Onto the side

Here is a side view of the house! Art has gotten pretty far with the siding! Woo hoo!

See that board that he has to stand on? Eeeks. I tried to stand on it when it was on the front of the house, and I was too scared. Now he stands on it and it is higher. I don't envy him!

In other news: the boys spent the night last night across the street, outside in a tent. How fun! There were 3 little boys. I can only guess how much sleep they actually got. But it was a great night to do it! Nice and warm.

This is how far Art had gotten on the house by Saturday. I love the way the dark gray looks!

It was so hot on Saturday-- in the 90s. Too hot for Art to work on the house, so he offered to bring us all to our *secret place* (that's what Colby calls it!).... it's a stream near the house where our friend Helen lives.

Here is Colby splashing his feet in the water. It was actually really cold, really clean water. It looks brown but that's because there are tons on rocks underneath. It's actually pretty shallow where Colby was.

Samantha and Daddy.

Colby, Uncle John, and Will showing their "muscles". I don't really know what Colby is doing....?

We brought Shea along for the ride and she had a ball! She loved playing in the water and swimming. We would throw her toy and then she'd go and fetch it, over and over.
She slept great that night!
We all had fun. It was nice that Uncle John met us there (Art's best friend). The kids really like hanging out with him. In fact, he was helping Will and Colby build a dam.
Art and John both jumped off the bridge, much to the delight of the kids!
It was a wonderful way to spend a HOT Saturday.

Blog Builder Challenge #11

I love the smell of _______ because it reminds me of ___________.
I love the smell of *rubbing alcohol* because it reminds me of *when my babies were born*.
I really do love that smell. You know when you have your baby and they give you those little wipes to put on their umbilical cord until it dries up? Well, I LOVE those little wipes. I could smell them all day long. It makes me remember when Samantha was so little... just 5 pounds... laying in the NICU... healthy but small. And the boys... big little babies... but yet so seemingly tiny... so needy... my angels.
Man, I would love to have that time back again! It is gone so quickly.
But that smell, that alcohol, ALWAYS makes me remember.

We're Home! Part 2

Here some more pictures! This one was taken at the top of Bald Mountain. It is me, with my father-in-law, and the children.
This is Will. Doesn't he look so cute? I was so nervous to see him sitting on the ledge like that. It looked like a drop off!
Here is Will standing by the view. The view was breath taking!! Doesn't it look so pretty?
And Samantha by the view!!!
Bald Mountain was so fun!! The weather was cooler, about mid-sixties... but we were sure sweating on this trail! All the climbing and walking! And of course, we never thought to bring snacks or drinks. Bad mommy!! Next time we hike a mountain, I'll bring a drink!!

What a fun time we had in Old Forge, NY! We are already planning on going back next year. :)

We're Home!

We are back from our mini-vacation!! We had such a great time!! The weather was really cold... to our surpise. But we made the best of it! On Sunday night we took a walk around town and played miniature golf. The picture above is Samantha, taken in front of some stairs. The store is the store that makes those shirts that say "Life is good".
Here is a cute picture! Yes, I told them to hold hands, but I just love the way they look!
Sitting on the big rock. Colby loved the rocks!
Not a great picture, but here is our family sitting on the swing on the front porch of the cabin. This was taken on Tuesday morning.
On the trail, hiking Bald Mountain. The kids found this tree laying across the trail and wanted to sit on it!

Well, we got to our campground on Sunday afternoon. We rented a cabin, and it was HEATED!! We were so happy because it was cold! It was a small cabin, but enough room for the 6 of us and that's all we needed. We went and played miniature golf at this run-down place... but the kids had fun! There was a Wizard of Oz theme at the end!! So we got to play on the yellow brick road.

That night we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant. They served us all cream of chicken and brocolli soup and the kids LOVED it! Especially Will, I think he filled up on it. Who would have known?

And of course we had a fire that night and made some S'mores...although Sam went right to bed and fell right asleep so she missed it.

On Monday we went to the Enchanted Forest, Water Safari. Yes, it was barely 60 degrees. But we were troopers! There were quite a few dry rides so we started with them. Sam ended up loving the ferris wheel where you sit in a cage and flip yourself upside-down. And the boys loved the round-up... where you stand and it spins so fast you stick to the wall. None of us adults went on the dry rides!!

We did do some water rides....brr!! Some of the water was warm, but some was downright freezing!! Samantha and Will especially loved the slides, they did them over and over! (Of course, there were no lines!) Colby found a little kid area and he stayed there for a while... he doesn't like the big slides but he was very happy with the small ones! At one point he was shivering and shaking and turning blue and still kept going....

I was the first to get dressed. I was way too cold!! Eventually we all did, and went on the dry rides again. And then near the end of the day, the kids put on their cold, wet suits and did water rides for another hour! Crazy kids!

Of course, I didn't bring my camera there because I thought we'd be on water rides all day. But I did bring my book!!

That night we went to eat at a restaurant where the spaghetti sauce tasted like cigarette ashes. Eww eww eww!!!!

On Tuesday, after checking out of the campsite and having a late breakfast... we went and hiked Bald Mountain! Colby heard about Bald Mountain in a children's book called "The Adirondack Kids" and so he begged me to find it. And I did! And we hiked it! It wasn't too long, about an hour up. What a walk! I took awesome pics... I will post some more in my next post. We all got a work out on Bald Mountain!

He started siding!

Look!!! See the 3 new windows? And along the bottom there, see the new siding?? It is this color, dark gray. Art started putting it on last night. He is pretty sure he will have that whole section finished by tonight. Oh I can't wait! Then we'll really be able to see what it will look like. All I know is, anything would be better than the dirty white siding!! :)

On another note... tonight is High School Musical 2 premier! Because Samantha is in the play, they are invited to a local mall for a party! They will sing too! I'm excited! And so is she! I can't wait to take cool pictures!

Another layout!

Here is another layout I did for the Scrap n Circle challenges. We are onto week 4! I am so nervous... check out the gallery, www.scrapncircle.com there are some very talented scrappers there!!! Wow!

I love how this layout turned out... my boys are so darn cute!