Purple Hair: Don't Care

Novalee used her girl scout money she earned a few years ago to buy hair chalk at the scout store.

This last week I helped her braid it and chalk it purple.

I think she felt pretty hard core.

She loved it!

I loved that it wasn't permanent.

😜

Scout Camp 7/17-7/22

Jared went off to scout camp last week.

I think he had fun.

I missed him.

Wes went up Monday night and stayed until Wednesday night to help out.

I didn't like being away from Wes for so long.  

I might have given him a stamped, self addressed envelope and insisted that he write me while he was there.  I'll leave the mushy stuff out but it was a sweet note.  I might have teared up a bit.

I didn't even ask Jared to write me.  I figured he would be too busy having fun to want to stop and write his mom.

All the other kids slept on the floor in my room the first night.

On Tuesday we went to the $1 movies.

That night I didn't have the kids sleep in my room so I could stay up late reading.

I love the freedom of sleeping in our room alone.  I love being able to do whatever I want and not have to worry about if I'm keeping Wes up.

Somehow Kinsley ended up in my room anyways that night.  So I stayed up late reading and then bright and early Kinsley popped her head up and said, "Hi Mom!"  

Why!?!

Before Wes got home we went to the store and I let the kids each pick out a favorite candy bar for him.  You would have thought he had been gone longer than three days by how excited we all were to see him!

Jared came home Saturday with some color, tired and stinky.  Shower and a nap were the first things he did.

Then we woke him up and we all went to the lake.

Jared loved camp!  He loved horsemanship.  His horse's name was Jinglebob.  Jared said that the horse sways to the song Jingle Bells.

And Jared loved swimming even though he said the water was frigid.

I love this kid.  He makes my heart happy.  I missed him when he was gone but I'm glad he had this chance to learn and grow on his own.

Desk for the Girls

I purchased this desk at Habitat for Humanity for $15.

It was stained a dingy brown color so I repainted it Hawaiian Teal and cleaned the handles.

The indoor color is more true to the actual color.

I love this color so bad it hurts!

  I told Wes I might paint our whole house this color...well on a smaller scale I am painting the inside of the playhouse this color.  

Anyways, the girls, Novalee is thrilled to have a desk in their room.  

She is kind of a geek when it comes to office supplies. 

She professes to collect the stuff.

Devils Lake

Last weekend we went to Devil's Lake with the kids and our friends the Bells.

It was kind of chilly there, 62 degrees.  Which was about 20 degrees colder than our last camping trip.

True to form Caleb didn't sleep at night and we (Wes and Me) had two fairly sleepless nights.  The last night he slept in the car with Wes.  And then slept in until 9am...wish we could have slept in.

As soon as we got there the little kids climbed up on the picnic table and started chowing down on junk food.  We don't usually have a ton of junk food around so I'm sure they were in heaven.

 Kinsley once again out fished everyone.  She caught two fish.  The second she let Hite reel in.

 The first night we ate at Moe's.   

Pretty much, really serious "roughing it".

    

 Then we went back to camp and watched a movie.

 We met up with our friends.

 And ate smores.

The next day we went back to Moe's and swam at the sand bar right there.

It was freezing.

As we were leaving two deer started swimming to our side of the beach, even though there were people on the beach and pier.

Then they ran up onto the beach and darted through the crowd.  It was crazy.

They are just in front of the pier in this picture.

I love that Novalee still has some of her baby curls. 

 They just frame her face but they are so cute!

 I totally forgot Lincoln City had an outlet mall, so while that wasn't really in the plan for the weekend, I couldn't resist.  So I took Caleb and Novalee while Wes took the rest fishing at the dock.

 Sunday we packed up and went to say goodbye to our friends, who convinced us to come play one last place before heading home.

Devil's lake has this cool castle play structure thing.  It's massive.  Kind of like the Washington Park Playground but this one is made out of wood.  It was impressive.  Plus our kids ran off the last of their energy and slept the whole way home.

My little caged animal.

I like her.

 We are already planning another trip there next year!

Berry Picking on the 4th of July with Grandparents

We went to Smith's farm this year for the 4th.  They had live music, a BBQ and farm animals for the kids to feed.

Kins and Sadie were pros at berry picking.  They spent a good portion of time walking around giving others advice on how to find the best berries.

Even though the girls were all decked out in patriotic clothes on Sunday, today they insisted on these outfits.  Sadie was all matchy with Minnie clothes and she even did her own hair.

Hite loved being out picking berries too.

After picking our fill of berries we order hot dogs and sat down to enjoy some jazzy music.

Happy 4th of July!

Spontaneous Hagg Lake Trip

Saturday July 1st we were super productive and we worked really hard all morning and afternoon, doing a bunch of stuff that amounts to very little.

Then I took Dakota for a walk and noticed a lot of boats headed to the lake.  So I came home and mentioned it to Wes.

40 minutes later we were loaded up and on our way to the lake!

The kids swam.  Kinsley and Sadie mastered kayaking.  Hite mastered jumping ship and "swimming" back to shore.

Caleb enjoyed throwing rocks from the shore and eating food.

It was super relaxing and the best idea ever!