Fun with Friends!

The Novak Family came from DC to visit us this weekend and we had a great time! They arrived Friday evening around bedtime so the kids played for a few minutes and then we hearded them all off to bed.

The Crew! Paul, JP, Me, Ellie, Caroline, Ruthie, Elizabeth, Emmie, Abby, Ben

Saturday we got up and headed roller skating! The skating rink has skating and they also have a really fun indoor playground. JP and Ruthie started out on the playground and Emmie wanted to skate. And shockingly Ellie wanted to skate too! Ellie was so brave. She skated once a year or two ago and was not a fan and hasn't wanted to try again. Well Saturday she decided that she was going to skate and she did a GREAT job and had so much fun! Ruthie ended up wanting to skate. She started with regular skates but we ended up switching her to the little kid skates and she LOVED it! When we were at skate night for school a few weeks ago JP had said he wanted to skate but I felt like it was too crowded to have him out there so I didn't let him. Well he decided after playing on the playground some on Saturday that he wanted to try skating. He had the little kid skates and did amazing! He had the BEST time too...big grin on his face the whole time he was skating. By about 45 minutes into the skating Elizabeth started to really get the hang of it and I think she had fun and once we got the smaller kid skates for Caroline she had a great time skating with Ruthie (they were pretty inseparable the whole visit). We spent about 2 hours at the skating rink (and the adults skated too!) and everyone had lots of fun!

My brave girl...I was SO proud of her!

Best friends!

Elizabeth and  Emmie

Caroline

Caroline, Ruthie, and JP on the playground!

Paul roller skating!

Still have my skills from 25 years ago!

These girls had a blast!

Pretty much cuteness overload!

We headed home and had lunch and then the kids spent the entire afternoon playing outside. We had lovely weather and they took full advantage of it!
Late afternoon another college friend, Dana, and her husband and kids came over to play and have dinner. Dana has 2 boys so JP was thrilled to have other little boys to play with! We had pizza for dinner and then set up the firepit and had s'mores. The kids had a blast playing together.
After s'mores Dana and her crew headed home and we got the rest of the kids showered and in the bed. They were WORN OUT. I think Ruthie was asleep before I even left the room!

All the kids!

Sunday morning we headed to church and Abby, Ben and the girls headed to Atlanta for the next stop of their trip. We had so much fun with them!

Halloween Fun!

We have been busy having lots of Halloween fun! This year we had a Kitty Cat (Emmie...she was supposed to be Harley Quinn but our order got lost and didn't make it in time.), Unicorn (Ellie..my favorite costume...we used one of Emmie's old dance recital costumes and added a unicorn headband and tail), Elsa (Ruthie), and Spiderman (JP...who at any given moment was telling people he was batman...guess he temporarily got bored with Spiderman).

A few weeks ago we went to the Methodist church near our house to pick out pumpkins. The kids LOVE doing this every year!

JP tried to rake up all their hay lol!

A few days later we decorated said pumpkins. Ellie opted to do a few melting crayon pumpkin and everyone else painted. Ellie's pumpkin turned out really neat but it took FOREVER to melt the crayons.

The Saturday before Halloween we made a quick trip to Summerville to attend a wedding. Earlier in the day Paul's parents took us to see the Scarecrows on the Square. To me it was very similar to homecoming floats but with local businesses and schools. It was really neat and there were lots of really creative ideas!

The Edwards boys...Paul, JP, and Blake

PaPa and GiGi with their little JP Toto

This was my favorite! I'm not sure if you can see it but there is a Mousie!

On the 30th we went to Trick or Treat with the Greeks at USC. The sororities and fraternities have trick or treating and games outside at the Greek Village. It's a fun, free event that we attended for the first time last year and my kids were SO excited about going back this year! We picked up Emma when we got there and met Evelyn and Ainsley down there. We also met up with the Love's at the last minute and trick or treated with them for a bit. (Their little boy Brian Thomas is one of JP's best buddies.)

Brian Thomas, JP, Emma, Emmie, Ellie, Evelyn, Ruthie, Ainsley, Peyton (not pictured: Ella who came later and Lily Paige who was in the stroller)

We had to get a picture of the unicorn and cat tails.

We ran into one of Ruthie's preschool friends, Sloane. Cinderella and Elsa were excited to see each other!

Love these friends so much!

Halloween morning Ruthie had her Halloween party at school. She was VERY concerned about there not being food/cupcakes at the party that she could eat so I told her I would come in and bring her a cupcake to eat in case she couldn't have the one at the party. JP and I loved getting to go hang out in her classroom and JP got to trick or treat with her!

Spiderman (and a few other siblings) was sure he was part of the class!

Halloween night Emma and her mom came over and brought pizza (including a super fabulous pumpkin pizza!) and we ate and then trick or treated in our neighborhood. Paul had to work so he didn't make it home...which means I now have 3 bags of candy sitting in my house that were supposed to be handed out to trick or treaters!

We had SO much fun trick or treating and it was extra fun because JP was really into Halloween this year. 

Funny moment of the night: One of our neighbors had left out a bowl of candy. It was all gone when JP got up there so he just picked up the bowl and walked on. It took me a minute to stop laughing so I could tell him to put the bowl back! I'm still laughing about it today!

JP also latched on to a Hershey's bar about halfway through the neighborhood and refused to put it down. He carried that chocolate bar (still the package fortunately) the rest of the time in his hot sweaty little hand. It was a mushy mess when we got home and fortunately he decided not to eat it last night so we didn't have a massive chocolate mess!

The kids got quite the haul of candy and had a lot of fun!

Camping

This past weekend we went camping at Sesqui Park with Gran and Grandaddy. (To be clear, Gran went back to our house to sleep...she was sure that Franklin needed her!)
I went to the park in the morning and reserved a spot for us and I'm glad I went when I did because I got there around 10:30 and they only had 5 spots left!
JP cried all the way home because he wanted to stay and camp! He couldn't understand that we were going back later. He had been so excited and told EVERYONE  at preschool  that he was going camping. This was the first year he got to spend the night.
Gran and Grandaddy got to our house early afternoon so we headed over to the campsite so we could start setting up. I left Ruthie and JP with them and went to pick up the big girls from school...camping close to home definitely has its advantages!

The kiddos helped collect wood for the fire and then we headed over to the playground.  They played and then we "hiked" (walked a short ways on the trail), checked out the waterfall, and the kiddos climbed some trees. Then we headed back to get dinner ready. Paul didn't get there in time to cook dinner so I was the chef. We had hamburgers and hot dogs.

becoming one with nature

We had a Halloween themed dinner..spider web tablecloth, pumpkin plates, and ghost marshmallows.

Once it started to get dark we did s'mores. The kids had been looking forward to the s'mores all day!
The kids were so excited about sleeping in their sleeping bags in the tents. We had 2 tents...my dad and Ellie slept in one and Paul and I slept in the other one with the other kids. Ellie definitely lucked out...she was in the tent that got sleep!

In the morning my mom came back over and Paul cooked us a delicious breakfast! After breakfast we packed up and headed back to the park area where we rented pedal boats for the lake. We did this last year and it was one of the things  they were most looking forward to. It worked out really well...Ruthie gets her peanut dose in the morning with breakfast and then has to rest for 2 hours. So the boats, where she just had to sit and enjoy the ride, were the perfect activity! We had a great time boating around the lake! Grandaddy did manage to give Ellie a small heart attack when he got the boat they were on stuck in the mud...I had flashbacks to salt marsh canoeing with my dad at Kiawah and got a good chuckle out of the whole thing!

JP was the captain of our "pirate ship"! 

Ruthie might have been judging her drivers.

After we finished boating Ruthie's 2 hour rest period was over so we let the kids play on the playground for a bit. Then we headed out to Chick-fil-A and since Gran and Grandaddy were there the kids got ice cream which they love!

While we were leaving the playground Ruthie was climbing over the sidewalk railing and she was sitting at the top of the railing and fell off onto the sidewalk (giving me a minor heart attack). She landed on her arm but it didn't seem to be broken. She played on the playground at Chick-fil-A but after her nap kept complaining about her arm hurting. I took her to the walk in ortho clinic near our house (best thing ever!) and we were in and out in 30 minutes with xrays and a splint and a diagnosis of a sprained wrist. After a few days, her wrist is now all better!

I think everyone had a great time camping (although hotel camping is still my choice!) and JP was thrilled to finally get to be one of the big kids!