Picture fun for this week of May

Since the pictures came in reverse order, we'll start on Friday of the week. Here is Peter playing at a homeschool outdoor field day. He's trying to pull off the other flags without having his pulled and he ended up being one of the last in his group to go out.

We enjoyed the beautiful morning at the park where all the kids were divided into groups by age. Peter's group had about 8 kids.


Here is Ada's group of 3. Wouldn't you know, the other girl wore here pioneer bonnet to keep out the sun as well. I guess if you see bonnet's it is likely that it would be with LDS people (at least this type since the Amish bonnets I see are of different style and materials)! Here the girls are learning a little hand rhyme at one of the four stations.

At the end of the day they each received a winner medal to wear.

Here is Paul...in his own age group (probably 3 or 4 others toddling around). Paul LOVED this huge soccer ball. He spent a good half hour with it and that was pretty much the whole time that it wasn't being used by one of the other age groups...opps, he had to be rescued from the parking lot once since I was distracted taking some of these pictures and he was kicking the ball in whatever direction he happened to be facing at the time!


Here we are at the beginning of the week enjoying eating our first watermelon of the spring. Though the flavor wasn't really that great, it sure was sweet to enjoy after family home evening together.

The rest of the watermelon was put into a fruit salad that we enjoyed on a campfire picnic on Friday evening. I decided that would be lots less work and stress than actually camping out and I was right (or inspired as the case may be)! We had fun roasting hot dogs and roasted biscuits on a stick for dessert...I cooked them just the way I use to cook marshmellows, brown on the outside and gooey on the inside! We enjoyed some of the good old campfire songs accompanied by Randy's ukelele (unfortunately the batteries ran out on the camera) and we stopped when I was getting bitten by too many mosquitos!

Randy and I didn't want to miss out on the camping experience so we threw out the sleeping bags in the backyard (it is a two or three-man backyard) and plugged in the baby monitor next to us. Right from our own backyard we talked, saw the stars, listened to the birds singing as late at 10:30 p.m. and as early as 4:30 a.m. After coming in to feed the baby, I could sure appreciate how hard the ground was and how soft my bed was...and stayed inside after that with the window wide open.

We spent Saturday afternoon hiking on the Appalacian Trail and playing in the Shenandoa River! I loved watching Paul throw rocks in the river and the other kids wading around looking for shells. Too bad no camara.

Here is celebration for little Levi making it to three-months old. He is smiling and cute. He is never left alone unless Paul and Mary Joy are taking naps!

In other news, Randy didn't have scout meetings every night this week...what a relief. But he was working on my birthday present instead, uh, did he know what I wanted was more time with him? (I told him so but hate to ruin the fun of the wood-making project.)

Finally a picture of Paul...with what we suspect is a broken nose. He was playing so cutely on the couch with a blanket and tucking himself in when he apparently decided that doing belly flops would be more fun but hit the bridge of his nose on the arm of the couch. Ouch! You can only see a little of the color here that has been exhibited the last several days.

All the outdoors made me think of my family working on the farm and camping and all the great memories I have of growing up doing such things. It has been fun, if not a little sad to not be in on the work partying. I am thankful for such wonderful things the Lord has given us to enjoy!