The rest of the Hatch Family Campout

We woke up and hurried and packed up our stuff so that it wouldn't get caught in the rain that looked like was coming. Then we ate a fabulous breakfast. Word, bacon on a grill on the fire tastes good. Just saying. Good job Christa.

This child eats with intensity. 

And his cousin E intensely loves him and loves to give him hugs. I've noticed that when Griz feels nervous he shoves his fingers in his mouth. (He also does it when he's tired or hungry).

After we cleaned up and packed up camp and played a few rounds of "Spoons", we headed down to the reservoir and Simon and Nate pulled out the fishing poles. C & K were eager to try out some fishing and the rest of us threw rocks or just took pictures.

It was so nice of Simon to share his poles

And it was so nice of K to let Chico try to use the pole too.

I told Chico to hold up his dinosaur for the picture. So cute. :)

Brent and Nate were skipping rocks and it was hard to say who could skip them the farthest.  We decided that if we want to have a true contest we'll have to time how long they skip rather than the amount of skips because it's hard to count the amount of skips once you get past about 8 because they're all so close together. :)

Griz got super grumpy after this point so I took off to try to get him happy at this point and we didn't get any pictures of Chico getting into the water. I think Christa got some though, so luckily I'll have those for our scrapbook. :)

Hatch Family Campout

This year Brent's sister did a lot of work getting the Hatch Family Campout all planned.  Granite Flats Campground in American Fork Canyon was decided on.  Talk about one of the most beautiful areas along the Wasatch Range! We joined with their family on Thursday night after work and set up our tent and played with the kids.  We had prepped Chico the whole way up about how FUN it will be to SHARE his toys with all the other kids.  I think our prepping worked pretty well, he shared better than normal.  The kids showed us their fun little hiking trail and told us all about the adventures they'd been having for the day before we got there.  Christa made super-yummy tinfoil dinners with Salmon, brown sugar, onions and carrots.  Sounds yummy right? Yeah, it was. Y'all should try it sometime.  Then I threw together an easy cobbler into our dutch oven and we had that and s'mores for dessert.  Grandpa Hatch and Pam came up and arrived at the same time as Steve.  The kids had just said a prayer for them to make it safely when we heard Steve's car off in the distance.  I love kid's faith.  That night we sat around the campfire and the kids told scary ghost stories. It was really adorable to watch C get all scared and for K to be so tough and not get scared at all.  Uncle Steve told a pretty scary story too, so I was impressed she wasn't even scared.
Next morning we went hiking up to Silver Lake. It's a 2.2 mile hike up.  Brent and I had fun playing with our new water purifier the whole way up.  And when we got up there we FINALLY pulled out our camera and began to document this fun family campout.

Our funny cheesy-grinned Chico. :)

Beautiful right? Well we headed back down the mountain which went really well.  We made really good time and Chico hiked for a lot of it.  He is our little mountain goat! At one point it looked like we might get poured on so Brent scooped up Chico and we started running down the trail. That was so much fun! I love doing that (down hill of course, and it didn't hurt that it was nice and cool at the moment). Well, we didn't get poured on luckily and really enjoyed the hike. Here are more pictures from the hike down the mountain.

The wildflowers on this particular hike were so beautiful! There were SO many of them too.  It was fun to see such beautiful colors scattered along the sides of the trail.

I had promised to think of fun ideas to do with the kids on the campout so I looked online and found this cute treasure hunt idea.  I thought the oldest girls would love to plan the treasure hunt with me and the rest of the kids could follow the treasure map around the camp until it led them to the hidden treasure.  C & K helped me plan out the route they'd take and they also had the cute idea of painting symbols on trees and rocks along the way. Then C drew the corresponding symbols on the map with landmarks and dotted lines so that the kids could follow it and find their treasure! When it came time to do the treasure hunt I left it all up to C & K. They are born leaders and did a great job getting everyone to get excited and organized.

B was the leader on the treasure hunt, I felt bad not including him on the planning but I figured the younger kids would need his help with the treasure map.  I think he liked leading out, I don't know for sure, I was busy dealing with a grumpy child of mine.

The kids had fun finding the different symbols painted along the way (btw, it was very washable paint for any of you worried that we were defacing nature).

When we got to the X part of the map the boys started searching all over and then N started digging in the dirt because he thought the treasure was buried. Isn't that adorable!?

We gave them some hints and N ultimately found the hidden bag of treasure! The girls took charge again and Brent got pictures of it and it's cute to see them telling the boys what to do and where to stand to claim their treasure. They are really great leaders in their family. :)

Here is the map that C created.

After the treasure hunt was over Brent and I cooked our chicken that had been marinading for a day or so. I should post that recipe. I will soon, its' so yummy!

I don't think this dinosaur left Chico's hand from the time of the treasure hunt until we lost it at church a couple days later (we found it this week though, phew!). He LOVED it and it really helped cheer up his grumpiness. N and Chico played really well together, I'm glad Chico has a cousin his same age!

I really like this pictures of Brent. How can one look so dang good while camping!?

Chico's Big Wheel was a big hit with the kids, especially L. He's still small enough to fit in it somewhat comfortably but old enough to be coordinated enough to drive it well!

N is demonstrating the stretchy qualities of his treasure hunt prize.

I brought up some paints and all the kids had fun painting rocks, paper, creating hieroglyphs, and their faces at various times during the camp.

Pictures from the last day of the campout coming tomorrow. Photobucket is being stupid and i'm having a hard time getting pictures uploaded.

while I'm cooking...

This is often what one would see if they were at my house while I was cooking.  Grizzly is holding onto my legs begging me to hold him.  (Though sometimes he's content to be eating in his high chair, or playing with the tupperware in the drawer.)

And if Chico is in a good mood while I'm cooking he'll be playing with his toys.  The other day I heard him holler from the other room, "Mom! Guess what I did!?  Come see!!!"  So I went and looked and he was so proud of himself for figuring out that he could hook his lego trailer pieces onto Mater.  It was so cute to see how proud of himself he was that I took a picture of him.  He often calls his lego creations his, "new invention".

I feel like i spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It's increasing lately.  I actually really enjoy cooking most of the time. I think of ways to improve recipes on my own. I'm getting pretty good at starting my meals earlier in the day so that it's not a crazy rush to get it done before Brent gets home. I'm also getting better at getting the kitchen clean every night before I go to bed. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to wake up to a clean dishwasher!  It makes the whole day just go better. Seriously.   

I want to be better about making homemade bread every day or so.  I want to be better at not letting vegetables rot in the crisper. And lastly I want to be better about planning ahead on weekends so that we don't end up going out to eat because I didn't make time to cook.  Weekends really throw off my groove with the hole mother thing. I've got Brent there to help me and so I get into this mode where I don't do as much I think.  Do any of you have suggestions in regards to meals and cooking and keeping the kitchen clean that have helped you in your families?

Super Baby

This is an old hand-me-down Super Man outfit that I put on Grizwald the other day for bed. I never got around to changing him out of it the next morning. He was just so dang adorable. If only we had a cape to attach to it. :)

I couldn't decide between these two pictures. I like the one above because he's sticking out his tongue and I like the one below because it shows his teeth. 

We have a popcorn lover on our hands.  We were eating popcorn one night and we gave him a tiny little bowl to eat his in. He threw it aside and went to  the big bowl.  He likes to get a huge handful and just stuff it in his face.  Has he learned by example? I'm not going to say.

And a cute one of Chico for good measure. :)

Children

"Children are not lumps of clay that a mother can mold and shape into whatever she thinks would be best. They are seedlings... already pears, pines, or petunias. As gardeners, we can add only sunshine, water, fertilizer, time, and love in order to make that growing plant the most beautiful specimen of what it was intended to be." -Linda Eyre

flowers courtesy of my garden. :) I don't want to give myself too much credit as a gardner though, the zinnias (pink ones) are the only ones I grew from seed. The others were purchased and planted.