Food, Clothing, Shelter: Clothing

I care. I really care. Perhaps I care too much. Perhaps I only care sometimes. But I care about clothes.

I like clothes.

I like different clothes. I like old clothes and new clothes. I grew up in thrift stores. I can honestly say my first pair of new jeans was when I was 23 years old and pregnant with my first child. I couldn't find any maternity jeans at the thrift stores. So I broke down and bought my first pair of jeans that cost over $4.99. I will remember that day for all my life. And I remember wearing them for the first time to a baby shower at Ginger's house. Ginger, who's shower was that? At your house. Early spring 2001? Any ideas? I think there were only 13 of us pregnant at the time.

Anyway, I like clothes. I really like clothes that are made really well, and will last really long, but are really, really cheap. When Claire was tiny, the babyGap in Dallas used to markdown their sale clothes to $1.99. Some friends and I made a schedule so someone would be there every day the week they were to do markdowns. And then we'd start a phone tree when it actually happened.

I realize this borders on pathetic and super-materialistic. So I'm going to show in the following pictures how far I've come from brand spanken new maternity jeans and a babyGap wardrobe for my kids.

Exhibit A.
This is what I, personally, have always referred to as the "White Trash Baby" Look. I know, it's an ugly term. But what else do you call it?! You just can't say anything nice about the saggy-dirt-stained-diaper-as-pants Look.

But this is all my daughter wore for about a day. The day after the Thunderstorm That Awoke the Dead but Not Mark, I kept putting pants on her, but they kept getting muddy, so I'd take them off and go search for another pair. Until we ran out of dry pants. So I hung them on the line to dry and then get this! Then, I put them back on her--dirty. Dry, but mud-caked.

Speaking of mud-caked. I'd like to introduce you to my son, Luke.
We did enforce that our children showered every night before bed. But this photo was taken right before we all got in the truck to come home. So it didn't even take a full day for him to get dirty.


Another thing we wore a lot were life jackets.


They didn't bother most of us. In fact, it became like second skin. With all the paddleboating and canoeing we did the kids became quite attached to them.

Except one child.

No, I'm kidding. She didn't mind the life jacket, but she didn't realize I was staying on the bank for this little excursion. And when she figured out I wasn't hopping on board, the floodgates opened.
This is her on the brink of the realization. Can you sense it? The trepidatious gaze? The "What are you doing, Mommy- Why aren't you putting your life jacket on?" wondering.
About breaks a Mommy's heart.

On to happier subjects.

Crocs.

Can't say that I've ever joined the craze, but my kids love them. And for camping trips, really there's nothing better to be wearing.
But what do you do when your Croc malfunctions during a seriously adventurous stunt with your Mom's zoom lens watching from 100 ft away.

What do you do?!!

You just finish your stunt. Pretending that the strap never broke. In fact, you enter complete denial that you have a broken shoe and you continue to wear it for over a month. Your mother asks on NUMEROUS occasions if we can cut the broken strap off of your shoe. But you insist, "No. I like it this way."

Only my son. He understands that sometimes you just care about shoes. And it's okay if nobody else does.

Food, Clothing, Shelter: Food

One time, many many many moons ago we went camping with our good friends G&E. We lived in Illinois, they lived in Texas and we were going to meet half way between in Missouri for a fun weekend of camping. G and I were both 23 and had each already been married 4 years and had no children. And we're still married to those same guys now! I know! Pretty cool, huh? (That has nothing to do with the story, I just wanted to shock and amaze you.)

So G and I gabbed on the phone for hours about what we were going to do and what we were going to eat and how long it'd take for each of us to get there and what we were going to eat and who was bringing the bug spray and what we were going to eat.

Food, when camping, is a central element. Not unlike the nucleus in a cell. It holds everything together. Ok, that's all I know about chemistry, er, I mean biology. Anyway, we had glorious plans for food. We brought umpteen different pots and pans and spatulas and spices. Boy, did we eat grand. Breakfast went on for hours. Eggs, bacon, toast, jelly, yogurt, cheese, coffee, juice. For lunch it was like a smorgasbord of meats and cheeses, breads and chips, fruit, veggies with dip. And then would come dinner. We didn't eat hotdogs warmed up on a stick over a fire. Oh no, we had steaks from Mark's parent's farm, baked potatos, vegetables steamed to al dente. My mouth is watering.

But, here's the thing. The point. Way back then with all the acoutraments of fancy food, we still topped it all off with this.

S'mores.

Becasue, s'mores, my friends are one of the best parts of camping.


And now that I've been married 13 years, and have 4 exciting kids, we're pretty much warming hotdogs over a fire.

But get this, the kid's love it!

And lunch is like a granola bar and an apple. Perhaps a cheese stick thrown in for the dairy food group.



But back to the S'mores. Because this is serious stuff. Takes concentration and serious watching.


Because you don't want blackened marshmallows.



Unless of course you want blackened marshmallows. Evidently some people like 'em.


And then some people don't care if the marshmallows are cooked or not.

Food, Clothing, Shelter: Shelter First

My husband is not that into Birthday presents, Christmas presents, Mother's Day presents, Father's Day presents, Valentine's presents (are you sensing a theme here?). He's just not very interested in giving or receiving them. So after our first Christmas together, I made it ABUNDANTLY clear that I did not want a) cereal or b) appliances for gifts.

Those are things a person needs, but not things that a person should have to redeem as presents from those they love. It's truly amazing how his gift-giving has evolved and these days he often surprises me with gifts that a girl would actually want!

But, he's still not into receiving gifts. He doesn't know what he wants, he doesn't want to put people out, he doesn't need much celebrating or doodads to feel loved and appreciated. After our first Christmas together, he made it ABUNDANTLY clear that I could skip a) fancy clothes b) sentimental picture frames and c) cologne.

So my gift giving has evolved as well. Now I buy him things our family could use and present them to him on his birthday with a bow on top for the kids to pull off.

Exhibit A

Last year for his birthday Mark received a tent. :) This was our first chance to use it.


And really, even though you'll see a lot of RV's in the background of the next few posts, don't feel sorry for us. We were fine in our new tent. Just the 6 of us. Huddled under a grove of trees. During a a very windy thunderstorm. But that's for another post.

So here's the gang trying to put up a tent.

Without looking at the directions. Of course. Who needs 'em?!

Looks like Caleb's hoping someone is going to figure it out soon.

But Luke has discovered the pole job is definitely the funnest.


Here, Claire is trying to get the boys to help her, but not actually participate in putting the poles through the sleeve. The person who stands on the other end pulling the sleeve taught is definitely in an inferior position. Nobody wants that job.


Lydia ran circles around everybody trying to help with something. She'd pull on the wall, till someone shouted, "Lydia, no". Then she'd run around and mess with the zippers till someone shouted, "Lydia, no." Then she'd move on to trying to pull out a pole someone had just put in, until someone shouted ...well you get the picture.

Finally there was something Lydia could help with. Pulling the rain fly tight and putting in stakes. Now here's a job that' s right down at her level.

And I will stop the commentary here and just let you enjoy how that went.

A Camping We Went

Last month we went camping. We LOVE camping, but hadn't been since the twins were 2! This week I will show you just how fun it was. With daily (probably not, but here's to hoping) samplings of the 392 pictures I took in 3 days.


All great Robinson Family Adventures start with chaos. This trip was no different. Mark packed our Suburban in the POURING DOWN RAIN. Some would say that's not the smartest way to start a camping trip... but pack us he did. As a woman who values sacrifice and people who do hard things to bless other people, I was watching out my kitchen window falling more in love with every huge raindrop that fell on his head. (dramatic swoon)

By the time everything was packed, the rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, and with the help of the exposure meter on my camera it looks almost sunny outside.

We were packed pretty tight.

Really tight.


God truly showed his vast mercy to us that day, for when we arrived at our camping spot, the rain had ended and there were, indeed, sunny skies.

To be continued . . .