The Pretty + The Brave: Our Long Weekend

Love the weekends - there's always so much to do. Well, who am I kidding, there's much to do all week too, but the stuff during the week is responsible, you're-an-adult-now, take-care-of-business type stuff. And that's just no fun. Oh Friday, I miss you darling, but fear not - two more days and we'll be together again.

Sooooo, speaking of weekends, we took the kids to Fort Barrancas here on base this past Saturday and it was a pretty funny trip. I swear, if someone just followed the five of us around and caught us uncensored, they would think we are total nuts. Anyway, we get there and right off the bat my little man wanted to stop and tell us all to read every sign we passed. Like EVERY sign. And he did it with great pleasure.

Proceed with Caution. Ummmm, because NAS Pcola...is a very dangerous place?????? I'm still confused by this sign. I thought maybe we THOUGHT we came to Fort Barrancas but were really being punked and we were headed into an arena full of hungry wolves that we had to fight with our bare hands or something...but no, just a random sign of caution. Needless to say, I was disappointed by this misleading sign. I was ready to stare danger in the face.

Nice view...and the Gulf and Fort look nice too ;)

Ariana has zero fear. She really is the bravest kid I've ever known, she'll do anything. Love and I were talking the other day and we just know she's gonna be our child that grows up and calls us from a new country every month. I see skydiving and rushing adrenaline in her future. So, being the thrill seeker she is, she taunted Love as they crossed the bridge to part of the Fort. He happily obliged, as usual, and she thought it was the coolest thing ever (after screaming for added effect, of course).

The Fort was designed with a gazillion archs, which I later learned (at the visitors center) was a way to make the Fort sturdier than if they'd constructed it flat. See? I learned me a thing or two....well...okay, maybe just a thing.

I loved the long halls and creepy long dark stair cases. Ethan worried about me when I lingered too far behind the four of them as I was trying to get pictures of the cool arches. We had a role reversal - he kept asking me to keep up.

On our way back to the truck the boys said, "That was kind of a scary place." And Ari said, "That was FUN!" It's just like those three to have totally different opinions. Aye.

He's getting so tall

Below are some more pictures from this weekend but they are super random so I'll group them together. Let me set this first one up for you: So, we were in the car and I no longer heard Owey saying, "Mom, mommy, momma, mom, mommy, moooom?" every three seconds, so I turn around and Monkey is knocked out. I have no clue what little dude was doing prior to falling asleep but his arm was in his shirt and l thought this would be a good picture to torture him with when he's older.

Giving Moochie a smoochie

Losing her boat in the middle of the pool for the 8 millionth time.
And it was chilly and about 11 o'clock at night so I surely wasn't gonna get in and get it.

Strike a pose...while continuing to dig for his snack

So, we've been sticking to Halloween-themed crafts for the past few weeks. And not on purpose either, but it seems that whenever the kids pull out their art boxes they just naturally make something Halloween-y. Is that a word? It is now.

Our latest creation was Halloween lanterns. I thought I was so creative because I saw some Christmas Luminaries and thought I could do a Halloween version of them but now I see Halloween ones everywhere so I'm not so clever after all ;). We already had everything we needed to make them ourselves so we gave it a go.

The kids loved making them because it was fairly messy, well, it wasn't supposed to be a messy project but somehow they can turn the cleanest activity into a flamin' hot mess.

They all picked out what face and what color tissue paper they wanted for their jars. Ethan went for a cute pumpkin look. Ari and Owen went for a scarier, monster-ish feel and I went for a sweet little ghost dude. I lean toward the cutesy Halloween decor. The crazy, dark, I'm-gonna-eat-your-face-off decorations just don't do it for me, it's gross looking, and I don't wanna look at that every day.

Our finished product!

A half a jar of Mod Podge (Daddy spilled the majority of it, thanks babe!) and six sticky hands later, our lanterns were complete. They're super cute during the day with the sunlight coming through. And at night we spin them around for the world to see and light 'em up with white lights (though you could use tealights also). They're super adorable on my kitchen window sill and every time Owen walks in the room he wants to talk about his 'sca-wee mon-sir' he made.