3rd Annual Backyard Campout

Saturday night we had our 3rd annual backyard campout. We followed in the tradition of dads and kids sleeping out in tents and Moms and little ones in the houses. It poured down rain right at 3:00 when we were planning on starting the party, but the rain moved out quickly and the rest of the night was perfect weather. It was a race to see who could get their tents up first.

Brendan working on his tent.

Brett and Maddi working on their tent.

The Heimbuch's joined in the camping this year too. They've always come over but never stayed the night.

The little kids weren't much help, so they stayed out of the way and enjoyed the swings.

The McDonald's making some progress on their tent...

...the Ball's with not much progress yet.

The Heimbuch's are the winners. Dave just bought the tent and the sales guy said it was one minute set up and I'm not sure that it was a minute, but it was really fast. Guess they've made some improvements in tents over the years. We got our tent 13 years ago for our wedding.

Time to eat our traditional campout dinner of pizza! Ellie and Emma thought they were so big sitting at the bar. Those girls are so adorable together!

The bigger kids eating their pizza.

Someone was very tired after dinner. We have been so incredibly busy the last few weeks and baby girl was worn out.

We managed to get a smile out of her! She went to bed pretty much right after this picture.

Little Dawson is 10 months old. It was his first campout! He is such a cutie and so happy. Ellie was loving all over Dawson.

Cocoa and her best friend/worst enemy "Molly".

Dawson found his way into the toy box.

Brendan and Dave...

...Anne and Rebecca.

Time for a talent show.

Cade was first with some yo-yo tricks.

Then he got silly with the "creepy" boy baby doll.

He got a little crazy with the baby and found himself in time out :(

Maddi finishing a front handspring.

Grace doing a back handspring.

Grace and Maddi enjoying their ice cream. Maddi has been having a hard time with the fact that the Balls are moving at the end of the month. She has been working on writing a song for them. It's a very catchy song and so very sweet.

The whole crew minus sleeping Emalyn enjoying ice cream. Cade had already inhaled his ice cream and tried to get some more just for the picture. Nice try anyway.

We also had our traditional microwaved smores and burned off some sugar jumping on the trampoline.

Time for glow sticks. We ended up moving the party in the house because the bugs were getting pretty bad. I think everyone was in the tents by 11:00pm. Rebecca and Dawson stayed in our house with Emalyn and I and Anne was at home with Ellie and Andrew. Everyone stayed the night out in the tents. Jack woke up at 5:45 a.m. and started jumping on the trampoline. Everyone else in the tents woke up shortly after that except Maddi girl. She slept until after 7:30 a.m. We were all eating breakfast (donuts and breakfast casserole) at that time and we all saw her wake up and come out of the tent. It was soooo cute and funny. She popped out of the tent and looked around like "Hey guys. I'm up. Guys. Where is everyone?" She saw us all sitting at the kitchen table watching her and she joined us with donuts.

Emalyn and Ellie joined in the fun and even had a juice box of their own. It was a very successful campout! The Heimbuch's went home after 9:00 a.m. and then we all showered up.

We had tickets from Brett's work to the 1:00 p.m. White Sox game. This is our only picture from Brett's phone from the game. It was kids day and they gave away free jerseys. We had a great time at the game even though they lost. It was an early bedtime for everyone to rest up from the busy weekend and to prepare for our busy week ahead!