"So promise me you'll never forget...that you aren't an accident or an incident...you are a gift to the world, a divine work of art, signed by God. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on this earth...Flooded by emotion, overcome by pride, the Starmaker turns to us, one by one, and says, 'You are my child. I love you dearly.'" Max Lucado, God Thinks You're Wonderful







Monday, July 20, 2009

Camp Noonie-Papa

What a wonderful tradition my parents have started with Camp Noonie-Papa! This first picture is of the "drop-off" after dinner! Notice the babies got matching shirts too even though they didn't stay for camp.
My parents take their 7 oldest kids for 4 nights and create some of the most incredible memories with them. They always have some of the funniest stories that come from these adventures. This year they went horse back riding, visited a sheep farm, saw donkeys, rode camels at the zoo, visited the aquarium, went to Incredible Pizza, learned to fish and swam a ton!

The funnier parts that I have heard are that my 2 year old convinced his grandmother that indeed he was fully potty trained and only wearing diapers at night. Somehow the fact that I didn't pack him underwear didn't hurt his argument at all. His brother testified on his behalf that this was true. As exciting as that sounds that Cooper might want to wear underwear, can you imagine trying to keep track of his tee-tee with 10 other bladders? So, poor Cassidy (one of the "camp counselors") got peed on twice by my sweet pumpkin! Sorry Cass!
All 7 of them slept together in the bunkroom at my parents house. It must have been comical trying to get everyone asleep. Their ages are 11, 9, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 2!
The kids were completely worn out, but had the time of their lives. I will share some of the best pictures of the almost 500 pics my mom took of camp this year! Hope you enjoy!My sweet parents! You all have no idea how cool I think you are and what fabulous grandparents you are! Thank you for doing this for our kids and for our marriages! Notice my Owen is missing? He is a stinker about pictures! But this looks like great fun!Being silly with the sharks! How can you not giggle at that face?



Seriously Cooper...you take my breathe away! You are so stinking adorable!



My precious daddy carrying Owen around. This is the man that had open heart surgery on April 6th! How great is our GOD?

Max really and truly is Owen's favorite friend and I love it! They are about 20 months apart in age, which is about how far apart Laura and I are. It's is so cool for me to see their friendship and how much they love each other!

My mom even made coloring books out of Bible stories and had crafts for them to do. Seriously, they came home with painted piggy banks, colored coffe mugs and animal visors!

My mom does a great job of preparing everything for camp and is the best organizer that I know. She even has a list of what we need to pack for the kids to keep it simple in the mornings. Both her and I forgot that last year my boys had to borrow jeans and shoes for the horseback riding outing. OOPS! So, I won mom of the year for best preparing my Owen for his favorite event. Notice he has no shoes on! His flip flops fell off while getting on the horse. Bless his heart!

10 comments:

Charissa said...

You and your kids are SO lucky to have these wonderful people in your lives!!!

Melodie said...

how fun for those kids! and a little break for you guys.

Holly said...

Looks like they had such a fun time!

Brooke and Peter said...

that is amazing. what amazing people to do that! Can i come to camp next year? SO wonderful :)

Chassidy said...

I am going to share this idea with my and John's family! This is SOOO special! I want to go to camp too!

Kristy said...

Seriously they deserve the grandparent of the year award how awesome is that, you can see the joy their grandchildren bring them!
What a amazing thing to do and the shirts and the whole everything I'm amazed this is the kind of grandparent I want to be someday!ps I have a little guy real close to age and looks of Cooper well in between Cooper and Owen do you think we can sneak him in next year to the camp? LoL your parents shouldn't even notice one extra...HAHAHAHa

Just Believing said...

Is it lame that I cried reading this and seeing the pictures! What amazing parents you have and what an incredible family!!!! Now I can't wait to be a grandparent and do something like this :) I guess I should be a parent first but this is so cool!

Becki Francy said...

Just so you know we are counting down the sleepies until "ma boys" are going to be back!

Jamila said...

Camels! How fun. I love it that your mom took so many pictures. This is such a great idea for the cousins to really bond.

Unknown said...

Love it! That is just too much fun! Wish we all had a Camp Noonie and PaPa to go to!

Love you girl,
Julie