Bringing Nature Home With Us

One week ago we were camping.

One week ago my boys were playing in the woods, running, wrestling, climbing, and any other activity little boys can think of to do in the outdoors.

One week ago I was playing with Evan's hair and noticed something, a tick. Ticks freak me out! Ticks are right up there with heights, public speaking and rats. Ask Jed.

Fortunately Jamie was there, Jamie lived in Bolivia, ticks aren't even a blip on her radar. She removed the tick for Evan and then she and I both combed his head over for any more of the disgusting things. We found nothing.

Fast forward to today. The boys have been playing together in the florida room all morning. Kane's in this stage where he thinks its a good idea to throw toys at his brothers. He hit Seth in the eye with a metal plane the other day causing a blood vessel to pop, it not a fun phase. So when Evan told me he had a bump on his head I assumed it was from some kind of minor injury possibly inflicted by his little brother. I swept my hand over his head, felt the bump and parted his hair to find my worst nightmare, an engorged tick.

My reaction wasn't pretty. Fortunately I live in a house full of males, instead of joining in the hysteria, they all looked at me like I was nuts.

Jed has dubbed me the nurse of the house which works well most of the time. I don't mind dolling out medicine, taking kids to doctors appointments or dealing with most wounds but this... ugh.

I took it slow and Jed gave me a hand holding Evan's hair back. Poor Evan, it took a few yanks to get it out and I kept getting his hair caught in the tweezers. He got a sucker for being such a good sport.

I loath ticks. Hours later and my skin is still crawling.

Evan, on the other hand, wanted to look at it.

Irony

We drove into Gainesville during our last camping trip. It was my first time visiting the college town.

Its a typical college town, not really worth mentioning, that is until we came across this;

The sign says, "ALPHA GAMMA RHO, Making Better Men Since 1924". Maybe that depends on how you define "Better Men"? :)

It almost makes me feel bad for the parents who pay tens of thousands of dollars for this.

Our camper blew a tire in the middle of the Ocala National Forest, which we were driving through on our way home from Paynes Prairie state park.

Fortunately, it only took Jed 30 minutes or so to change the tire and we were on our way.

Our trip was fun. I've started a camping blog to write about our adventures and review different campgrounds and state parks. I'm really looking forward to this project, if nothing else to chronicle our trips. My sister in law keeps a journal of all their trips so this is kind of like that. I hope that eventually iblogger (an app for my iphone) will have a feature that allows me to upload pictures from my phone to my blog anytime. Maybe someday!

For now I leave you with pictures of our boys finishing off the Valentines cake we made for Jed.

Can You Guess...

What happened to us today?

The Many Faces of Evan

During nap time a few days ago I found Evan laying wide awake in bed. Most of the time he doesnt need a nap like the other boys however most days mommy still needs a break! I ask that he rests while the other boys sleep and usually he falls asleep but not this day so I took pity on him. I got him up and we played with transformers for a bit before he asked me to take pictures of him. He wanted to do silly faces. We laughed so hard looking through these together. I love this kid!

When Evan was Kane's age, Jed and I would go over names of objects with him, and sometimes the way he pronounced the word would make us laugh or it was just too cute so we'd all call it whatever he did. Like when he was 18 months he called "fish", "boof" and "bike", "kicks", ect.

As he got older his words got closer to the actual words. Like "remote" became "eh-mote". So the other day Kane brought me an old remote he was using as a phone and wanted me to play with him and I said something like, "Oh thank you for the eh-mote?" Kane told me matter of factly, "Mama, it rah-mote controw."

Ok, Kane I'll remember that for next time, thanks!

In my spare time I enjoy reading blogs. Such as at night when Jed is watching a "man" show or when the boys are napping or whatever. I find myself drawn to adoption blogs, big family blogs( as in more than 6 kids), and homeschooling blogs. I'm fascinated and inspired by families that choose these paths! Two that I've found recently are,

http://www.nogreaterjoymom.com/ This family has 3 biological sons and four adopted daughters with special needs from two different countries. AH-MAZING!

http://www.generationcedar.com/main/ I dont agree with everything on this blog but I have been challenged by the author as a wife and mom!

Kane in Motion

While I was playing around with my camera settings Kane kept asking me to take his picture. I obliged, fully intending to delete them all that is until I saw these. For some reason they caught my eye.

The 2 Year Old

The Springs with Cousins

Chillin inside the dead tree.

Hi fishy!

Our kids met other kids with a soccer ball and with zero discussion a game commenced. I wish adults were that easy going!

There was a playground but who needs that when you have dirt?!

Evan was hungry and therefore unhappy. *pout*

Hi Sethy!

Group shot! 3 out of 5 isnt bad!

Auntie Tracy Visits!

The only thing that could have made this better is if my mom, Becky and London could have been here!

Aunt Tracy out did herself, again!

The boys were blown away!

Scooters and Skateboards!

I made her pose like this just to give my mom a hard time! :) She loved the scarf!

Introducing Aunt Tracy to the world of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope.

Now to the boys and their toys.

Evan got a "bones scooter" as he calls it, it has a skull on it.

Seth took to the board quickly.

Where did he learn to do that?!

Kane wasnt quite as ambitious.

But he still had fun.

Sethy

is

a

little

dramatic.

Gwen was concerned.

Gwen, you're playing into his hands. Now he's going to keep doing it. Oh and he did, over and over and over.

Little brother see, little brother do. Someone has an invisible "ouchie".