enjoy my insomnia...and pictures from our trip to Illinois

About a week and a half ago, we packed up the van and headed back to Illinois. It was the first of two road trips we were planning on doing within 2 weeks, and this first one included dropping off Marcus at church camp (his first experience with an overnight camp).  I'm up at a horribly early time-unable to sleep thanks to my night shift schedule, so you are blessed with just about every. single. picture. I took.  Have fun!

Our plan was for a lunch stop at the first rest area in Illinois.  Plans foiled!  That rest area was closed.  No worries.  We found ourselves a park in Oakwood.  It was a cute little park, with a nice pavilion and play area.  Kella seemed to enjoy herself.

The fenced in play area had some cool toys the kids hadn't played with before-like these bouncing horses. 

Someone stood alone, all by herself.   (and hasn't since then)

This tree had some awesome branches.

Liam tackled the slide.

Old school merry-go-round.  Marcus got there first.  He said, "I can't make it work."  I said, "You have to run and then jump on."  Marcus stood back, ran towards the merry-go-round and then jumped on.  My bad.  "Marcus, I mean you have to push the merry-go-round and then jump on."  It worked better after that.  The boys got Andy to push them and had fun going fast.  Liam did not follow the "hold on tight" directions and ended up shooting off the merry-go-round into the dirt.  May have gotten a slight bloody nose from that, but, got right back on for another ride.  I have to include, just for memory's sake, that bathroom breaks poised a slight problem here.  What park locks their bathroom doors?  Thank goodness that the only kids that had to go were boys.  Let's just say that some "artwork" was created on the side of the park building that day.

Right.  Like 5 kids would sit still for a cute photo.

This is what the car looks like when we go anywhere.

Got to camp safely, and Marcus unloaded his stuff.

a boy and his bunk

Two Shaffer on Shaffer games of tetherball

and Liam put every rock he could find in his pocket

On to Grammy Linda's and Grandpa Jerry's for the next few days.  They have some cool blocks to build with.  Cale created this. 

with the architect.  It was actually his second design of the evening.  I missed getting his picture with the first one, so he made this one for me.  Sweet!

End day one.

Snapshot of Marcus's time at camp

We sent Marcus to church camp last week. It was his first time going to an overnight camp, and of course, his parents send him to one that is 4 hours from home at which the only people he knows are his 2 cousins. I think he had fun. We get to see him, finally, later today. He did get picked up by his Grammy Linda one night early-sounds like he was ready to go. And, it sounds like he had some anxiety on Saturday night. I hope he had fun. At least from these pictures, it looks like he did. (posting from my phone, so I can't caption them. He is wearing blue shorts in a few photos and green ones in the others. You can play "where's Marcus") *several days later, I am logged in to caption some of these photos so you might find Marcus more easily :-)

all the way on your left-looks like football, maybe capture the flag?

2nd from right, some kind of circle up around the flagpole

all the way to the left, some sport time, again

volleyball? wearing green shots

in fron of the basket, wearing blue shorts

snack time!

While the older boys were away...

...the younger kids got to go get ice cream.
I love our town!
It's not the first time I've said that. It's got that small town feel, but with amenities. We rode our bikes to the DQ yesterday. Ewan rode his bike and Liam and Kella got pulled in the bike trailer. The weather was great. We biked past the park and then the library where there was a concert at the pavilion. Nice, small towny, family stuff. Love it.

Making soap

I was inspired by my sister to make my own laundry soap. While I was at it, I thought I'd try my hand at making some hand soap, too. I'm posting this from my phone, so I can't describe each picture, but it gives you the idea of what we did.

We did the hand soap first. I found this recipe online by googling "how to make your own hand soap". It was so easy to do-just three ingredients and a few steps.
Ingredients: 8 oz bar of soap, 2 tablespoons of gylcerin and a gallon of distillers water.
Steps: grate the soap with a cheese grater; add grated soap to water; heat on stove to dissolve soap in water; add glycerin; stir; the mixture will be clear. Then you have to take the mixture off the stove and let cool; I had to let mine cool for almost 24 hours; then it's ready to use! I have to say it works pretty well. (this recipe is from the Farmer's Nest blog)

We also did laundry soap, a recipe from my sister. So easy. 1 4lb box borax, 1 4 lb box baking soda, 1 box arm and hammer washing soda, 3 bars fels naphtha soap. The only thing we had to do was grate the soap. Then, I mixed the ingredients together. It makes enough to fill a small garbage can and it smells really good. You just use 1 to 2 tablespoons per wash.

Will it save us money? Maybe. The hand soap cost about $10 and made a gallon. But, now we have the glycerin for the next batch. The clothes soap cost about $11 and should last several months. It was just fun to do and even the boys enjoyed helping. (they thought grating the soap was pretty fun) And, the soaps do work-and they smell great!

Kella's 1 year check-up

Kella had here 1 yr checkup last Wednesday.  She did great and survived getting 3 shots and her hemeglobin lervel checked.  She weighed in at 22 pounds 6 ounces (75th%) and 31 inches tall (97th %).  Ewan and Liam came along and provided information about Kella to the doctor.  Kella still has that clogged tear duct in her left eye, so she got referred to a pediatric opthalmalogist which we will see in a few weeks.  Otherwise, perfect health!

mmm pretzels!

last day of school pic

Marcus and Cale on their last day of school.  They were excited to be done for the year.  I think they have big plans for lots of play time and DS time.

Liam was ready to go, too.  Backpack on, monkey ready, pokemon bag, too.

Both the boys really enjoyed school this year.  Cale did exceptionally well in his class and was one of the top achievers and Marcus passed his state standardized test with higher than average scores!  Needless to say, they both got promoted to the next grade (2nd and 4th). 

Summer bucket list 2012

Well, the last day of school was yesterday. We have a fairly busy summer ahead of us. So, here is our bucket list of things we are going to do/would like to do this summer. Some of these are gimmies because we have already made the plans, but here we go...
1. Go to St. Louis and see the arch
2. Family trip to Michigan already planned
3. The annual cousins' reunion north of chicago
4. Explore the Indiana Dunes state park
5. Church camp and boy scout camp for Marcus
6. Camping with dad for the three older boys
7. Library reading program
8. Make it to the YMCA splash park once a week
9. Vacation bible school
10. Attempt again to teach Marcus and maybe Cale some piano
11. Find a summer day camp for Cale since he can't go to the boy scout day camp
12. Meet new cousin baby Everett, who was born in march
13. Continue with karate
14. Finish learning all 26 alphabet bible verses
15. Hang out, relax, and not do anything
Of course, there is work to be sprinkled in too. Andy does get a good bit of time off in the summer. We will also have a few doctor appointments. And, for our very first day of summer vacation, we spent the morning at the dentist while Marcus and Ewan got cavities filled (yippie).
So, wish us luck and check back to see how much we check off our list!