{Back to School Party}

Our evening began with a yummy dinner prepared by Daddy himself. The menu consisted of his famous lasagna, with a green salad, homemade bread sticks and sparkling cider.

{Thank you J for making the best lasagna ever.}

The guests of honor wore their special crowns.

And Bear was a good sport and didn't fuss at all that she didn't have a crown.

After dinner we played some "back to school" puzzle games I downloaded from the Internet. Then, we kicked off our 2009-10 family theme of Be NICE (which the kids chose) by making a "Be Nice" jar. Each week we can draw a slip of paper from the jar and complete the good deed written on the paper. I'm really excited about this jar of treasures & hope my kids enjoy giving.

Next on the agenda came their Father's blessings.

We then took some time to each write down some goals for this school year. This was adorable. It was the kids first time setting long-term goals. They each wrote multiple goals, but I thought these were cute:

E wants to "be early" (he took that from his dad's goal list). L wants to "make peoples beds".

And last, but not least, we had dessert: Strawberry Boston Cream Cake. Yum!

It was such a fun night. We all agreed this has to be our new back to school tradition.

NOTE:

I totally stole this "Back to School Party" idea from Stephanie, who I admittedly blog stock. I thought it was a cute idea, so I ran with it.

{See Honey, our family does benefit from my endless late night blog reading}

{Camping}

I love camping! I have such great memories of camping when I was a kid & even in college. When J and I were first married, BK (before kids) we'd decide to go camping and be ready and off exploring in an hour. However, once we became parents, the thought of camping did not bring happy thoughts. It screamed more work. The days of throwing some food and your sleeping bag in a pack and setting off for the back country were over once we started having children. Family camping consists of planning, packing, planning, packing, and some more planning. Ugh!

This summer I have secretly been jealous of all the camping J has been able to do with the Scouts. We kept saying we'd take the kids, but never got around to it until last week (the last week of summer vacation). One of the great things about having a husband laid off from work is that we can be free to go and do whenever we want. Camping mid-week was awesome! We had our pick of spots and didn't have to worry when one of the kids had a melt down and cried at the top of their lungs (which only happened once)

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The kids had a blast exploring and playing. I think playing at the river was their favorite part. They enjoyed the fire at night and roasting marshmallow's. I was a little nervous how K would do sleeping in the tent. I laid down with her for a few minutes but all she wanted to do was play with my face. I decided I was a bigger distraction than help, so I left the three kids & went to enjoy the camp fire with J. When we went to bed a few hours later we discovered E & L had helped their baby sis fall asleep. L had given K her blankie and E had snuggled with her until she fell asleep. What great kids. My heart was so happy.

We all can't wait to go camping again!