Pedernalis Falls camping trip!!

For the last official day off from school of Spring Break we were able to get away to Pedernalis Falls here in south Texas. We fired up my dad's travel trailor and were off to spend the night "roughing" it. Can I tell you how much I enjoy camping this way! No tents to set up. No sleeping bags to drag through the dirt. No in and out of the tent zippers...it's just so nice. Anyways, we traveled about 1 hour to the north and checked into our campsite. We popped up the trailor and pulled out our picnic lunch and were off to the falls. What a beautiful place it was!! The kids and the dog loved the small pools and the rock climbing. It was a great sunny day with highs in high 70's. It was a bit windy, but it was still ok. Here's our family enjoying the falls part of the park.

After the falls we headed to the swimming area. They don't let you swim in the first 2 miles of the park where the falls are. In fact they have warnings all over about how fast the area there can flash flood. So we had to drive to a place in the park that was designated for swimming. I don't have any pictures from there because I forgot to bring the camera there. It was just swimming in the river. Jagg especially liked this part as he was able to jump into the water and swim around. The kids floated down the river a few times and found a swimming hole that allowed them to swim a bit. Our time there was cut a little short when Jagg pulled Austin over and he skinned his knee on a rock that was sticking out of the sand. So we had to trek up to the car and use our handy dandy first aid kit to patch him up. From there it was back to the campsite to change our clothes and do a little hiking. David and the kids walked the nature trail for a while while I tried out the queen size bed in the trailor. While they were gone and the night came it started to get cold. The wind that had been blowing all day had blown in a cold front and the temperature dropped fast. Again, I can tell you I like "camping" in a trailor. No wind flapping the tent all night and a handy heater that kept us warm. We did brave the outdoors for our campfire and smores before we retired for the night. Here's the kids a smores:

And to end our camping trip we were up at 6:30am for some eggs and sausage and donuts and breaking down camp to get Austin to his soccer game at 8:20am. Now that's another story...so cold. Austin scored a goal we didn't get to see. The team won and both boys worked by refereeing a few games and so forth. A typical Saturday during soccer for the Smith family....we're loving it!!

Happy Birthday David

David's birthday was a big day. Seems like we had a lot going on that day. We were able to go out to dinner with some friends and then come home and open presents with the kids

and have his carrott cake. Austin's present was very interesting...a can of corn. He wrote a nice letter to his dad explaining that it was the thought that counts and so he was giving him a can of corn that he had stolen from the pantry. I guess the thought that he got him a present was what he meant...not the part about stealing it and not really getting him anything. Austin is always good for a laugh!! For really thoughtful presents David got a chainsaw, a Magic Bullet blender thingy, and a new watch. All in all it was a good birthday for David.

New bigger yard

Last week we finally decided to hire out the finishing of our yard. We did all the sod for our yard last spring and had enough left over to do a small back yard. We intended to level out the yard and extend it to a larger area....and we just got done. It's going to be nice

to have a bigger area for the kids and the dog. More yard work and more watering too. You can see the two different color greens of the old yard and the new sod. Jagg seems to like it.

Now we just have the huge area in the back back yard (the back half of our acre) for our soccer field. It's leveled out and ready for seed once we extend the sprinklers back there. We're REALLY excited about that for this fall to practice on. There's always something to work on around here.

Spring Break...

We are officially on our spring break. Sleeping in, countless kids in and out of the house, weird eating hours, lots of eating period, no cleaning up and just plain having fun. Once I get the camera back up and charged I'll post some pictures. We're going camping Friday as long as the rain holds off. Off I go for more fun...

Survival

McKinley is definitely the youngest of four children. This morning David got up with the first two kids to get them off to school and heard McKinley come down the stairs. He told her that he was going back to bed and she went back upstairs to her bed to lie down "until the sun comes up" (that's a house rule for little ones). David checked on her awhile later and she was in bed and singing her lovely Methodist Church preschool chapel songs. All was well.

Fastforward to 7:40am. The sun is up and so McKinley is up too. She's hungry. So what does the fourth child do...get something to eat. This is something I love about my kids getting older. They can get up and get breakfast on their own. That allows me to have more sleep...which I love (see previous posts about sleep). She comes in a few minutes later fully satisfied and proud of herself. She told me all about her breakfast....oatmeal. "Mom, I got the stool and the big glass cup and put water in the microwave and made it REALLY hot. Then I got the flower pad and put it down on the counter to put the water on it so it wouldn't make a mark (that sounds familiar). I carried it so carefully to the table and I had 3 oatmeals today. I'm going to be healthy and strong!!".

Wow, she really made boiling hot water and got it out of the microwave and to the table. I think I should be worried about this...

Please don't call Social Services on me. She's only 5 and I must be doing something right if she's learned all these life skills . I need to get on my older kids, now I think they are slackers....

A Quarter Something

ETHAN: "Mom, can I make cookie dough?"

ME: "Sure, I love cookie dough. What kind of cookie should we make? How about my favorite...chocolate butterscotch oatmeal!!"

ETHAN: "Ok, where's the recipe?"

ME: "In the box, make sure you follow it exactly...it's not a hard one."

A few minutes later after I put McKinley and Evan to bed....

ETHAN: "MOM!! Oh no, I put in whole wheat flour instead of brown sugar!!"

ME: "That's ok, just add the sugar now, the flour won't hurt it"

ETHAN: "Ok."....

A few more minutes go by.

ETHAN: "Mom, this doesn't taste right, you try it"....

Famous last words. It reminds me of early in our marriage when I asked David to try the milk because I thought it tasted bad. Of course he did and it was bad. He has NEVER done it since!!

I smell the dough...smells great. I look at it...looks delicious. I grab a huge bite and AAHHCCHH!! A great big salty mess.

ME: "Ethan, how much salt did you use?"

ETHAN: "A quarter"

MOM: "A quarter what?"

He shows me the CUP measure. Yes, a quarter cup of salt is too much. It can't be saved and is smelling great in the garbage can. Oh well...

Fiddling Fellow

I finally took some short videos of Ethan practicing his fiddling songs. Now it's much more fun to have your group with you, but these are just Ethan's parts. I'll have to remember to take the video to a group practice so you can see it in full. Ethan is really enjoying his new genre of fiddling and is improving in his skills at the same time. He's in a full size violin now and working on perfecting his wrist and bowhold now. There's always something to work on!! Here's another video of his other song:

Keep it up Ethan!!