Spring at the Camp Household

This spring was full of new and exciting adventures! Most exciting is that for the first the first time in 4 1/2 years, we officially have NO more diapers in our house! (Well pull ups at night, but hey I can handle that). It was a little earlier than I planned, but after the second time Emalyn came and handed me a surprise from her diaper, I decided it was time. Spring Break was approaching, which meant daddy was going to be home for a week, and there seemed like no better time to tackle this task.

Getting ready the night before - putting panties on all of our babies!

She definitely did not catch on as quickly as Maddie, but I had to remind myself that she was 4 months younger than when we potty trained Miss Maddie. I followed Pottywise with Emalyn too and would highly recommend it. I would have definitely gone about the whole process in the wrong way and would have focused on the wrong things had I not read this book first. It was a long few days, but well worth it as we went into the craziness of spring and then end of the school year. 

Soccer

Maddie's preschool does a soccer league every spring that is 5 games and no practice, which was a great introduction to sports for us. She loved the "outfit" as she kept calling it, but officially decided she did not like the second part because she got too hot & 

sweaty. :) I think we are all girl. 

Maddie with McAuley and Caroline two of her friends from her class. 

During the second half of their first game all the kids were hot, tired, and wanted to sit out on the sidelines. I reminded her a couple of times that it was time to go back in and play to no avail. So I said okay, Mad - what would Uncle Tee tell you to do? She looked at me and without saying a word put her drink and ran back in. At least she's learning something on her Wednesday nights with him. :)

She even scored a goal during her second game! And after that, she had accomplished the task set before her, and she could have cared less the rest of the games. She and her friend Anna just held hands up and down the field. 

This is where you would find Emalyn for most of the games. It was also insurance that she was not about to run or kick her ball on the field. 

 The girls with Uncle Tee after the last game. They both adore him. I think Maddie was most excited to tell him that she scored a goal. 

Spring Tea

I helped on the committee this year for Nashville Ballet Spring Tea. It is such a sweet event that celebrates them being little girls, which I feel like is rare in our culture today. It is definitely something that is worth the money you put into it and will be something I make sure we budget for every year. 

Maddie was so excited to have something that just the "big girls" got to go to. 

Maddie with Caylan, one of my friends from high school has just stopped dancing for the ballet and is now the director of the school. 

She was mesmerized by the ballerinas as you can tell!

They did a dance for the little girls from their upcoming show Sleeping Beauty. 

Several little girls who go to St. Georges

One of the little favors - I was so impressed with how cute it was. 

Ballet Recital

Maddie started ballet this year and has absolutely loved it. It was our Tuesday afternoon routine. I think her favorite part was carpooling with Caroline. 

Our sweet ballerina!

Maddie and Caroline

Ashley and Anna Caroline came to watch Maddie. She was so excited to see them!

We even got to go watch Macie during her piano & voice recital afterwards. 

Noah's Ark

The 4 year olds at St Georges put on the Noah's Ark play every year. Maddie was a Sunbeam - which ironically was what I was when I was in the play. 

The costumes are much cuter than they used to be...I need to see if I can find a picture of me in my sunbeam costume. 

These four little girls have been in a class together for the past 2 years. Maddie is going to miss them next year! Sweet little Caroline, who is standing beside her does not like being on stage - and was already teary eyed before it even began. 

Her class all dressed and ready to go. 

Maddie walking in - she got to lead all the children in. 

A very different face from Caroline now that it was all over!

It worked out that Nana, Chris' grandmother, was in town the week of the ballet recital and Noah's Ark. 

We have such a fun and busy spring - and hence why I am always playing catch up on the blog! 

Hippity Hoppity

Oh the number of times I have heard Here Comes Peter Cottontail the past few weeks from the two sweet little voices that fill my house. But as my short time as an oncology nurse taught me, I am so thankful that they are healthy and are able to sing at the top of their lungs - okay well not always in the moment but I am when I step back from the craziness of our day to day life. :)

As each holiday approaches, I always have these grand ideas of the fun activities for us to do as a family in preparing for the celebration like the Thanksgiving Tree that turns into Jesse Tree at Christmas (that did not get made in time for either holiday this year) or the little devotion cards that coincides with the Jesus Storybook Bible for Easter (that didn't get printed off because we were out of printer paper and I never remembered to get any before Easter).

So I decided I would have to let that go and would use what we already had ready to go at home and do things that are already part of our normal routine (and hopefully as our children continue to get older, I will have time to do those other activities). So we brought out the Resurrection Eggs that Chris' mom had gotten for us a few years ago. These have been so great - and I will say I even learned somethings reading the story that goes along with them. I would highly recommend them to anyone that does not have them. And the other thing we did to teach Maddie about why we celebrate Easter is we sang the Power of the Cross every night before she went to bed. I've include the lyrics below. Its one of my favorite songs!

The Power of the Cross
Oh, to see the dawn
Of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.


CHORUS
This, the pow'r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh, to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev'ry bitter thought,
Ev'ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees;
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life;
"Finished!" the vict'ry cry.

Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

This, the pow'r of the cross:
Son of God—slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.

We had a great Easter filled with sweet memories and Easter Egg Hunts! It started with Maddie's class Easter Party on Thursday, which was the party I had signed up to help with. I said I would do the sweet, so of course I started searching Pintrest for a cute idea. Here are the bunny cupcakes:

Not quite as cute as the ones on pintrest, but cute enough!

Their tables with the crafts ready to go...

  

Her class before the Egg Hunt. 

  

 The Egg Relay

Maddie with her friend Caroline. They have been inseparable for the past two years; I don't know what they are going to do without each other next year!

Friday morning we had Emalyn's playgroup Easter Egg Hunt.

And that afternoon after naps, they had a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt on the street behind us. 

Not the cutest picture of Maddie, but sadly the best of the 3 I took. This is her with Margaret Moore who lives the street behind us. They have two little girls the same age as ours and are about to move. We are going to miss having them right behind us!

Emalyn picked up one egg, opened it, saw that there was candy, and spent the rest of the time unwrapping her chocolate egg!

Saturday we had an Egg Hunt at Mimi's and GrandD's

Daddy lifted her up to reach on in the tree!

By this egg hunt, she had gotten the hang of it!

All 7 grandchildren!

 Out of the blue last week, Emalyn said "I miss my mae-mae." And we turned around taking the picture of the whole crew and Emalyn was just loving on Macie. She holds a special place in both of my girls hearts.

Easter morning, trying out their new backpacks from their Easter Baskets! 

After church, we went to my Aunt and Uncles house for lunch and egg hunt for the little ones. 

Miss Caroline!

My girls and my cousins' little girls waiting for the egg hunt to begin.

 Finally a family picture on Easter!

Then it was home for naps, and to Lee Anne's Easter night for dinner. 

Sadly I erased all the rest of the pictures from that night.,.., on accident! But they had so much fun having an Easter Egg hunt just for the two of them!

The Beach

Oh yes, it is definitely March and I just now posting about our trip in September. But I am determined to get caught back up this week. So here it goes...

We started our 10 day adventure at the beach with the three other couples we were good friends with in Atlanta. Oh yes, we definitely had 14 of us in my mom's 3 bedroom beach condo! And of the 6 little girls, five of them were under 2!! We had so much fun though, and over all it went really really well.

Here are the girls walking to the pool

As you can imagine, Maddie loved being the oldest!

 Poor Mary Frances didn't know what she was in for sitting next to my girls

 But she didn't want to stick around for long for anymore "loving"

Girls Night

The moms went out to dinner the first night we were there. 

Fun on the beach

Sweet Maddie was worn out and fell asleep before dinner at Red Bar.

Maddie was so excited to get to hold baby Anna Caroline Donald.

Had to get a few pictures of them on the beach. 

Emalyn was less than pleased that I was trying to take pictures of her - so this is the best one I got of her. 

All the girls

Mary Stewart Donald, Charlotte Sutherland, Mary Frances Cahill, Emalyn, Maddie, & Anna Caroline Donald

 
Maddie saying bye to Charlotte; they had so much fun running around together.

And we were off to Disneyworld! That post to come tomorrow (hopefully)!

Hunkering down in the basement

So Nashville was a 10/10 today on the Torcon tornado scale. Chris came home from work. Bebe left work and joined us in the basement. Emalyn kept saying all done now? So far we are safe just hail

One of Those Days

Yesterday was just one of those days around here. My alarm went off at 5:30, and I hit snooze because we had just been up with Maddie at 4:30. The sad thing is I do even remember now what in the world she thought she needed at 4:30 in the morning! But none the less, I thought my list of things to get done before the girls got up would have to wait for 10 more minutes. But apparently instead of hitting snooze I turned the alarm off,  because the next thing I heard was Maddie not so quietly shutting the door to her room (one of those things with an old house).  I asked her what she was doing downstairs (still thinking it was 5:30). Her reply - but mommy my clock says its time to get up. My eyes quickly dart back to my clock and see it is 7:04. Oh yes- 4 minutes after Chris was supposed to be in Franklin -which is of course 30 minutes away - to go on a work trip for the night. Chris jumped out of bed, flung his bag onto of the bed, and started throwing clothes in it for Chattanooga. I'm still sitting in bed thinking of everything that I need to have ready to go for me to walk out of the door in an hour and a half -  both of the girls dressed, bags packed, lunches packed, shower for staff meeting at church, pack a lunch for myself b/c I have to leave the staff meeting early to make it to a neurologist appointment. And actually think to myself, maybe I'll have about an hour after the doctor to run one or two errands before I pick the girls up. Ha!

I hear Emalyn start waking up, Chris grabs her as he walks back from the bathroom and hands her off to me. I immediately notice her eye is red. I had seen a little red dot in her eye yesterday when we were at the pediatricians office for an ear infection, but thought surely it was allergies. Oh but it was even redder this morning. So my mind starts racing, okay if I can get her to the early morning walk in hours at the doctor, maybe they will tell me it is just allergies and she can go to school as planned. But that means we have got to be walking out the door in 45 minutes - which would be a small miracle in and of itself! I grab two cereal bars for them to eat for breakfast, dart upstairs to grab Maddie's dress out of her closet, race back downstairs to start getting my clothes on, get Emalyn dressed, grab a sweater for Maddie, and remind her we are not going to wear her brown boots with her cute smocked spring dress. She gives me a look - I'm sure trying to decide if I really mean that. And thats when I notice her eye is red too! At this point I am pretty sure it is pink eye since they both have it, but I am still hoping for allergies and off to school.

Oh but the Lord had other plans for my day. He was so faithful and knew exactly what I needed even when I didn't know it - a day at home where I couldn't get one thing on my list done! Our past few weeks have been crammed full, that it was so nice to have a day at home where we could not go anywhere. Maddie and I played 2 board games together while Emalyn slept. The girls put on their bathing suits and played outside (what? yes it is still February - but after it has rained and I know they are going to get their clothes wet - I figure may as well having your bathing suit on!).  And we finished the night off by making a cake after dinner, and they got to decorate it with sprinkles - which was the highlight of their day.

As I am working on my third load of laundry for the second day in a row (oh yes all the sheets and anywhere that they laid their heads from the past two days needs to be washed), thinking back on yesterday it was a very sweet day with my girls. Not that we did not have our moments - and actually probably one of my worst moments as a mom in quite a while. What brought us crashing to that point? Eye drops. Cold, stinging eye drops. Three times a day, two drops in both eyes. And no daddy at home to help! I think what made it worse was that whichever one of them went second had to watch the other go through it and the fear built as she was waiting. The first time went okay - not easy, but that's when I'm glad I'm a nurse because it doesn't phase me to put them in my lap hold their little hands down with leg and pry their eye open. Not what I like to do - but it gets the job done when you have to. Or at least that's what I can do with Emalyn. Maddie, however, my 80% percentile 4 year old is mighty strong for her 47 pounds! And the second round of drops was horrible. Maddie was crying, I was crying, she was yelling, I was yelling, I threatened to take anything and everything I could think of to no avail! And thats the point when I remember one of the moms from our church saying when she had to raise her voice, she knew she had let it go too far. So off to her room - Still have not gotten the eye drop situation down pat but I will say last night and this morning were better.

I laughed last night when when a friend of mine texted me "what book did you read on discipline?" Because yesterday was humbling, it has been a long time since I felt that helpless and that one of my children were completely out of control. But it is always a good reminder of why I spend so much time working with them. And the best part is daddy comes home tonight! I think I'm more excited about that than the girls are!