Whirlwind weekends are best showcased in pictures, right? Here come a LOT of them!!! Our busy-ness actually started a little over a week ago and I'll include those pics, as well!
Brady turned 12 last week!!! It blows my mind that my second born is already 12! The timing of his birthday didn't allow for a big party, but he had a new friend stay the night and they had a great time being boys and playing video games and eating treats. He got a few Halo MegaBlocks sets he'd been hoping for and was happy as could be.
And Ben turned 16 this week! Talk about making me feel old. My man-child is officially old enough to drive... and date... and ACK!!!! I'M OLD!!!!!!!!! His birthday was during the school week so no party or anything, but I did take him some Panda Express for lunch at school, and then he picked sushi dinner with just Willy and I as his birthday meal. When we came home we opened gifts and he was surprised to receive an electric guitar for his birthday. He's been learning guitar at school and loving it, and had mentioned several times how much he'd love an electric. Thank goodness for Craigslist and decent-condition used items!!
Thursday night has become football night in our family! Ben is playing on the JV football team at his high school. With no real football experience behind him and with us arriving too late for Ben to participate in spring camp or summer practice, we wondered if they'd even let him join the team. He had to pay his dues and get 9 practices under his belt before they'd let him play in a game so he missed the first two games of the season but has been playing since. Every week he gets a little more play time, and this week was his best week yet! Perfect timing, too, because Nana and Papa were coming to town and came a couple days early just to see him play! In the last few games Ben has gotten to play mostly just in the 4th quarter when his team is decimating the opponent. This week though? He was playing in the 2nd quarter and got to play both offense and defense! He's getting more confident, getting really strong and he's getting playtime because of it! It's been great fun to watch him grow. His team annihilated the opponents this week, 42-7.
We LOVE this picture that Papa snapped! Look at Ben (#83) charging through the line toward the quarterback!
Big win!
Our footballer! #83
Friday, Molly woke up with an announcement of the puking variety... Yay. Sick girl. Definitely changed our plans for the day. We ended up spending most of the day hanging out at home. Fortunately, Nana had brought plenty of activities for the kids as she always does, so they had plenty of fun! They made eyeball drinking glasses, tie-died Halloween t-shirts and ate lots (and lots!) of sweet treats. In the afternoon the grown-ups snuck away and caught a screening of Gravity on IMAX in 3D. It was so intense!! I'm not usually a fan of the 3D thing, but for this one it really worked. Such a well-done movie!
Saturday morning we crossed our fingers for decent weather and headed to the Oregon Coast. When we got to Cannon Beach it was overcast (typical) and drizzled a bit. But after a little while the clouds cleared and we had gorgeous blue sky, fluffy white clouds and sunshine! Still on the chilly side, but we were able to get our feet in the Pacific again and that felt wonderful. We explored the tide pools around Haystack Rock, dug in the sand, flew kites and jumped "rope" with a giant seaweed tentacle and just had a gorgeous, happy family day! We've been wanting to get out to the coast as a family but hadn't made it out there yet. Having Nana and Papa here gave us just the right excuse to take the day trip and show the kids the beauty of the Oregon Coast. It was a PERFECT day for it!! And thankfully Papa and Nana took plenty of pictures for us. We downsized to just one camera recently and this was the first time I really REALLY ached to have a camera at my disposal the whole day. I tend to take people pictures while Willy takes shots of the landscape and environment. Having only the one camera meant one of us was missing something at any given time, and that was hard! I think we may need to reconsider this whole one-camera gig. In any case, thank goodness for some candid shots that Nana and Papa took and shared with us!! Here are some fun pics from our fun excursion!
Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach
Nana and Papa and the kiddos
Spotting starfish hanging out on the rocks.
Giant colorful starfish. So cool!
Tide pool exploring.
Wandering around the tide pools
Ben was unafraid to get a little wet.
Mollzadoodle
Brady Boy
Toby-wan Kenobi (Or Toby for short... as written in the sand :) )
It's all about writing her name these days. Happy Kindergartner.
Let's go fly a kite
Nana found a giant seaweed tentacle and we had great fun jumping "rope" with it!
Girl's got hops!
Even Willy got in on the jumping action.
Molly's first time flying a kite :)
Even I flew the fancy kite for a while. Two handles is fun, but tricky!
Toby needed a little help from Daddy.
Wrestle!
Willy's work... gorgeous Oregon Coast.
More of Willy's photography
Nana and Papa headed back to Portland and we headed farther up the coast to Fort Stevens to see the wreckage of the Peter Iredale at sunset. Willy took some beautiful shots! Here are a few of my favorites.
Little more family fun time. Ben Ben and I :)
The sand at this beach was almost black and the kids managed to make complete messes of themselves :)
Molly even had sand in her ears... LOL
Ninja Brady
Girl taking flight
Toby's sweet form
Ben didn't want to get dirty but couldn't resist the call of the sand hill
After a good night's sleep, we excitedly woke up Sunday and got ready for church. It was a BIG Sunday for our family! Our ward boundaries have recently changed, which necessitated a lot of change in leadership and assignments. Willy has been called to be the 2nd counselor in the Young Men's presidency. I've been called to serve as the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society presidency. But the coolest thing about the day was watching my two oldest sons advance in the priesthood. Ben is now a priest, and Brady is now a deacon! Ben was ordained first which then allowed him to stand in the priesthood circle when Brady was ordained. That was a pretty amazing thing to see! Willy gave the blessings and we were so grateful to have Papa stand in both circles and help with the boys' ordinations. Sometimes living far away from family is hard when we have experiences like these without family member support, so it was especially neat to have Nana and Papa there to support the boys on their special day.
After church we got some quick family photos. (I am in fall colors heaven here in Oregon!!!!)
Much more typical Campbell family shot.
So happy to have Nana and Papa here for the weekend
The men of the day
The most memorable moment of the day was definitely when, right after Ben's blessing, he stood up to shake hands with the men in the circle and hug Willy. I sometimes think Ben doesn't understand his own size and strength. He lifted his arms to hug Willy and managed to just about clean Papa's clock. He basically punched Lloyd by his left eye on his temple! Ben sent Papa's eyeglasses flying and Papa almost buckled. He told us afterwards that he literally blacked out for a quick moment and we definitely all witnessed it as he started to topple but then came to and shook it off. He saw stars, the poor guy! (Thank goodness Papa didn't have a concussion or something though! I wonder if he has a black eye or a bruise? D'oh.) This is Papa "getting back" at Ben. He was a good sport about it all, but we'll never let Ben live it down, that's for sure!
A wonderful whirlwind weekend!! Happy, happy times!!
After what was officially the longest summer break ever my kids are back in school. School in Louisiana ended on May 22nd. School in Oregon began September 4th. Yup. Three full months (plus one week and 6 days, but who's counting?) of summer break. Of course I didn't have to fill that time with educational outings or creative play or even really have to deal with "I'm boooored" (On auto repeat. Spoken in Whinese) ... much. Our summer break was jam packed with chaos which I'm still attempting to blog about. It involved getting a job offer, packing a house, taking a quick trip to Florida, then driving across the country, spending a month in Utah, moving to Oregon and unpacking. Whew. It was action packed and exhausting. And it felt like it lasted f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
But I've earned my rest!
Last week I saw ALL FOUR of my kids out the door to school! Molly has started her educational career as a brand new kindergartner! She only goes for PM kindergarten, but for the first time in almost 16 years, I have an honest to goodness 2 1/2 hrs every weekday to schedule however I see fit... sans children. If I'm being honest I feel a little lost right now, and we're still getting into the swing of the overall schedule, but I'm giddy thinking about the possibilities. A girl can play a whole lot of Candy Crush get a whole lot done in 2 1/2 hours every day!
Here are the kiddos and their signs on the first day of school. It may seem out of order but this is the order in which the kids leave for the day. Let me just tell you, I feel like my entire morning revolves around getting people out the door and into the world...one at a time. We start with Ben who leaves the house at 6:55 a.m. to catch the bus and head off to high school.
His actual feelings about heading off to school...
His fine-mom-I'll-pose-with-your-stupid-sign pose...
Next out the door is Toby at 7:40. He also catches a bus and he heads off to the elementary school as a big bad third grader this year.
Genuinely excited about school! This kid makes me grin.
Had to pose a second time because I wanted to show the cute, cute shirt he chose to wear for his first day of school. It's a Sew Sara creation, and he's gotten what he calls a "number shirt" every year for his birthday since he turned 3 and knew what numbers were. My dear friend Sara makes such fun creations and has helped me outfit my birthday boy every year. You can find her goodies for sale in her Etsy store HERE or see her other amazing creations on her blog HERE.
Next up and out... Brady! Heading to MIDDLE SCHOOL this year!! 6th grade in middle school caught us all a little off guard since the last 2 places we've lived had 6th grade in elementary. I felt a bit like I was throwing my poor boy to the wolves, but he was excited. The most intimidating experience of middle school so far was learning how to operate his locker. He mastered that (after about 30 tries on back-to-school night) so we're hopeful that's the biggest obstacle he has to conquer. Brady heads out the door at 8:30 and rides his bike to school.
We're blessed to live adjacent to this amazing trail and the trail happens to lead right to his school about a mile away. He "practiced" the ride about a dozen times the week leading up to school starting hehehe.
So yeah, if you were doing the clock math... it takes 2 full hours to get the three boys out the door in the morning. Wake Ben at 6:30 and finally send Brady off at 8:30. It's the looooooooongest morning of school prep EVER. It's not chaotic or rushed, for which I'm very grateful. But I definitely feel like I'm having the hours sucked out of my life by how long our morning departure process is. And on Wednesdays Brady doesn't even leave until 9:30 - so Wednesdays take three hours to get the boys out the door. At least on that day the chunk of time between kid departures is big enough that I can actually go back to bed and catch a few Zzzz for a while.
And then finally at about 11:20 we get this little lady out the door and onto the school bus to head to Kindergarten. She is in absolute heaven. She couldn't possibly have been more excited to finally go to school! In fact the morning of her first day she basically spent her time singing an ode to the first day of school on constant replay. I managed to catch a snippet of her singing without her realizing it. When she busts out the "holla!"s I thought I was going to die laughing. She's nothing if not enthusiastic, this one!
Her very first sign. (And my last Kindy sign to make?! I'm not sure whether to cry or to cheer...)
Look at that excitement!
She was almost as excited about riding the bus as she was about going to school in general.
And then of course, since I had turned into a blubbering idiot after she boarded the bus and headed off to school, I felt a little mama bear protective instinct kick in and I hopped into my van and drove up to the school to see her get off the bus too. The look on her face was a mixture of surprise and annoyance hehehe. She was so excited to be independent so I was definitely crossing a line by being there waiting for her! But it was actually a good thing I'd headed to the school because the office staff member who was supposed to meet the PM Kindergartners was nowhere to be found and that little group of kids were clueless and nervous and didn't have any idea what they were supposed to do or where they were supposed to go. I was able to get them to the office, voiced my concern over the lack of supervision for these brand new students, and then escorted Molly to class myself. She had been a little shaken up by the moment of confusion when she didn't know where to go, so I was glad to be there with her and calm her back down and help her excitement return. Needless to say, an email expressing my concern was sent to the principal about the lack of supervision and direction for the brand new students on their first day of school, and thankfully in less than an hour I received a very sincere apology and detailed plan of action for the following day. All's well that ends well. I don't think I even came across as that mom in my original email so I think it's all good.
So I officially have four kids out the door every day for school!!! I get 2 1/2 hrs of solitude before the home-from-school-and-time-for-homework routine kicks in. Whew! Happy days.
