Backyard Camping

We invited our neighborhood friends over to enjoy our "campfire" - hotdogs and smores of course. 4/5 of the Schifs, 2/3 of the Cooley and the whole Long clan came over. Everyone was invited to pitch a tent with us and sleep under the stars, but we only had 3 takers, Brett, Owen and Emily.

The kids were all running around with flashlight pretending to be ghosts and monsters. So cute.
It turned out to be kind of a cool night. Thank goodness Drew's sweats from last year still fit okay, because I haven't even washed all the new fall/winter clothes.
An up close of Drew's disgusting hotdog and smore face. Seriously I need to make sure their faces are clean. It kind of grosses me out and annoys me too. He is still cute as ever even dirty faced.

Olivia Schif and Owen running wild :)

Owen wanted me to take a picture of the scary dragon (that's him).

Emily and Drew

Jillian spent most of the evening on my lap or at least close to me. One near disaster, she fell forward and hit her forehead on the fire pit. I panicked a little, swept her up and ran inside to check out the damage. No visible mark and boo boo bear made it instantly better. We went back outside and the others had figured out that what ever the fire pit was made of didn't transfer heat, the edge of it wasn't even hot. Amazing that science.

In our tent and ready for bed. Yes the dogs slept in there with us. Jillian did great. I was assuming that I would have to take her inside at some point. She did wake up and cry a little when the neighbor dogs started their ritual middle of the night barking. Drew woke up once and said he was scared. I told him I was right next to him and I wouldn't let anything happen. He said okay and right back to sleep.

Not much sleep for me that night. I spent most of the night repositioning the kiddos back into their sleeping bags and making sure they were warm enough.

That little sister is a wild sleeper. I woke up once and her foot was on Drew's face. Obviously it didn't bother him, because he was fast asleep. She would be at the wrong end of the tent, sitting up and falling over asleep. She was all over the place. We made it through the night and it was so much fun. Drew knows that since he did such a great job we will be able to do it again.