Freezer Paper Love

My girls are going to be part of a local relay race this weekend.  The race has four parts: running, kayaking, biking, and a two person obstacle course.  They organized a team with three friends, and I had all five girls over at the house on Friday to make team tee shirts.  My dilemma was how to create a tee shirt craft for five girls, ages 7 through 10, that would result in nearly identical, great-looking shirts.  Freezer paper stenciling was an ideal choice.  I designed a little logo with their team name “the best girls team ever” and some icons to represent the different parts of the race.  Then I printed it out and layered it over five pieces of freezer paper before cutting out the pieces with an X-acto knife.  This was definitely a grown-up task, as our logo was fairly complicated.  It took me most of an hour to cut out the design, and many times during the process I was grateful that I could cut all the stencils at once, rather than repeating the process five times over.  I then ironed the stencils onto the backs of each shirt.  The girls’ part was to paint the stencil.  After the paint was dry (I couldn’t wait so I used a hair dryer to help speed the process along) we peeled off the paper, revealing the finished design.  We personalized each shirt with the girl’s name and the icon for their part of the race on the front left chest.

In Which We Go Camping

I had a little bit of a blog break there…actually a little bit of a break from everything.  The family took a camping trip to the lake.  We did some boating, fishing, hiking, biking and genral relaxing around a campfire. 

Hubby made a friend right when we got to the campground.

We did a little fishing in the creek:

And found a little snake:

Here’s hubby “walking on water” a.k.a. standing on an old pier right under the water that he found while snorkeling.

A. and E. were practicing their casting:

My girl is getting so grown up!

Here’s E. acting goofy when she sees the camera:

And E-boy’s cheesy grin:

And one more, just ’cause he’s cute:

A Little Summer Fun

We took the boat up to the lake this week, and hubby convinced E. to be his partner in “jumping into the water from up high”.  I stayed dry and attempted to capture the event on film, as the weather wasn’t too nice that day.

Here they are on the dock:

And daddy dives in:

E. spent a long time working up her nerve to jump. 

And she does it!  (Notice daddy, AKA rescue swimmer, has put on a wetsuit…yes, the water was that cold.)

And it was fun!

WaHoo!  Way to go, E!  Here’s what she has to say about it  (she wanted to type, I helped with spelling):

DADDY WAS IN THE WATER WHEN I JUMPED OFF THE DOCK.  IT WAS FUN!

Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?

I do!  While my folks were here this weekend, my mom and I took a few hours to peruse the local antique mall.  The girls came along to look at all the goodies, and were astonished to learn how to use a rotary-dial telephone, asked what the jukebox was (“like an old-fashioned iPod”) and thought the antique rollerskates looked “dangerous”.  You can never guess which items are going to be intriguing to young children.  I almost made it out of the store without spending a dime, when a little jar of red vintage buttons caught my eye.  For $6.50, I think these were a great find!  I’m sure they’ll end up adorning a project in the near future.

One Last Hurrah!

My kids LOVE camping!  Maybe that has something to do with their daddy loving camping…  We’re back from our last camping trip of the summer, and the kids had a blast!  On Friday, we loaded up the boat, and took off for one of our favorite camping spots on the lake.  This trip was estra special because we got to bring along my father-in-law, whom the kids adore.  Here’s where we spent the week-end:

And our boat, safely in her slip at the dock:

My darling husband is quite an adrenaline junkie.  He and some buddies came up to the lake earlier in the summer and found this great rock to jump from, so here he is showing off for us.  I think this picture is of the first jump.  After that he wanted to make a second jump.  Then, I (the photographer and boat driver) talked him into doing it another time, just to make sure his fun was adequately documented.

And we spent some time fishing (by “we” I mean, “everyone but me”).  The girls, along with dad and grandpa, had a lot of fun.  These pictures remind me of the sappy “Take me Fishing” campaign….”Take me fishing, because my wedding will be sooner than you think”.  Yeah, I’m sappy like that.  Hubby and Grandpa were so proud of the girls!  Each of the girls caught and reeled in their own little fish.  Grandpa caught several little fish, and Hubby was left without a single one.

Here’s A. with her catch (it was dusk…why can’t the fish bite when there’s enough light to photograph them properly?):

And E. fishing with a little help from daddy:

Not to leave out E-Boy, here he is, throwing rocks into the water.  I am convinced that in just one weekend my children have contributed to raising the water level of the lake by all the rocks they’ve thrown into it.  I’m glad they found a way to keep occupied and out of trouble.  We only had to stop them a few times to keep them from throwing the rocks at each other.

Now we’re home, the boat is put away, the cooler emptied and the kids all bathed.  It was a fun weekend for us all, and a great farewell to Summer.