The crime scene: the closet in the kids' bedroom.
The victim: the unsuspecting mommy who picked her little darling up for an... eew!
The evidence: they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Enough said.
The culprit: this "innocent" little cutie.
I have this unexplainable need to catch up, thus, the pictures from Josiah's birthday back in June! The edited photos are compliments of a smart uncle.
To start off, the four-year old was very interested in seeing how his project from Sunday School was doing. He is holding the project- the bottom quarter of a 2-liter soda bottle with soil and grass seed. He drew a face for the front of the thing, and the goal was to grow the grass "hair" and be able to cut it. Well, in his enthusiasm, he dropped it on the floor (remember, the soil in this thing is wet from being watered recently) and I found the dear little guy trying to clean up the mess with a tissue. (That means he was basically rubbing the soil into the light colored carpet!)
The three-year old got up, and was, literally, a bloody mess. She had managed to have a nosebleed in the early hours of the morning, resulting in blood spots all over her bed, blanket, pillow, PJs, and face. She got washed, everything else got a bit of hydrogen peroxide, Biz (my favorite weapon of the laundry room), and a good washing!
In the meantime, the poor little almost-1-year old is stuck in his exersaucer, crying in sympathy for his mommy. Okay- that's a bit of an exaggeration- he was crying because he was hungry, and mommy had plopped him there so she could race around to start damage control on the other household incidents!
A little later, after sanity had been restored, we enjoyed some time in the great outdoors. Our children have a natural affinity to dirt, and of course, that means someone had to try and bring in a container full of the stuff! Mommy's instructions were to leave the dirt outside. She, however, didn't specify WHERE the dirt needed to go. Logically, of course, the brain of a preschooler says to just dump it wherever- as long as it's outside. In the future, Mommy will specify and supervise the dumping of dirt! 
Finally, as the clean laundry was drying on the line (bye-bye blood spots), someone (some two) thought it would be fun to go tearing through the sheets. Unfortunately, my clothespins are not engineered to withstand such forces, and well, you can see the results for yourself! Thankfully, we had lunch, nap, and David then came home and took everyone ( to the library for a little while!
This splash area is at the Loveland Sports Park off from Hwy 34 just west of Centerra. You push a button on the ground below the windmill sculpture, and the thing starts raining on you. The splash area cycles through about 8-10 minutes worth of various spray and splashing devices before turning off.
We are not descendants of monkeys, but...
...we get to have just as much fun!
This cute, little monkey doesn't swing quite like the others.
This one, however, is well on his way! 
Okay, okay- so the post is a little, ummm, late? But hey, we all know that (in the realm of blogs), late is better than never. We decided to be adventurous and took the kids camping on Storm Mountain, west of Loveland, up the Big Thompson Canyon a ways. This required a fair amount of preparation (particularly since we had not been camping as a family before), a fair amount of borrowing (a larger tent was a good idea, as well as a few handy doo-dads for around the campsite). Here is everyone enjoying the evening campfire, and you can see those good ol' Colorado lodgepole pines in the background. (This was a week or two before the state-wide fire ban; we canceled any further camping trips, as the fire in the evening just makes the experience!)
A snapshot of what camping is really all about- s'mores! 
Another one of the horrors of camping- hot chocolate before breakfast!
Here are Silas and Amelie making their contribution to the campfire. (Everyone did arrive home fully intact.) They also contributed in other ways. Two shovels make the digging of potty holes all the more quick, right? The only problem is that holes dug 5-6 feet away from the campfire are deemed by the parental authorities as unusable and inappropriate!
David earned a Merit Badge (j/k!) on this trip. Check out the pot hanging over the fire. Apparently he had to do a little searching for the perfect piece of wood to act as a hook at the end of the string.
This is the littlest camper, worn out after a night of telling his mommy how much he disliked sharing a sleeping bag with her! He spent probably 40% of the night fussing/crying, 40% nursing (tired mommy equals a mommy willing to allow free nursing privileges for the benefit of 15-minutes of uninterrupted sleep), and 20% actually sleeping without complaint. The morning found a tired mommy and baby pair! Thankfully, the mommy found the mountain air to be somewhat invigorating (it was either that or the hot chocolate before breakfast- maybe a combo) and had decent energy the next day.
Four-wheeling in the Jeep. This was the kids' first experience four-wheeling. On Friday they requested that David stop driving in the ditch. It was just too bumpy for them! By Saturday, they were a little more used to it, and Silas told us that he wished we could always be just in God's creation. (I think, though, that was a reference to his enjoyment of the natural environment, not the "natural" road!)
Here is the view off from Storm Mountain. Long's Peak (one of Colorado's more famous Fourteeners, located in Rocky Mountain National Park) is in the far range on the right side of the picture.
Colorado's quaking aspen trees. 
Driving back down to the flat lands through the Big Thompson Canyon. Back home we went to de-smoke ourselves (there's something about a campfire that no matter where you move, the smoke seems to follow!), and clean up. The whole trip took a fair amount of work, but was definitely very enjoyable! There's something so nice and relaxing about getting away from it all.
David's working on the coolest bed ever for Silas. It will be a toddler-sized version of our big bed. These two photos of the headboard and footboard are just the "dry run"- he still has to glue and stain everything, and make/attach the side rails. Want one like it for your cute little one? $100 will do the trick!
