A Hike

65 degrees and sunny on March 11?  We'll definitely take advantage of that!!  Today, after the girls' naps, we headed for the Nature Center for a little hike.  We bought ourselves a season pass this year and decided to kick off the year with a fun hike!  The kids honestly loved every minute of it.  I debated taking the Ergo to put Aliyah in because I wasn't sure how well she'd do walking, but she did great!  I carried her a little bit but she definitely walked the majority of the way.  She carried Callie (her baby) the whole way.  I honestly thought that Callie would end up shoved in the backpack.  But she never did!

 I love watching my kids taking in everything about the great outdoors.  We showed them moss and big trees that had fell down, Samuel found lots of "waterfaults" (waterfalls) and they all loved throwing sticks and rocks in the stream and into the Kalamazoo River.  We walked at their pace and stopped a lot to look at things, climb on fences, climb up fallen trees, or sit on benches.  It was relaxed, enjoyable, and fun!

I had an itch to walk over the stream on a log.  When I saw this log I knew I had the perfect chance!  Daryl thought that I was crazy. ;)  He was worried he have to figure out a way to get me out of the woods and to the ER with 3 kids in tow!

Samuel climbing . . . always climbing :)

There she goes!  Not only did she walk most of the way, but she was often in the lead and/or running!

Looking at the stream.  I often look at Hope and Samuel and wonder what life would be like if we hadn't adopted Hope.  Samuel and Hope are best friends and totally keep each other entertained.  Sometimes that includes fighting . . . but I honestly think they'd be lost without each other.  Yesterday I spent all morning and part of the afternoon doing Hope's hair.  When I got done Samuel and Hope played and played and played together.  I realized that Samuel was probably bored and "missing" Hope for the whole time that she couldn't run around and play while I was doing her hair.  He didn't really know what to do with himself!

Samuel wanted to sit on the railing "just like Daddy" . . . he also peed in the woods because he wanted to be "just like Daddy".  

We hiked to the Kalamazoo River and then stopped for a snack.  This is a horrible picture but I decided to post it anyways.  We set our clocks forward an hour last night so this was a great daylight savings activity to wear them out and make them ready for bed on time!

Today, while we were playing outside after we got home from Church, Hope stood under our big pine tree and said, "Daddy!  I stand here and you shake the branch and snow will fall on my head!"  She's right, we do that with the kids a lot when there is a lot of snow on the pine tree branches.  But we did have to gently remind her that there is no snow right now and that in fact it is 65 degrees outside!