Camping

I've had a goal to go camping for a while. Tommy got a big new tent with all his scout camping, and we got some awesome marshmallow roasting sticks, so now we have all the stuff we might need to go as a family, but it hadn't happened yet. We have been planning to but have had so many bad weekends with weather issues that I thought it might not happen before it gets too hot here. Once it's summer, it doesn't get below 85 or 90 even at night, so there is no way I'm going camping then. (We made the mistake of going camping with Tommy's cousins the first summer we moved here and had one of the worst nights of sleep ever. Definitely learned that lesson.)

But we managed to go last weekend and had literally the BEST time. It could not have been more perfect. Some of our good friends here, the Carters, came with us--we invited them because we know they are big campers, and they were perfect camping buddies. Ben is Dane's best friend, and Emmi is Graham's little friend and Eli is Lucy's age. We went to a campsite in McKinney, only about half an hour away, where they usually have the Father-Son campout. All the stars aligned to make this the most perfect weekend--good friends, the most perfect weather, and the kids actually SLEPT in the tent. We got a better night of sleep than we had all week (for some reason all the kids were waking up all the time the week before--it was miserable!). So it was so much fun and it made me feel like we could go camping a lot more often. I think we need to try and go at least in the spring and in the fall, depending on our babies.

Lucy and Eli having fun.

We even got a great family picture--always a bonus!

We told "scary stories" around the campfire before going to bed and Dane loved it. He was a little scared by a story about a coffin (although I'm pretty positive he doesn't know what a coffin is) but we were able to help him go to sleep and he didn't have any nightmares, haha. 

We did some hikes the night before and in the morning around the area. So fun.

These are the boys' "slingshots" they found, haha. 

Soccer

Dane is finally playing soccer for the first time, and it is way more fun than I thought it was going to be. I've always dreaded having extra things on our schedule, but I am loving watching him and doing this with him. I'm his coach and it's been going really well. I don't know how good I am as a coach, but I think I'm pretty good at keeping it low key and fun, and the kids are definitely getting better than when they started. We've had some problems with games getting rained out so we kind of had a late start to the season, but it has been a lot of fun.

Before our first practice!

Kurt came up to watch Dane's game. So fun!

We only had a couple of our kids for the game yesterday, but we got a picture. 

This guy. So cute!

Little Things in April

Lucy is in full-on getting-into-things-and-taking-everything-out-of-cabinets-and-off-of-shelves mode. It's my favorite stage!

He is such an angel when he's asleep.

These cute boys love trying to help Lucy walk. She is lucky to have two really nice big brothers.

And we have teeth! Toothless no more! She's only 13 months old!

We ended stake conference in the car.

Lucy is loving being able to go down slides. She is a total daredevil.

Dane is kind of in a stage where he asks me to take a picture of them doing everything. "Take a picture of us on this rock!"

THIS GIRL IS INTO EVERYTHING!

Dane showing me his worm "Sticky."

Cinderella, always hard at work.

Lucy's favorite thing to do at the library: take all the things off the shelves and then throw a huge tantrum when I try to stop her. 

One morning while Dane was at preschool I took Graham and Lucy to a park and we went on a little walk and had fun playing. I'm trying to get out a lot while the weather is still good. 

Look at these cuties. 

They were entranced by a fly stuck in between our window and screen.

I love, love, love this cutie. 

An attempt at a picture before church. 

Lucy sporting her cute Ecuador dress!

The boys get so much pleasure out of making a huge mess with their stuff and making piles. They piled all of their stuffed animals into our bathtub and said it was their reading bed. 

Houston Weekend

A few weeks ago we went down to the lovely city of Houston to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins who live down there, and to do the ever-important BLUE BELL FUN RUN. We are fully converted Blue Bell ice cream fans and we are even willing to drive four hours to Brenham, TX to visit the headquarters for their annual fun run race. We did it two years ago and have fond memories of it being an almost-perfect day, doing the race with my cousin and spending the day with her family afterwards. And we basically recreated it this year! We went down to Houston a day early and visited NASA the day before the race, because I was interested in seeing it and we thought the kids would enjoy it. It was a really great short weekend trip down there. 

NASA. So cool to see the space shuttle and go inside it!

They had a tram ride around inside the NASA headquarters. We did the super-short version, and I think it would be fun to go back in a few years when the kids are older so we can do the longer version and go visit Mission Control. 

I love this little walking girl!

I had to share these pictures of the boys touching the moon rock, because we have an iconic Murphy family picture of Bethany touching the moon rock at the Smithsonian in DC with the worst angry face. Dane and Graham enjoyed it a lot more than Bethany did. 

The boys' favorite part of NASA was some interactive exhibits they had inside the space shuttle showing how they landed it on top of an airplane to transport it between places. It was super interesting. We were going to stay a little bit longer and we were even hoping to buy some astronaut ice cream from the gift store but the power went out in the whole place, so we ended up leaving!

This is such a cute picture of the kids on the swing in my cousin's backyard!

After NASA we drove back to Katy and ended up going to my cousin Brittney's house to hang out with their kids in the afternoon. We went to a park with them and played and had a great time with them. Brittney is amazing and her kids are like my kids' dream come true. 

The next day was the Fun Run! We signed the boys up for the kids' one-mile race and they were so excited. Actually, just Dane was. Graham had to be coaxed into it (but we knew if we didn't sign him up he would be throwing a fit about not being allowed to do it). Tommy ran it with them and helped Graham along. 

Dane did SUCH a good job! Two years ago he fell and gave up after about 100 yards and it took a really long time for him to finish (haha). But this year he ran the whole time and finished the one mile in about twelve minutes. I was so proud of him!

And after another six or seven minutes, Tommy and Graham came trotting down. LOOK at this cutie. He looks so proud (even though he definitely did not run the whole mile, haha!). 

The best reward is the free ice cream. We left Dane with the cousins to eat as much ice cream as he wanted while Tommy and I ran the 5K with the jogging stroller. 

Tommy was a champ! He did it pretty fast. Neither of us trained a ton, but I did it in about 29 minutes and Tommy was in maybe 26. 

After eating as much ice cream as we could at the race, we headed over to the factory store to get a free scoop of ice cream there too!

The kids were super proud of their medals. Reid even got second place in his age division. 

This girl was a big fan of the ice cream too. Look at that face. 

We found an enormous field of bluebonnets and HAD to stop and take a picture. The drive down there and back was just wildflowers all the way down on the sides of the highway. I was so excited to get some pictures of bluebonnets!

We had a picnic lunch at the Washington-on-the-Brazos site and spent a while playing soccer. Then we drove home and Graham and Lucy slept the WHOLE WAY home and it was perfect! We were not thrilled about the drive and it worked out great. I think things like this go smoother the more kids we have because we are less stressed about things working out perfectly. So it was a great day and a great weekend in Houston!