Our first camping adventure in our new camper

This winter we got a new to us camper that required a bit of work and a lot of cleaning. My father-in-law Chuck put down a new floor in there for us and Shawn and I spent many hours cleaning it up over the last few weekends. It's a starter camper for us that meets my requirements - a bed, toilet, and sink. It comes complete with a ton of storage inside and a full kitchen. We went camping close to home for our first adventure this past weekend to try it out and good thing because Shawn and Chuck had to fix the water heater right away.

I had to work Saturday and Sunday so Shawn and Oliver slept in it by themselves Saturday night and I came home and came back to camp after work on Sunday. We camped next to Chuck and Shirley so it was handy having them close by especially since I had to work.Oliver had fun camping by the park and that is where he requested to go over and over again. Good thing Grandma was willing to take him. He also enjoyed riding his bike. 

Shawn and Oliver played with the CAT's in the dirt and Oliver learned about grading of dirt. 

Monday, mostly everyone in the park left as the long weekend was over by mine was just starting as both Shawn and I had today (Tuesday) off as well so we stayed an extra night and were the only campers left.  Oliver was completely covered from head to toe with dirt from playing outside all day so he got a "spray down." He's terrified of taking a shower and with the camper only having a shower we compensated by calling it a "spray down" which he actually did well with. 

 We had many friends stop by to visit us and had time that night to roast marshmallows and relax in the peace and quite next to a nice campfire. 

Preschool round-up

Friday Oliver had his preschool round-up/orientation in the afternoon. I worked a half a day and picked him up from daycare at 11:30. The good thing about sending him to preschool in the fall and one of the main reasons we chose to send him was because he will be there with 3 of his friend from daycare. When I went to pick him up all the kids were so excited, jumping for joy, to go to preschool.

When we got there he was shy as always burying his head in my leg and covering his face with his hands. We then found one of his friends playing with blocks so Oliver joined in and then the other 2 did too so all 4 friends were playing together again. 

All the parents then went to another room where the principal could speak to us and answer any questions and then we just left. All the parents peaked in the preschool room and all the kids were having fun playing and there wasn't any crying. 

When school got out at 3:30, I went to pick him up again and here's the highlights he told me of the day:

1. The have a standing toilet that when you flush it the water comes down to the drain (urinal)

2. They have a drinking fountain that he is tall enough to reach.

3. There is a box full of sand and he already called dibs on a dump truck.

4. There is a circle slide to go down outside and tricycles to ride. 

5. They got to eat some cracker and drink some milk for a snack.

6. They have lockers to put you "stuff" in.

7. He's going to love riding the school bus as he threw a tantrum again that I wouldn't let him ride it home Friday. 

He wasn't very talkative on the way home and after just a few minutes I looked back and found a warn out sleeping boy. 

He still keeps talking about going to preschool everyday with excitement so hopefully that continues until this Fall when he goes Monday -Thursday full days. 

Easter

We celebrated many Easter's this year and even hosted one. It started 2 weeks ago when my sister and her family came home to my parent's house. Oliver had fun as he always does with his cousins. 

Then it was time for his first of 3 Easter egg hunts. He did well trying to find his 10 eggs filled with money for his dinosaur bank. 

I had taken off of work Wednesday through Friday as I had to take Oliver to Iowa City on Wednesday for a check-up then clean the house to get ready for hosting. He's getting to be a big boy sitting in the chair at the ENT doctor. It was a long wait there but everything turned out good and he continues to do well. 

Since I had time off, I looked a lot at Pinterest and found that everyone was doing the shaving cream method of dyeing eggs this year. Instead of shaving cream though I used cool whip because I didn't want the eggs to taste like shaving cream as eggs are very porous. We ended up leaving the eggs covered in the mixture overnight in the fridge to help the color set then washed them off.

Oliver preferred the normal way of dyeing eggs. He had a Jammies Party at daycare that day so he wore his new Thomas the Train PJ's he got for Easter from Grandpa Doerschery and Grandma Sandy.

He didn't like using a spoon or the wire thing to get the eggs out and threw a tantrum when I wanted to take a picture of his green hands because he just wanted to wash it off. Little did we know that they would stay that green even after washing them.  

Our finished eggs 

 

We hosted the Peterman Easter on Saturday when we also celebrated our family Easter as we were headed down south on Sunday. Oliver had received many little presents from Grandma Shirley and Grandpa Chuck but his favorite was this airplane. 

A pro at the hunt now, he took off running for the eggs.  

Look at all those eggs! 

It was a beautiful weekend, so warm we spent most of the afternoon outside. 

Sunday as I said we headed south to celebrate with my family. We started in Long Grove for a Doerscher celebration brunch so my Grandpa could join all of the rest of us. I think the highlight for Oliver though was that it was across from a fire station and that there was a fire so he got to see all the firemen/women drive away in the firetrucks with their lights and sirens on. There was also a park and it was beautiful again, dare I say too warm for the way we were dressed. We left our house Sunday and it was raining and 52 degrees so the upper 70's-80's was warm and lovely!

We headed in to Great Billie's for another Easter egg hunt. This years picture of all the great-grand kids with Grandma minus quite a few of them. 

Showing Great Billie the eggs he found 

It was a great Easter this year as we are very blessed to have so much family to spend time with.

Gone Fishing

Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Shirley took Oliver fishing yesterday. Oliver has been looking forward to this day since before Thanksgiving time and even asked Santa for a fishing pole. We told him all winter long that once the snow melted then he could go fishing and let me tell you, he didn't ever forget that. During the winter, when his snowman was melting he said "Mommy pretty soon I can go fishing, my snowman is melting." 

Oliver was so excited Tuesday night the minute I picked him up from Daycare and told him he was going to Grandpa Chuck's tomorrow to go fishing. He grabbed his fishing pole and put it next to the door so he would remember to take it. 

They took him to a pond near Elkader after going and getting some worms.

Waiting as Grandpa put the worm on the hook. Last night when Oliver was telling me about the worms he said he didn't touch them because they were "moving" and the "snake wouldn't stay flat." We had to find some pictures of snake and worms last night for him to see the difference in them.  

Grandma said that Oliver tried casting the line into the water but it got stuck in the weeds so Grandpa was better at it.  

Waiting patiently for the fish to bite. They never did bite though as Oliver said "they were still sleeping." He got cold fast so they went home. Oliver said today that he wants to do it again when the fish are awake. 

Cabin fever is hopefully finally over!?

Okay, so I know I haven't posted in quite a bit (well like 3 months) but we've been experiencing cabin fever and have done nothing that was blog worthy. I realized when looking for pictures to add to this post that I hadn't even taken many pictures. I guess you can say that not much has changed. I'm still hanging in there and working 5 days a week so we really only have the weekends to do things which is mostly filled with laundry. We took a trip to Omaha in February for my niece and nephews birthday's but it was a very short trip. Here's an update with the very few pictures I took.

We moved Oliver into a new bigger bedroom in January. He loves his big bed because he has room for every stuffed animal he owns!

Out of all the snow we had, we really only had 2 good snows to make a snowman with and this one came in February.  

We did some spring cleaning and oiled the floors and found out that Oliver is pretty good at helping, especially with dusting, the thing I hate the most. 

We received more snow which seemed never ending. You can see the fence barely in the background there and you know how much snow we had.

We made a lot of tents for Oliver to play in or watch a movie in. 

Yesterday it was finally in the 40's so we hung our Easter eggs that Oliver and Grandma Shirley made on Oliver's tree. 

It was also nice enough to try out his new motorcycle. It is battery powered and doesn't go very fast and is pretty safe since it has training wheels. He was scared at first trying to maneuver around the vehicles but once he got on the straight-a-way there was no stopping him. He had to be reminded to steer because he was so excited. Oh that brings up another thing that happened since Christmas... we bought a new vehicle- a Dodge Durango. As Oliver says "the Jeep was too small because I am growing big." He tells the truth, it was too small.  

It is so nice to have a cemented driveway!

Hopefully Spring continues but heard the weather tonight that there is a chance of flurries later in the week. It was a bit warmer today but very windy but that didn't stop Oliver from riding his motorcycle some more. 

Advent Calendar day 24 (our family Christmas day)

Today is Christmas Eve, the day we celebrated our family Christmas since I work tomorrow. Since we had painted upstairs yesterday, it still smelled bad like paint so Oliver slept on his mattress on our bedroom floor. We all awoke around 6:45 this morning. I think Oliver forgot that it was Christmas at first because I asked him if he heard Santa last night and he said "yes" then thought about it and ran out too look under the tree. I had a monkey bread that rose overnight in the fridge that I threw in the oven quick before he tore into the presents. 

It was hard for him to wait to take a picture first but he did.

Oliver was so excited when he picked up the long present. The only thing he had asked Santa for was a fishing pole and he knew it had to be that. I captured his reaction and was so happy that I did. Watch it below. 

His fishing pole 

He was very excited about his pirate ship too

All of his presents. He received 3 from Santa because that is how many Jesus got and 3 from us. 

My poor baby doesn't understand that it is too cold today at -16 degrees this AM to go fishing. It didn't stop him from attempting to fish in the house and from asking us it seemed every hour to go fishing. Soon after this picture everything of course had to come out of the boxes to be played with. 

The rest of the morning we cleaned the house, did laundry and made food for Christmas Eve tonight at Grandpa Doerschery's and Grandma Sandy's all while Oliver played with his new toys.

As I said, we are going to my parents tonight with my sister and her family to celebrate and tomorrow, Shawn's parents plan on coming over to our house where they plan on deep frying a chicken. Thanks for following us on our 24 days of Advent activities this month. Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year.

Advent Calendar day 23

Monday, December 23rd, Shawn and I had both taken off to run a lot of errands and get things done before our Christmas on Christmas Eve. I work Christmas day so we were having our family Christmas today (the 24th). We are in the process of getting a bigger room upstairs ready for Oliver as he's getting too big for his toddler bed so we're moving him into a bigger room with a full size bed. So, yesterday we had torn off all the wallpaper and painted the room. (I only have 1 more main room in my house with wallpaper!!!!!) 

We stopped in at Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Shirley's yesterday morning and opened Christmas presents. Oliver's favorite present by far was his remote control monster truck. It didn't take him long to figure out how to use the remote and make it go. The steering part is a little more challenging for him but he does pretty well. 

Last night we then prepared for Santa to come by reading 3 books- "Grover's night before Christmas," and 2 books of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" one read by me and another that was recorded by Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Shirley.

We also set out our cookie for Santa to which Oliver chose a green frosted bell cookie that he happened to frost and of course a carrot for Santa's reindeer specifically for Comet.