A Berry Fun Weekend

This Saturday Nick, Alexa and I took a trip to the local bookstore to see Strawberry Shortcake. When she walked in we all had to giggle a little, because her head did not fit well through the doorway. Alexa was very excited and liked listening to the stories that were being read. After they finished reading the books, each child got their picture with Strawberry Shortcake. Alexa gave her a big hug and ran down the stairs to tell me she really smelled like Strawberries.

Strawberry Shortcake did not do much besides stand on the stage and move her head, but the kids were going crazy for her.
Alexa was all smiles when her turn came. She tried her very best to play it cool, but I could see that she was a little nervous.

She gave Strawberry a hug, a very very quick hug. The picture looks like a much longer embrace, in reality she wanted it over asap!

My mom made me the cutest apron for mother's day, and I have been looking for a free weekend to break it in. Alexa and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen baking and making pizzas. She is starting to love to bake just about as much as me. We have been working on reading recipes and she is doing an amazing job. When I see her reading the ingredients to me, it just reminds me how grown up she is getting.

One of the Strawberry Shortcake books talk about crepes, so of course we had to make some. We made dessert crepes filled with vanilla ice-cream and topped with fresh raspberries. They were pretty tasty!

These are the cookies Alexa made almost completely by herself. We each made a batch of cookies, peanut butter for her and cream cheese sugar cookies for me. She read the ingredients, figured out the measurements, added and mixed everything on her own. She was also quick to point out that the cookies she made were just a little better than mine and they were:)

Thanks to Fresh and Easy, we were able to make homemade pizzas. They are so fun to make and Alexa goes crazy with the toppings. She is a veggie loving girl! All in all it was a pretty great weekend.

Music

Quick side note. I know that the music does not really got with the post this time and I try to pair them. This is what was playing on my Ipod during the drive out to the camp ground, so in a wired way it works! (right?) :) If you ever need a pick me up this song works, you can help but dance around when its on or in my case while I am driving drum on the steering wheel (Gary style). This song has got me through rush hour traffic many times!

Camping Clark and Karas Style

We recently went camping in Flag with my family, rain and all! It was a muddy mess, but we still had so much fun. It was nice to spend some time in nicer weather, with family and making a couple new friends. It has been a while since I have been around a camp fire making smores and it was a first for Alexa. Nick (who says that he does not enjoy camping) even had a great time, riding quads, playing with Alexa and spending time in the WILD :)

Several families from my mom and dad's church went camping as well, and it was so fun to meet everyone. We had not seen many of them since the cruise, and of course Nick spent sometime getting to know everyone :)
Alexa was very worried about the mud she saw from her window on the drive to the camp grounds. She was pretty convinced that she was not going to enjoy comping and tried to get us to head back to Grammy's clean house. However the second she stepped out of the car, she was sold and though camping was the best.

The drive in was very muddy! It rained on and off all day, making for muddy conditions, which were very fun of course. Who does not like to drive around in the mud:) When you go just make sure you have someone in a truck who can pull you out just in case, Blaine and E were out safety net!

Oh yeah tip number two, make sure you have enough wiper fluid.

Alexa and Kennedy quickly became friends. I think Alexa spent 99.9% of her time running around with Kennedy. They spent time watching Barbie movies, writing in their diaries, coloring, riding quads and zooming around in a go-cart. Watch out though they are now known for running over small children :)

It was so fun to get out and ride the quads, even though we got very muddy. It was so pretty up there, I could have stayed forever.

This is the meadow that was right next to where we were camping. It was a great place for Alexa to learn to ride her quad and zip around with her pal Kennedy.

The camp fire was so huge, that it was still smoking the next morning! It took a lot of water a couple people shoveling dirt to get it put out.

Thanks mom and dad for inviting us to go camping it was GREAT!

Reminiscing

I was looking through some of my old pictures of Alexa and I came across this video clip. It was funny and sad all at the same time, time goes by so very fast.

Alexa's Art

Alexa has been bringing home so much art from school and she makes us keep every picture. So I thought I would share some of her favorites!

The artist herself
Starry Night

Daisy Troop

Rainbow Gold

Colorful

(Each picture was named by Alexa. Trust me I could not come up with these on my own)

Butterfly Art

Alexa loves the movie Coraline. We have seen it three times and if she had her way we would see it again this week. We went to see it on Friday night, she noticed that Coraline had butterflies that surrounded her bed and of course she decided that she needed butterflies in her room as well. So we loaded up went to the craft store for supplies, and spent the day making paper butterflies.

She painted.....
And painted....
When she finished painting she had 25 rainbow colored butterflies.

Relaxing Saturday

While the weather is still nice, we have been spending our weekends outside. We all know that the heat is coming and it’s coming fast! We took Alexa to a duck pond near our house followed by lunch at the Pita Jungle and a trip to see a play.

She tried her best to be fair and make sure that every duck got a piece, but some ducks were faster then others.

Alexa spent a good portion of her time chasing the ducks, not feeding them!

I don't think that the ducks loved this game as much as Alexa did.

Some of the ducks were braver than others, Alexa and Nick were able to feed them by hand.

There was one mama duck and her babies, this was the highlight of Alexa's day.

Once the bread came out the ducks flew over all at once.

Alexa found something she liked about every duck and she was sure to point out everything she found.

After feeding the ducks we walked to Pita Jungle for a yummy lunch! They have the best lemonade, if you have not tried it yet you should.

Alexa had a great time at the play. She picked out which dress she wanted to wear and got her self completely ready on her own. She even decided to take her new purse she got for her birthday. Once we got there she was bouncing in her seat waiting for the play to begin and then sat there silent through the entire play. After the play was over she stayed to get everyone autograph.