Take Me Out to the Scout Camp

This post was written when it was supposed to be posted, but I didn't get the pictures in until today, so when you read it, just remember this is the week of November 10th through the 16th.  Thanks for keeping up with the blog! I'm sorry I haven't been doing such a great job posting.

David: He's growing so fast. He's already fitting perfectly in 3-6 month clothes, even though he just turned 3 months old today, and I'm already considering his 6-9 month clothes. He's chubby as all get out and smiling more. He rolled over (front to back) for the first time last Sunday, but hasn't since. He really doesn't like tummy time.

Caleb: He's ornery as ever. We haven't gotten much potty training time in this week, but he loves running around naked whenever he gets the chance and likes to sit on his potty and earn treats. He is not afraid of anyone – which was proven yet again as he chose to sit in the pew behind us at church in order to play with the brother who was already in that pew like he was his best friend even though he'd never met him before.

Byron: He had his first scout camp out Friday night. The park they went to was really nice, with a big clearing the boys played in and free firewood they got to build up a nice fire with. They made taco salad for dinner and as much pancakes and bacon as they could eat Saturday morning. He's been talking about how great the food was all weekend and was glad that all the nasty weather hit after the camp out. He's been working a lot in the black box this week, so he doesn't talk about work, but I assume it's going well. He won a wireless keyboard in an auction Wednesday afternoon for $1.50 and a Dell laptop for only $6. He keeps it at work and set it up outside the secure room he works in so he and his co-worker don't have to go all the way back to their desks in order to Google something when they have questions.

Arielle: I've been pretty busy myself this week. Wednesday I worked with my mom at her last preschool for the season. We got a lunch break and enjoyed eating Chinese without Caleb there stealing rice off our plates and had a great time seeing all the cute kids at the preschool. :) Thursday and Friday were spent preparing for Alyssa's 17^th birthday party. It was a little stressful since she knew what she wanted but didn't really talk about it, so we weren't sure what we were doing unless she told us to do it another way. I baked cupcakes and made buckeyes and we popped popcorn and used apples in some of the decorating that her friends were more than happy to eat. Her Young Women's president loves throwing parties and owns a house and barn that was built during the revolutionary war era on 8 acres, so Alyssa had the cutest fall themed party ever. Unfortunately I didn't get to take any pictures, but they had a fire and s'mores bar, a buffet of treats inside the barn and played fun games like missionary tag and murder in the dark. Caleb was irritated I wouldn't let him leave the barn, but he had fun trying to run around with the big kids when they were inside and was more than happy to eat his fill of doughnut holes and hershey kisses.

In General: Monday Byron had the day off work so we got to enjoy spending time together. We walked to Starbucks for breakfast (Caleb ate an entire bowl of oatmeal by himself without blinking) then warmed up at home. That afternoon we drove Alyssa to work and had dinner at chick-fil-a before heading over to where my mom was taking family pictures at one of her preschools. Caleb was a total ham and ran onto the backdrop every chance he got, and she took wonderful pictures of the boys. I was so excited to get one of the two of them together. Tuesday night we drove down to IKEA. We had dinner and walked around a bit. Caleb liked diving into the display beds and playing with the train sets they had out, and I was excited to find that their train sets were pretty affordable so we got him the starter set to put up for his birthday. I also got a jar of lingonberry sauce, which was the reason for our expedition, and looked to see if they had the house crackers Byron misses from him mission. Saturday afternoon we went to a baptism for a girl in the ward who had just turned 8 and I loved being there. I think attending baptisms and being reminded of my own baptism day and the sacred covenants I made is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Today I really enjoyed the youth speaker in sacrament meeting and the obvious gratitude and admiration he has for his Dad, and am looking forward to teaching relief society next week as a sub. :) This evening there were threats for severe storms in the area, so we headed to my parents for dinner since they have a tornado room in their basement and enjoyed the warmth and comfort that being with family provides during a time that can be so stressful. Fortunately there were no tornadoes and neither of our houses were one of the 4,000 in the area affected by power outages.  

These pictures aren't the best, they're from Byron's phone but one of the activities the boys did during down time was play baseball with "monkey brains" (Osage Oranges, those big green brain looking things that come off of certain trees) and sticks they found at their campsite.

The blog title I got for this post is actually from a list I got online of campfire songs for Boy Scouts, if you want to read the rest of the lyrics you can go to http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/song/take_me_out_to_the_scout_camp-31.asp