I absolutely love it when kids are so tired that when they’re placed on their tummies they cry and cry and then give in.

I often ask him “Why don’t you just close your eyes and fall asleep? That’s what mommy does”

And why does the value of a good nap not hit you until you’re somewhere between 18 and 20?

At the pufferbilly days parade in Boone, some organization was handing out bomb pops along the parade route. What a hit!

It was Ellie’s first bomb pop…the first picture says it all…”what is this thing?”

We think she liked it. Enough to eat the whole thing and not want to share. I think dad may have gotten one bite…to save it from dripping down her shirt.

Our cookie…a lifelong friend…
He’s been peed on…
thrown up on…
squeezed to death…
and has come through it all amazingly well.

He’s looked better, but she could care less.
She loves him anyway.

I don’t even know where to start with the post on our weekend…

Friday is a whole story in itself…but you’re all here to read about the camping…so on with the camping!

We arrived in Rockford (at mom and dad’s house) at noon, just in time for lunch. How do you like my planning? We ate, napped, and then headed for the beach, which Ellie has been saying for weeks that she wanted to go to. I’m pretty sure she sees Clifford and Dora enjoying the beach in their respective cartoons and thinks it looked like fun.

Off we went to enjoy Rudd’s version of the beach. For a tiny little community like Rudd, this is awesome!

Evan enjoyed the beach too…aren’t you impressed he’s not sleeping in the photo?

We didn’t take Ellie’s suit with us, thinking it would probably be too cold…didn’t really matter though, she ended up wet from middle down anyway…hooray for extra clothes and good thinking mom!

We decided to camp at mom and dad’s house – in the back 40 (what we affectionately called it when we had to mow it when we were young)…

there were less people there and thought if Ellie had to go potty in the middle of the night it would be a closer distance…and also a more familiar potty to go in. She was so excited when we got the tent set up.

To get the full camping experience…we built a fire in the middle of my parent’s driveway and roasted marshmallows for Smores.

Ellie’s first smore. She liked it well enough to ask for another…we let her have a bite of daddy’s.

All was well. We were in the tent and sleeping by 10:15 – all in all, not bad for our first camping trip. And then 1:00 a.m. hit. I was resting peacefully when i hear Ellie crying. She said something about her tummy hurting…but this is normal. She’s two, her stomach hurts every 5 minutes. I hear Nathan putting on his shoes, and hers…and think…oh, he’s probably taking her to the bathroom, and roll over and close my eyes again. They are walking away from the tent when I hear Nathan say “did your tummy hurt before you threw up?” At this point I sit straight up on my air mattress, causing my butt to hit the tent floor and am thinking “oh no, she didn’t”, grab the flashlight, look and realize, oh, yes she did.

I decided to spare you a picture…I really thought about it and decided I might lose readership if i posted a picture of that sight. Lets just say it wasn’t pleasant.

Now, I am lying there thinking Nathan isn’t going to be coming back because he’s helping Ellie with her issues, and I’m not sure I can get Evan in the house in his carseat and keep him sleeping…I’m not sure I can get him in the house by myself at this point at all due to the large hole I fell in getting out to the tent earlier in the evening, twisting my ankle in the process. (Its all on video though…which could win us some money someday if I choose to show my embarrassment to the world)

I decide to leave my 2 1/2 month old son in the tent, alone, and go in to survey the situation.

New jammies, Ellie in bed, nice job dad!

We rid the tent of the air mattress and other items in need of washing, hose them off (quite literally) and decide to deal with them in the morning…and bring baby Evan in the house too, thus officially ending the camping trip at the time you see below.

I will spare you many of the details, but the rest of the early morning included more sickness, a wet/dry vac, carpet cleaner, daddy sleeping in the bathroom next to one sick little girl, very little sleep, and a baby who slept through it all! Gotta love that boy!