swelled.

this past weekend shaun had off of work! woo hoo.

even better, we had no "set" plans. woo hoo.

i always feel bad, the man gets 4 days off a month and we usually have something going on those days (and 2 of those are church days) and i feel that he never really gets a break. 

although, we did have to get up at the crack of early on saturday. we had a nurse come to do our "life insurance" lab stuff. i scheduled it for 8. mainly because we had to fast before it. and because then the kids would be in bed for most of it. ((it worked well, they were starting to wake up near the end of the exam. and breigh stayed upstairs till the nurse left, because she didn't want to be checked. we reassured her that she wasn't going to be checked, but she still just stayed upstairs "just in case".))

after the nurse left we made some yummy muffins. wildtree has some AWESOME fall products coming out in a few weeks. and i made the new apple struesel muffins. as you can see from the before and after picture. they went over really well. and were SUPER yummy. ((in fact all of the new products we've tried have been yummy. they have a new chocolate lover's syrup that shaun says is even better than what we use now. that says a lot. :) ))

after breakfast the kiddos played and shaun and i started looking at bathroom stuff. our bathroom has needed to be remodeled...well forever. we're down to subflooring in most of the bathroom. and the toilet is slowly sinking into the floor. and friends, i'm not exaggerating. it's bad. i'm really embarrassed to have friends over because of the bathroom. we've never had the means to fix it. so we haven't. BUT we've recently gotten a mortgage and got some extra money to fix the bathroom. woo hoo. i'm so excited. like, REALLY excited. 

we ended up finding some things that we both liked. ((which is really a feat! shaun is picky about things and usually we both end up having to compromise. it went a lot better than i thought, actually.)) we picked a color scheme first. because really, that's going to help determine everything else. we decided to go with cream and gray. we just haven't decided on dark or light gray. now, we have to find a time to go to the actual stores and find the stuff. and see if we like it in person, as much as we like it online. 

my husband is awesome. he is also very handy. our plans now, are to have him do the bathroom by himself. i'm not 100% sure how that looks right now, as far as where the kids and i are going to go. but we know it'll save a lot of money. and a few years ago, shaun re-did his sister's bathroom from top to bottom...so he's experienced and i trust him 100% to do a great job. 

during rest time i did some lesson planning. my goal is to become more organized and planned this year for school. after a week in, i'm still doing it. :)

it really doesn't take me a lot of time, and it's just a general idea not an "exact". but it also helps keep record of anything we've done. in WI you don't have to report anything, but just in case anyone wanted to see something...i have what we did all down on paper.

shaun had been talking about doing a campfire saturday night. he thought it would be fun to make pudgie pies for supper. three of the girls and i went to the store and bought our ingredients and pudgie pie makers. they were so excited while buying the stuff, and the excitement rubbed off on me. :)

shaun went out to start the fire, and had five helpers. caitlyn just finished sliding down the slide in the picture. ;)

i'm very nervous around fire. but they all did really well. and they were so excited. 

they all waited very patiently for the fire to get ready for the pudgie pie making. ((because i'm nervous around fire, i took zero pictures of the pudgie pie making.))

as we were preparing the pudgie pies and helping the kids each make theirs. i stopped. i smiled. and i snapped a picture in my head. i never wanted to forget THIS moment. the moment where it felt as if my heart was going to swell out of my chest. explode with ooey gooey love all over the place.

something that didn't involve going anywhere. something that we didn't spend much time planning and organizing. we simply built a fire. got some supplies and "camped out" in our backyard. 

the smiles on the kid's faces were contagious. i smiled. shaun smiled. and i thank God for how blessed we are. i looked at each of my little blondies and was so thankful. 

after our dessert pudgie pies we decided to take a walk around the campgrounds. we ended up in the tractor shed. the kids sat on the trailer. and asked daddy to take us on a tractor ride. so the kids and i sat on the trailer and shaun drove us around the campground. 

again. i stopped. and snapped the picture in my head. of the giggle caitlyn gave when she pretended that we really WERE at a campground. of the squeeze she gave my hand as we went down the "big hill". of the kids looking off the trailer into the long grass and talking about being in a jungle. of the look breigh gave me when she asked how far we REALLY were going to go. of the laughs and smiles as we simply drove around our farm. these are moments that i simply want to remember. being a family. spending time together. and remembering it doesn't have to be a fancy trip or excursion. it's simply spending the time.

my heart swelled with the love that oozes for my kids. my husband. and my God.