Family campout

(My parents with the 8 grandkids, ages 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1)
After a bit of hemming and hawing, our family decided to do one last campout for the summer. It was supposed to be freezing cold and we didn't know if we wanted to sit out in rain and shiver. It turned out to be nippy but sunny and it was a great time. You can see the rest of the pics on my Facebook page.

Callie Jean

Isn't she so girlie and sweet!?
So glad there are girls somewhere in this family!

Tidy and Neat. Neat and Tidy.

I'm watching "How clean is your house?" with Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie. Have you seen it? It is kinda gross but fun to see the transformation afterwards. The last show just had a poor mother with 5 boys. I so related to her explanation that "As I'm cleaning up one room, the boys are in another room absolutely trashing it!"

I grew up in quite a clean and organized household. We all had our jobs, and everything had its place. I like clean...but I must say I did enjoy hanging out with a friend who lived on a farm and her place was quite a mess. There was freedom and things we could do there that we couldn't at home, but I knew I couldn't live that way. Right now, my house is in a current state that I never thought possible. It isn't nasty, but it is not clean. It is somewhat cluttered and things are stuffed into closets and forgotten. I can get my dishes, laundry and my floors cleaned, but you should see the ensuite...it seems to be the last place that gets cleaned. Or the boot room. Need I explain. How about the toys? Disaster.
I was the cleanest housekeeper when Riley was about the same age as Shea is now. He took the lovely 3 hour nap in the afternoon, and since I was home doing nothing, I would clean, and sort and clean some more and tidy and dust. It was nice. Things were pretty easy back then. Add 5 years, two more kids, a bigger house with an extra bathroom, more years of paperwork and toys and furniture and clothes, and EEkk!
Let's just say that I'm glad we moved a year ago. It was a big job, but it was good to go through everything and get rid of a bunch of junk. We still have more to ditch.
I know I'm not hopeless though, and do some things right...here are some of my tricks:
1. I invite people over. That way I HAVE to clean my potty and sweep the floor etc.
2. I try to make sure that the boys only take one major messy toy out at a time and then put it away before starting another. For example...if the lego bin is dumped out, no, we are not playing Candyland until the lego is back in the bin.
3. I do laundry all the time. I used to cram my laundry day into one day and the piles and just overwhelming amount of stuff to fold and put away would be too much for me to handle. I try to do a load here and a load there and it goes better.
4. I let the playroom in the very basement be a playroom. I let it be messy. I don't make them clean up. I let their friends come over and make a mess. I am fine with that. We tidy it up about once a month and vacuum. However, I keep our family room toys in bins and make sure it is cleaned up daily.
5. I own a dishwasher.

What are your housecleaning secrets??

Sunday whiney Sunday

I have nothing much to say today...I had a long day with a whiney child and my mind feels like it's gone to mush by the constant drone of moan I heard all day. Greg was gone to a blues' concert, and so it wasn't an especially fun Saturday.
Today is on the up and up though, and here's the boys this morning, on our way to church. Liam looks especially like the "odd one out" as the other two look so much more alike in my opinion!!

What's with all of them having closed lips, hey??

Newest family photos

The grandparents and their "kids".

All of the family Davidson!

And us...

(Click on them to enlarge)

all by Royden Lepp (I changed the color on some of them)

Teefies

I am quite happy over here tonight. I had to take the boys to the dentist again for their 6 month follow-up appointment. Last time was not the greatest as we went due to an emergency with Riley having an abcessed tooth and all. I brought Liam then as well for his first visit, and though his teeth were fine, he was quite the monkey in there, not really holding too still!
So today I was a little worried as Riley had a lot of work done in the past, and had reason to not want to go again. And I didn't know if Liam would hold still for an actual cleaning. This was not just a happy visit.
Well they both did me proud and laid there like angels and held their mouths open perfectly and watched carefully while the other had theirs done. And NO cavities!! That's the best part! We don't have to go back for another 6 months.

(That's Riley doing the happy dance!)

Comparison

At 6 months...

At almost 15 months...


(I think he gets cuter every day!!)

Whirlwind

We just lived through the past 4 days of whirlwind activity around here, and then it was back to work today for Greg.

sigh


Heather and Glen arrived to town and this weekend it was basically a Davidson reunion. Many trips out to the lake in the gorgeous HOT weather, and lots of meals together, a dance party at our place and yesterday a celebration of G's parents 35th. We got our photos taken by our friend Royden who had the challenge of catching our 5 kids ages 6 and under. I hope to share some of those photos with you soon.
For now, I'll leave you with a few shots from the past days...

Heather and Shea (dancing)


Glen with Olivia (at the beach)


About 40 of us at the beach to celebrate G's parents.


The happy couple


Shea performs for us all...only about 4 steps, but we were all excited!!


Dancing in our living room

To the ocean and back

We had one of those trips where Greg and I had to look at eachother and laugh...like "What were we thinking?!"
We decided since we had some more time off, it would be fun to go down to the coast and bring the kids to the ocean, go to the aquarium, see my grandparents, shop a little, visit G's bro and fam. Well, the idea was great and the things we did were great...but all the driving in the city in between was LESS THAN FUN! Add to that lack of sleep, heavy traffic and not a good map, the fact that we have THREE children in one vehicle (two of which will never sleep in there), and it just wasn't a recipe for fun. We just did WAY TOO MUCH in WAY TOO LITTLE time.
We should have just stayed camping!!
Our trip home today was actually quite pleasant, as we turned to the DVD nanny for help. When we pulled into Salmon Arm, Liam yelled out, "DeMille's!!? We're already in Salmon Arm!!? I can't believe we made it home and I didn't even fall asleep!!" (Like it was some big accomplishment.)
Anyway, we're not planning any more road trips any time soon. Oddly the baby wasn't the issue, it was the oldest that was the biggest pain!
But hey, it wasn't all bad...and we have some pictures to prove it...







Oh wait...I was there too!! Greg took a picture of me!!












;)

Happy Campers

We're back and we survived 3 whole nights of camping!! YAY! And we enjoyed it! We loved it, in fact, and want to go back. We probably would have stayed longer but our campsite spot was reserved for tonight, so it was time to pack up and move home.
We actually had driven out to Herald's Park, which is beautiful and where we've camped twice before, but it was jam packed and NO spots opened up at all so we couldn't get in. How devastating, as anyone who camps with children knows how much prep work it takes to get ready to go somewhere, and gosh, all the STUFF! We had it all, the playpen, the highchair, the bikes, etc. In fact, we had so much stuff that we needed to borrow my parent's van and utility trailer to carry it all. I was NOT turning around and going home. No way. Heather and I drove back closer to town and looked at Pierre's Point campground and thankfully found about 6 vacant spots there. We picked the one with the most shade, and went back to pick up the boys.
Pierre's Point is sadly right next to the train tracks, with tight little camping spots, but it has a beautiful beach and running water, so we did just fine there. I mean how can you not love this view in the morning...

I threw in this picture to show you our campsite (where the red van is), in relation to the beach (to the right, behind Riley).

Our kids did wake up between 6-7am every morning, but it made for lovely quiet walks down by the water.

Aww, and look at these cute campers...

Regret staying home?

This topic was brought up on a mom's group I'm part of.
There is no doubt that I struggle with feelings of regret for being home ALL day with my boys since Riley was born. Some stages have been harder than others.
Every day we walk past this awesome dayhome where the kids are out playing in the back and having a wonderful time together, and my 4 year old asks me when I'm going to work so that he can go play there. So some days I feel like they would have so much more fun with other kids rather than staying at home with boring ol' mom who loses her cool and is so tired of listening to them fight. I feel like they aren't that great socially because they only have eachother and their cousins, so they aren't used to meeting new people all that much. They maybe don't do as many crafts and games and learn their Abc's as early....

BUT...

I am the one who is teaching them about life, and about love and respect and God. I'm the one having fun with them and making memories with them that I hope they will cherish them as much as I do. I pick them up when they fall, I kiss their owwies, I teach them songs and swimming and how to make lego spaceships. They get to be brothers and friends together. They get to be home and be lazy when they want to. We dance, we fight, we exercise, we sing, we eat together, and soon enough they will all be in school with their friends, and living their own lives and I'll be glad I've had this time.

That's what I think about on those really tough days when I wish I could "farm them out!"