Cute Kids & a Campout!

I guess the title says it all. I may be biased, but I think these two are pretty cute :). We are doing well over here at the Larson household. I am fully enjoying being home all the time and not working right now (even if I was only working Friday nights before---it's still better not to be doing any shifts!) Sawyer continues to love and coddle his sister...and occasionally bop her on the head. And Violet is doing awesome. She turned 6 wks old on Monday and she's still such a great baby!

He's such a goof...

And again...total goof

I'm mad at myself for cutting her hands out of this picture...oh well. Still looks pretty stinkin cute! :)

So now for the next part of the post, the long part---the Father & Sons Campout. Nathan has talked about taking Sawyer on a Father/Sons since the day Sawyer was born. He wanted to take him last year but I think I was in Virginia with Sawyer so he missed out on that one (darn ;)). Well this year he was determined to take him. At first I was super skeptical. I could just see Sawyer being the next kid on the news who got lost in the wilderness while camping. I was honestly worried Nathan would lose him (more like Sawyer would escape him). But the closer we got to the weekend, the more those fears were replaced with extreme excitement for an entire day of peace and quiet and ME time (well me and Violet time---same thing)! I practically kicked the boys out the front door by the time they left 2 hrs after they had originally planned. I think my exact words as they left were "Take your time in the morning...don't hurry back :)". Ok so I think what I really said was, "If anything happens to Sawyer, don't come back". Haha...and that was that. I might have slipped an 'I love you guys' in there somewhere too. Once they were gone, I couldn't decide if I wanted to sleep, clean, or shop. Since I had to go out and go Visiting Teaching and was already in the car...I opted for the shopping choice. Violet and I went and wandered around Target for an hour and bought some girly clothes...it was wonderful. Then I went and picked up some lettuce wraps from Pei Wei for a little girls night we had planned. My two friends, Jen and Jen came over (since their boys were on the campout too) and we spent the evening talking, watching a movie, and stuffing our faces with yummy food. Perfection. Violet and I stayed in bed till about 9 am (heaven!). And the boys returned around 1030...not quite 24 hrs but close! It was just nice not to have to clean up after anyone for that long!

Now for the boys' story:

Nate & Sawyer drove to the campsite with Isac Simpson and his 11 month old son, Tyler. Their friend Bryce squished himself in between the two carseats in the back! Seriously. I know. I'm surprised he got himself back out of the car! So as far as I know the evening went really well. Sawyer had a blast running around in the open and playing in the car (almost more than running around). They flew a kite, had a fire, and played with Tomahawks (well I hope Sawyer didn't play with the tomahawks). Another of our friends, Nate Lundstrom, arrived later on in the evening with his 18 month old son, Isaac. They all slept in our 10-man tent. And by slept, I mean the opposite. Well, Sawyer slept awesome, Nathan slept OK, and the rest of the guys were out huddled with their children around a fire at 3 am. That was after Isac had been wrestling with Tyler to go back to sleep for the umpteenth time and finally little Isaac had enough of it and wouldn't go to sleep either. I think Nate L. took off for home at about 5:30 am, after frantically stuffing his gear (including an inflated air mattress) back into his trunk while his son screamed bloody murder in the car seat. So what did the boys learn? Maybe Father & Sons should wait until at least 2 years old. Also--it sucks to go camping in Arizona when it's a fluke 33 degrees at night!! I think the babies were just cold...can you blame them?

All in all it was a great experience for Nathan and Sawyer. It gave me hope for the day that I put Violet into Sawyer's room...sounds like he's a deeper sleeper than I thought!

Nate, Isac, and their friend Bryce who took sitting in the back with 2 kids like a champ!

I'm so glad that Nathan and Isac have been able to continue their friendship down here in Arizona...and now they've both got sons of their own...so great!

Some of the boys with the Tomahawks Nathan made

It's a blurry picture but I thought Sawyer looked like such a big kid out there!