making memories

i saw this quote earlier in the week, and i am making it my new mantra:

don't cry because it's over.  smile because it happened.  ~ dr. suess

i am trying to remember this as my children grow up way too fast.  i am extremely nostalgic, i don't much care for change, and i don't want them to ever leave me.  i just love them so much.  but i know (deep down inside) that i will have to let them go at some point, and that it is good to do so.  but until then, i want to make as many sweet memories with them as possible and treasure every moment.

so that's what this post is all about.

as i let these thoughts settle into my soul over the past few days, i tried to think of some creative ways to spend time with the boys.

so on thursday i packed a lunch and a blanket and headed up to school.  we have a beautiful pond by our grammar school building so i met the boys in the lunchroom and out we went to have a picnic by the pond.  burrito and noodle eat at different times so it was a good opportunity to spend some individual time with them.

the beautiful pond.  it ended up being 101 degrees this day (sept 29) but in the shade it was pretty nice.

my sweet noodle

my growing-up-too-fast burrito

this is one of those hold-the-camera-out-and-see-what-you-get sort of pictures.  i wish i would have thought to do the same with noodle.

the boys are already begging me to come up again this thursday for a picnic date.  who can say no to those sweet faces?

for more fun making-memories moments, i had friday's activities planned a few days in advance, and it was torture not telling them my plans!  the boys have been begging us to go camping.  for maybe an entire year.  we bought a tent last april for burrito's camping themed birthday, and we have been either too busy or it's been WAY TO HOT to even consider sleeping outdoors.

well this weekend was going to be a perfect opportunity.  the boys did not have soccer and the overnight temperature was going to be a glorious 54 degrees!  so friday afternoon, while they were still at school, i set up our tent in the backyard.  i figured we better do a trial run before officially camping somewhere just in case my little campers changed their minds about how much fun camping is, ha, ha!

i bought the necessary ingredients to make s'mores, i rented a movie to watch on the laptop, and we planned on attending our school's football game to ensure that we had two sleepy boys on our hands!  and things went just as planned!

here are some sweet friend pictures from the football game.  it was perfect weather!

noodle and his reading buddy caleb

burrito and his new friend diego, who is one of john's students.  they came over to tell me that they were bff's so i told them i better take a picture! :)

and they were so excited to come home and see the tent set up!  these first two pictures were taken in the afternoon before we left for the football game because i knew it would be pretty dark before we would get home.

our home away from home (but not really!) and yes, all 4 of us crammed into this tent for the night!

this is supposed to be their really excited and shocked faces!

burrito eating s'mores

noodle with s'mores already all over his face

we realized rather quickly why most campers do not eat s'mores inside their tents, and because the mosquitoes are crazy bad in our backyard, we decided we better head indoors to finish eating our snacks.

we retired to the tent around 11:30pm.  the boys watched the movie for about 15 minutes and then were out.  they slept all night until i woke them up the next morning for a breakfast of donuts.  we never get donuts for breakfast so i think they were shocked and thrilled at the fun time we were having.  i don't think any of us slept very well because we did manage to nap for a couple of hours this afternoon.

both boys said several times today that they had an awesome time and want to do it again.  and i would semi-sleep on the hard ground again to make these types of memories with my boys.

i love them so much.