I think this might become a tradition! :) And now just a couple more pictures...

I just had to show off Abby's photography. She took this beautiful pic with my camera. This is our littlest kamper getting made over as Cleopatra. Doesn't she look like a little doll??

This picture has nothing at all to do with Emily's comment about playing practical jokes on people or Abby's comment about certain people's trucks...nothing at all. Yup. Uh huh. (Kirsten is one of my other kampers...and next year, I'm gonna make her write something...so get ready girl, you have a year to prepare!! lol :)

So Leah came to help me out at camp for a few days this year and she had the great idea to have the teams each work on a "K. Kamp theme song". All the teams did soo great and had us cracking up!! Abby's team tied with Emily's team and so to close, I am going to put the lyrics to the song Abby's team made up. I wish you could hear them sing it! :)

‎'Sing to the tune of Pocketful of Sunshine':

I gotta camp, gotta camp that I go to, it's called Kathryn Kamp and it rules, oh whoah.
We eat macaroni and hotdogs, spend our days chasin' down the dogs, oh woah.
Games and crafts, chapel too, eatin' with the boys, P-U, oh woah.
CHORUS, (KEARIE (one of the kampers) ECHO/RAPS):
Take me away (echo) to Kathryn's Place (echo)
Take me away (echo) Take me awayyy...
Take me away (echo) To where the cats play (echo)
Take me away (echo) A sweaty place!
I gotta camp, gotta camp that I go to, workin' our rears off to collect jewels, oh whoah.
tryin' to fill up all of the charts, makin' late night trips to Wal-Mart, oh woah.

Ridin' in the back of Uncle Mike's truck, sittin' on the porch, waitin' for pickup, oh whoah.
Everybody's sleepin' on the floor, everyone quiet, no slammin' doors, oh whoah.
REPEAT CHORUS
There's a place that I go, that everyone knows, where the sweat it flows... don't wanna smell our clothes. And we don't like to lie, and the spitballs they fly, and nobody cries... we're not ALLOWED TO CRY!
REPEAT CHORUS

I can't wait to see what next year's K.Kamp will bring!! :)

Click on these two links to see the full photo albums of K.Kamp.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=467670&id=729430647&l=914ba86432

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=467703&id=729430647&l=fbd2c3260c

to infinity...and beyond!!

With two little girls and one little boy, the ratio of pink girly toys to cool boy toys tends to be somewhat uneven at times around here, so when mommy had a package arrive in the mail last week in a cardboard box, I asked permission to use the box. Mr. Happy is into super heroes lately. I have a playlist of super hero music on my itouch that he looves to listen to. It includes theme songs that we all know (Superman, Spiderman, the Hulk) and some that we'd never heard of (Capitaine F'laim...or something like that!). However, Buzz Lightyear is one of his very favorites (and one that I don't have the theme song for! hmm...) so we took the box, a roll of aluminum foil, and some colored duck tape and turned it into...

...a rocket ship! (ok, so it's not exactly like Buzz's spaceship...but he didn't care...) It came complete with a US flag that LMS made, and an alien that I drew for Mr. H. to color in. :)

Oh yeah, and LMS also made a sun and a moon and LMG made stars and we hung them up in the "sky".

Of course his Buzz costume from last Halloween was a must. Here he is getting ready to take off into space! :) (I'm pretty sure we had the super hero music on in the background by this point...)

One Ziplock back cut in half and taped on the inside made for two windows.

Every rocket ship needs a control panel...including at least one big red button!

Then LMG found something that gave us an idea. So Mr. Buzz was zooming along through outer space when he looked out his window and saw....

...a real, live green alien!!!

He thought this alien was pretty darn funny...wish I could put his giggles on here! :)

After this, it was time to return safely to earth to get out of his hot buzz costume and let his alien sisters have a turn flying through space! :)

I'm glad you had fun with your rocket ship, my little super hero!

What should we make with the next big box we get?? Any ideas?? :)

Ok, camp post coming soon, I promise!