Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Elizabeth's Birthday Fishing Weekend

This weekend was the start of Birthday Month for us (all 3 kids have their birthday's in June which means LOTS of celebrating!). The birthday "rules" go like this: there aren't a lot of presents (this year's limit was $20 per child), but each child gets to pick something to do or somewhere to go for their birthday (which gets pretty pricey, hence this year's $20 present limit!). Elizabeth isn't exactly old enough to fully explain what she wanted to do for her birthday other than play with her "dolls" so I let her brother's pick. It worked out quite perfectly: Saturday we stayed home, she played with her dolls and new doll accessories, ate her favorite foods, and had grandparents over for cake and Sunday we met the boy's request with fishing at Big Creek.

It was a great weekend that left the kids tan and tired! Here's a look at our fabulous weekend:

This year I decided to skip the cakes that take a lot of my time. Elizabeth loves cookies so I made a simple double layer heart shaped chocolate chip and M & M cookie cake. Everything was going great until the top cookie fell into a million pieces coming out of the pan. I quickly stuck the cookie pieces together and plopped an ungodly amount of frosting on top to keep it together. It all worked out in the end and tasted delicious!

We stayed home all day on Elizabeth's birthday (see post: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-letter-to-my-daughter.html for details of her birthday). By the time grandparents left from having birthday cake with us, Elizabeth asked to "go bye bye please." The boys argued the fact that we'd been home all week and they were "over it." So we made our weekly trip to Target, where the kids scored some goodies: a new doll and a few Minion hats.
My big girl walking out of Target holding her goodies.
Sunday morning we got up bright and early and made our way to Big Creek to take the kids fishing for the first time. Elizabeth just needs a few purses, a doll, a toy cell phone, a waffle, and her blanket and she's good to go!
The kids trying out fishing for the first time. We didn't catch anything, but I have to guess it has something to do with the kids running and shouting on the dock! As soon as we left our place on the dock, people took our spot and immediately began catching fish. The kids enjoyed fishing somewhat, but lack the patience (and volume control). We'll try it in a few years maybe!

The kids had fun using the poles as swords and light sabers. At one point Max got his fishing line tangled in his sunglasses. Thank goodness we didn't put hooks on their lines or we would have been spending some serious time at Urgent Care.



See that small white blob out in the water??? That's one of the boy's bobbers from their line. They may have been a tad rough with the poles...
The whole crew. My grandpa Brownie loved to fish (I have fond memories of him taking me fishing with him when I was younger) and we would go fishing with him every year on free fishing weekend. This is the first year the kids, the hubs, and myself have been available to take part in free fishing weekend. 

Elizabeth waving at the boats nearby.


We found a great spot out at Big Creek (the fishing pier for those wondering) and it wasn't crowded at all. We pretty much had the whole deck to ourselves, but again, that may have had something to do with our loud children.



Max chilling with Grandpa while we ate smoked pork for our picnic lunch.
The two youngest minis watching videos on Grandma's phone--one of their favorite things to do.
Of course little Miss E chose the biggest slide she had to go down by herself.
The Big Creek beach park! This was their favorite part of the day, but they were very disappointed we didn't let them swim in the lake (it was a fairly cool day).


Max loved this.....until he fell through.




We love our summer weekends around here! Next weekend will be the kid's annual birthday bash (I can hardly believe it' here already!) and LOTS of prepping for the party in the meantime.