Happy birthday girl double digits

OH boy! My birthday girl is 10!!

We had a family party and then invited friends to join us at the swimming pool. The brothers picked out some sweet treats for gifts-- which is perfect because Brielle is a sugar-momma!

A traditional birthday card from Gma Gpa Platt with $5 inside. I wonder what Brielle will get?? more candy of course!!

Trying to the these boys to smile nicely for their sister was like pulling teeth, they couldn't look normal for one, so we had to keep trying... which made them look even worse and then I had to try again. GAHHH....

Okay... this one looks "okay".... but you can see the frustration on Cael's face. He was ready to be done.

The Carr girls came over after swimming for brownies and ice cream. An easy treat to have all ready and prepared when we got home from swimming. 

Birthday girl 9 Years old

We had such a good time celebrating this sweet spunky and sassy little lady. She requested crepes for dinner filled with cream and Nutella and powdered sugar on top, her favorite!

We have also had a tradition of getting pink frosting donuts for Brielle‘s birthday at least for the first couple of years of her life when there is a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby. This year We were able to run over to Jason‘s donuts hoping to grab enough to make her a donut stack and were able to snag the last three pink ones. That place sells out their donuts quick! She wasn’t too happy about the green pistachio ones, but at least they looked fun and tasted good too!

Ben and the boys really spoiled Brielle with the gifts she got this year and the amount of stuffed animals is suffocating to me but she loves them so much!

Wednesday is our ice-skating day and so is it’s always fun to be there with friends and have the whole skating rink to ourselves because nobody else comes for an hour and a half of skating....  but we are there and so are our friend. We are so lucky to have good friends that live close by — I’m so thankful-Brielle and Gwen have each other and are best friends!

 

Back to School 2020/2021

I didn’t do a good job of taking the first day of school pictures, we didn’t really have an official first day of to start- but I would say it was after  Labor Day we “started” school... and since then we’ve been doing more and more each day and the kids are pretty good about getting all of their work completed. Some days are better than others, but I’m okay with what we do and the ability and freedom of our time and how we do things together- lots and lots of learning time together.

So here is my attempt at taking pictures of the kids at the start of the school year late Sept/Oct 2020

#FirstDayofSchoolPictures

Handsome Connor 5th grade

Beautiful Brielle 3rd grade

Can do it Cannon Kindergarten 

Muscle man Cael 11th grade

GQ Lookin’ Brecon 7th

 

Camping weekend -upper stiles

The weather is starting to cool down and we knew we needed to get out and camp for the weekend. Even though it was down-pouring when we pulled into camp... we made it work in the rain! Good thing "big red" is mostly dry for bedtime.

Our 16 year old Eagle Scout decided to take matters into his hands with the campfire and added gasoline to a tree- results were a 5 gallon gas tank fire and the whole camp rushing around to put it out. Thankfully the Aiton’s has a fire extinguisher in their RV so we could quickly put out the flames before more damage was done. It was quite the sight for the Powell's to see when they arrived- black smoke and a panicked camp. For a while we were just watching and waiting for the gas to burn out... but there was so much, the damage was done and the container melted.

ALASKA CAMPING- RIDING AND SHOOTING. 

At our campsite, there is a shooting range and place to ride 4-wheelers around. I usually stick around the campsite and keep tabs on the little kids. Cannon and Kiona were exploring the forest around camp and found some animal tracks. I love when they go exploring!

On the way back home, I mentioned to Ben that there is a river spot to put the canoe in and it would take 2 hours to make it back to our neighborhood. Even though we were tired and had a lot of camping clean-up to do, Ben said he was going to do it. If any of the kids wanted to join him they could-- and bonus-- they wouldn't have to clean up the camping trailer. So as you can see from the departing boat... 4 of the 5 children joined the floating trip. Ben said it was such a good time with the kids, they were chipper and happy to be in the boat, joking around and making stops along the way. When they made it back home, Cannon was ready to go again! I'm glad they made it safe and had a fun time together. Me getting to try to get Cael to help unload the camping trailer was another story

 

More August adventures

A group of us get together every Tuesday to try to tackle the Fairbanks summer trails challenge. There’s usually quite the crowd of moms and kids ranging from babies to teenagers. It is one of my favorite days of the week getting out and exploring the forest and trails around town.

It is also been so fun to check out the different mushrooms that are on the first floor. Cael has mentioned that my camera roll is full of mushrooms these days, I just think the fungi is so cute.

The car is stuck... While we were camping at Olnes pond we had a adventure in a broken down motorcycle and later a truck car that was stuck in a ditch of water. Different kids were driving around and the 12-year-old went reversing way too fast. Ben yelled slow down… Slow down… Slow down! But it was too late. It was great quite the endeavor trying to get the car unstuck and pulled out of the ditch. Lesson learned- don’t let a 12 year old (who looks like a 17 year old) drive your car.

The weather forecast predicted 75 and sunny all weekend, but surprised us with massive downpours Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. We really tried to be prepared and tried getting everything out of the rain before it got soaked. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

Silly Brielle taking my phone!!

My little garden has been fun to eat the peas and colorful carrots ... today Cannon invited a friend over and they had a snack of fresh carrots from the garden.

 When you try a new recipe and are excited about being the first one to dig in, but your little brother beat you to it and cut his piece right from the middle… You might feel a little upset— Poor Brecon.

August adventures

Our neighbors and good friends the Bangerter‘s invited us over for birthday parties and cake and ice cream. Isabell turned 16 and all the kids made homemade birthday cards. Cael’s card got the most laughs When he converted a Father’s Day card into a happy birthday card.

This hike had to of been the most sad of any that we’ve gone on when the group of toddlers we’re all stung by bees when we left the trail. To add insult to injury we weren’t even going the right way to find our sign and get a credit for the summer trails challenge. Different moms were handing off their babies that were in the packs. The toddlers that got stung by bees were screaming and crying and getting carried by their mothers, and the rest of us were just trudging along trying to make it out of there alive. It was A little better when we made it back to an elementary school playground and the bee stung kids forgot about their owies for a while.

The Platt and the Bangerter outing! On this day we went to a pick your own raspberry farm and after a good time of picking went home with over 7 pounds of berries. Brecon really was working hard to fill up his container while Brielle only lasted a little while with just a few in the bottom of hers. Even Cannon was more diligent in his picking/eating… I guess Brielle was a little distracted by a dog that was nearby that she wanted to pet.  

It has been warm enough to bring out the water and have a pool party Cannon invited his friends over and we got things set up for them. It was around 5 o’clock when the trumpet sounds for the end of the day and they lower the flag so the boys were sure to stand and show their patriotism

 This was our group of mamas on the hike for our Tuesday adventure it’s always a good time when we get together! 

Weekend with the FRYS

We had a good time hanging out with our buddies playing frisbee golf up at the birch hill recreation area... and surprisingly we didn’t lose any- but we did have some close calls with the thick forest and a throw that went too far. 

The mosquitos were pretty thick up in the shaded areas, but as long as you were moving they didn’t seem so bad. By the 7th hole cannon was starting to hit his limit and Cael stepped up and put him on his shoulders to carry him the rest of the way and Cael even finished throwing the last holes along the way.

Saturday evening we met up at Olnes pond to paddle around and have a cookout. It was a gorgeous evening! The kids were splashing around on the paddle board and little kayaks. My favorite was when my three big boys and CC got on the paddle board to play king of the hill. After they found their balance there was squealing and shrieking and everyone had fallen in except Cael- I don’t know how he stayed up. But that didn’t last long and soon the entire board flipped over and everyone splashed into the chilly pond.

 Our cookout included Cheetos otter pops, hot dogs and yummy grilled salmon. Quite a spread, I know, right?