Friday, June 12, 2015

Ira turns eight and other adventures...

Ira turned eight!!!
He's been waiting, impatiently, for four months. ;) It drives him crazy that Atty's birthday comes first, ha ha!
Birthday pancakes, got to have them! ;)

Another cake success! Grain free, dairy free, soy free. This time I made a chocolate frosting with Enjoy Life chocolate chip. They do have cane syrup in them, but Atty seems to be able to tolerate a bit of sugar now and again. It has been five year after all since his last seizure. :) The cake its self was sweetened only with maple syrup, and the coconut cream in between the layers inside the cake were sweetened with a little honey. Still trying to stay as close to whole foods as possible (I'm aware that maple syrup is processed but I'm more okay with that than the other types of processed sugars). Every once and a while I'm okay with making an exception since over all we have a focus on healthy eating. 

I love seeing how excited the kids get about getting their sibling a gift.
Atty got Ira a fishing pole! So sweet. :)

Ira's auntie got him this awesome pirate gear. He makes a pretty fierce pirate!

He's a jolly pirate. ;)

Banden got Ira a football!

Leiella made a million cards for Ira, so sweet. 

She also got him some cool survival gear. My little survivalists. :)

Blowing out the candles! He got every one!!!

So, so, so, good!!! Best cake ever. I keep saying that, but truly they just keep getting better and better. Practice makes perfect. :)

So Ira really wanted a camp out for his birthday. So we packed up the trailer and went to a local KOA. it was a blast! We had some friends come and my mom and sister. Besides the fact that it took forever to get on the road Friday after Ryder got off work. It was just one thing after another. It sort of turned into a bad joke. After finally getting the trailer hooked up and finding everything we needed for that, it was so late that I went inside to cook the chicken for dinner at home instead of at the campsite. That left J to help Ryder get out, which involves maneuvering through a gate and down the side of our house with millimeters on each side. It's ridiculous really. Well J failed, big time, in guiding Ryder out and one of the legs on the canopy on the side of the trailer got ripped off and long story short Ryder ended up taking a saw to the fence post and chopping the whole thing down! It was crazy. Then when we finally got on the road, around 7:30 pm, we got two minutes down the road and Ryder realized he didn't put the big side mirrors on. It's illegal to drive without them because he can't see behind him. So we had to turn around and go back! After a lot of cursing on my husbands part (which the kids thankfully didn't hear because they were in the suburban) he realize that they were in the underneath compartment of the trailer. Sigh. I'm telling you it was no fun. Thankfully when we got there things improved dramatically and we ended up having a really nice time. Lesson learned hopefully. When leaving on a Friday after work have as many things figured out ahead of time as possible!

Mini golf! This place has it all and is one of our favorites for a quick get away now. Pool, mini golf, playground, a beautiful creek, movie on the lawn at night, bouncy pillow, you name it, they've got it! Plus a good lay out for the kids to ride around on their bikes. It's glamping, not camping, but you know what… I don't care any more! I use to be sooooo against it! I was all about roughing it and getting as far away from people as possible prior to kids. But now with kids it's just stressful and so much work for me! This trailer camping thing is perfect for this time in our lives. And the KOA's are so family friendly! Although I like taking the trailer to regular campgrounds as well. :)

Playing at the creek, they can spend hours here!

Great way to spend a Saturday, reading outdoors next to a creek listening to the kids giggle and play. :)

Silly girls!

Building a dam. It's a favorite pass time for my boys, ha ha!

Then Atty drove us all home.

Just kidding! We had a blast and despite the hard start it fed my fever for trailer campouts this summer!

1 comment:

Kat said...

Oh my gosh I just love your family. I love all the birthday gifts. They are perfect! So much fun. I have a feeling our kids would get along really well.
One thing after the next on that camping trip, huh? I hate it when that happens. You just want to get out of there and hurry to leave as soon as you can and everything keeps going wrong. My hubby cusses too much when that stuff happens too. ;)
Looks like you all had a great time once you got there. Sounds like a blast! :)