Thursday, May 29, 2014

Ashlyn 3 year old pics ~

At the cabin this past weekend, Martha Rose and I took Ashlyn out to a field of purple flowers and took a few pictures!  Ashlyn did great and Martha Rose had lots of good pics in no time!  Thanks a million Martha Rose for taking these!

Ashlyn turned three this Spring and she is still the lively, petite, cute girl she's always been!  She loves to play Memory right now!  We just had three baby kittens born and she is loving on them a lot!  She still loves to listen to "Go wash in the river ~ Captain Namaan".  She likes books.  She plays lots of doll with "baby Kate".  She is growing up fast and we all love her to death!!!






 


 


 




God has blessed us with putting Ashlyn into our family!!!  She's so adorable and sweet!

I love you, Ashlyn!!!

Memorial Day Weekend!

It's a tradition by now that every Memorial Day Weekend we go to the mountains with some of our closest friends.  We usually go to the same cabin, the same weekend, with the same food menu's!  We all have our certain days that we cook and the foods are always way too amazing to even try something new!  But, this year we did switch something up and we decided to go to a new cabin, not as far, with way more room!  The Hidden Hollow Getaway was perfect!  The old barn wood style, 10 bedroom with each their own bath, served just the perfect place for our growing group over the extended weekend.  There are six families with everyone bringing along their children!  The adults and children all look forward to being together and making more memories!

Matthew loves the outdoors!

Here are the couples that we got to spend the weekend with!

 Really???  It's the best pic I took of them and guess who had the baby in the bunch this year?  :)

 OK, I do have another pic after all.

Mike had a great weekend being with these guys.  They did their normal routine and went golfing Saturday morning.  They also played games of Acquire.  Nothing beats sitting around the evening campfire with the guys though!  Our conversations get interesting.  Lots of government talk this year.  Love this man!!!

Hadassah did so well with the girls.  She is the oldest girl in the bunch but that doesn't bother her a bit.  She entertains.  She plays games.  She loves to have a good time!  This cabin had a sand volleyball court that the kids seemed to like.
 
 XOXO!

We do it every year and that is to take a group picture of the ladies and men.  I'm not sure why but we didn't get the men's picture taken this year.  I've had so much fun with these ladies over the years and I treasure our friendships!!!  Thanks so much ladies for the great times we share together!

There was a little creek and because we had a big creek at the other cabin, the kids were excited to play in the water!  The warm afternoon's were spent climbing (or rather sliding) down the steep hill, play in the creek and then climb up the steep hill to come back.

Love these children!!!

The little kids played so well too!  Ashlyn and Colson were big buds!  They followed each other around all weekend. 

Ava and Ashlyn loved to be together too!  Way too cute and such great playmates!

Here's a broad shot of the cabin.  My small lens is not working on my camera right now so I couldn't get the back and front together in one picture.  Here's the living room and kitchen area.  Gorgeous cabin!

Right outside the front door was a small swing.  Fun!

Mike started these two with gathering sticks and setting them against a tree.  They made a small tee pee.  It looks like Colson enjoyed some of Ruthie's blue Gatorade's because he has a blue mouth!

Our food was great ... as always.  JR grills a bunch of onions & peppers and then adds chicken and steaks!  Everything was yummy!
 Dutchie JR also uses the grill and makes lots of BBQ chicken!  I love his chicken!!!
 
 Martha Rose has taken Ashlyn's pictures for me before and because I never got a photo session in for her third birthday, I asked to do one here at the cabin.  We found a small patch of purple wild flowers and Ashlyn did great!  (I will do a post on it's own with more pics because I have so many!)

Love these!!!
 


We got home on Monday just in time to unpack the Yukon and head off to Matthew's little league game.  He had a great game and his team won!!!  We were happy to have Ginger back at home with us too.  :)  The weekend was so fun and thanks to all who shared such great memories with our family!

Track-N-Field Days ...

We are so busy these last few days that blogging has just been put back on my to-do list when I get the chance to sit and post!  I love to stay updated and not let my blogging back up in my mind.  But, our past few days have been in and out of the house that I just didn't take the time to sit down and blog.  So here goes ... :).

My week last week was a busy one.  I had my daily schedule planned out but when Hadassah's track-n-field day got canceled and postponed to Friday ... I felt a slit panic arise inside of me.  I was home on Wednesday, which was nice, but I couldn't do the yard in the rain.  Nor could I do the laundry for the week because it was still just Wednesday.  I did do my packing for our fun upcoming weekend!  I also did some kitchen chores and tried to work ahead.

Thursday was a beautiful day and perfect for Matthew's track-n-field day!  He was on the blue team and it's always so much fun watching him do the relays in the morning hours.  I got subs for our lunch and then watched Matthew do his track/running events!  Days out of the classroom are such fun for a boy that loves the outdoors!  Good job Matthew!!!  So proud to watch you perform so well!


Ashlyn and her friend Ava cheered for their brothers after taking a swing ride!


Doing a big jump for the long jump competition!

Water girl ... and throwing a softball as far as he could!
Basketball shots and here is Matthew after his 400 Meter Run.  He flopped on the grass right after crossing the finish line!

I brought the kids along home with me and I knew that we had to work 100 miles an hour if I wanted to get everything accomplished on my list!  Hadassah helped me clean the house!  Matthew took out the trash and entertained Ashlyn.  Mike came home from work and after supper, he got on the mower and mowed the lawn!  I did the trimming and blew off the drive way.  Hadassah and I picked lots of tea and I brewed four gallons of meadow tea.  In between the jobs, I printed the church bulletins.  I'm telling you that we were all multitasking!!!  By 9 PM, Mike looked at me and asked, "Are you ready to retire for the night?"  "Yes!"

Friday was another nice day and not as humid.  I did some laundry first thing and then was out the door for another full day at school.  Hadassah had her track-n-field day.  I would never want to miss these days at school because it's so fun to watch the kids give it their all!  Mike and I were both happy that we could cheer from the sidelines and cheer them on!  Hadassah had most of her events before lunch and that was perfect for us!  We were able to leave school early and come home to load up all our luggage, food, pillows, blankets ... sometimes when we go for weekend trips it seems like we need everything but the kitchen sink.  :)  The kids did a great job with helping and Mike was right on time with coming home from work!  We were on our way to a weekend at the cabin with great friends by 4:30 PM!  (More to come on this fun weekend!)

Hadassah is doing the hurdles.  Big jumps!

 Hadassah excels in long jump!  She is a great jumper and her best this day was jumping 11 feet 6 inches!!!  Wow!!!  Good job girl!  She is proud of her blue, first place ribbon for this jump!

 
 
The kids did such a great job with all their events and they both had so much fun!  Good job guys!!!