Beauty and the Beast

Well, I finally have a few things to blog about, and blogger has been giving me fits by not allowing me to upload any photos. I am way behind on my posting. Anyway, we have been in Missouri for the last week enjoying a few mini adventures. Our first of which was a visit the to The Muny. We came last year to see Annie and had such a great time, we thought we'd come again this year to see Beauty and the Beast. It was a great night out with all the girls in the family. The Muny is an outdoor theater in St. Louis, and it was a steamy night, but we survived . It's not very often that we are all together, let alone able to coordinate a night out! The clan minus me

Me and my girls

My sister-in-law Kesha, me and my sister Erin (also known as Brooke).

Correction

You may not actually care about this, but I just noticed that a few posts ago I posted about exercise and I spelled it incorrectly (excercise rather than exercise) in the title as well as in the post. I made the correction, but I feel stupid and hate making those kinds of mistakes. In the future, please feel free to comment about my ignorance. I apparently don't get around to exercising much...

Music in the Park

The final Music in the park was Tuesday night, and we desperately needed to get out of the house and spend some time together. We had a great time and even managed to find a spot in the shade that provided some relief from the crazy heat we've been having around here. One thing I really like about where we live is that it is a decent size city with a little bit of a small town feel. Anytime we go out we generally run into someone we know either from church or school. Tuesday was no exception, we ran into some of the girls' friends from church and they had a great time playing frisbee, running around, trading zany bands and devouring some free ice cream!

Belated Father's Day

Father's Day weekend happened to be a very busy one for us, and I'm a little behind on my posting. Unfortunately, this is the best picture I got of the kids and their dad on Father's Day. The girls insisted on making Kevin breakfast in bed and talked to him about it the night before. They asked him what he wanted and then settled for what they were actually able to make themselves. It was pretty sweet. They were up early and ecstatic about making breakfast. However, after they dropped off his breakfast in bed, they requested that I bring them their breakfast in bed as well. I had mentioned several times that we needed to get something for Kevin for Father's Day, and the girls were very offended that I had forgotten about the chapter book that they had written him a month earlier. That was going to be their gift, no questions asked. Lucky Kevin:) Anyway, Skylar informed me that she was writing a chapter book for him because "a lot of times he likes to read chapter books when he' s in the bathroom." How thoughtful! We love you!

It's a Good Thing He's Cute...

Because this boy that happened to turn 9 months old today has turned my world upside down! I love him to death, but he is giving me a run for my money. NEWSFLASH....For those of you that didn't know, this baby stuff is hard work. You'd think I'd never had children before, huh? I'm beginning to think maybe I'm too old for this...Anyway, as I said, he's nine months old, and is all over the place. He finally got his first couple of teeth, he squirms like crazy which makes it rather difficult to change his diaper and get him dressed, he loves seeing familiar faces, he has become quite playful and enjoys his toys and playing with his sisters. He has a belly laugh that is sure to make you giggle too, he has become rather fond of eating; his favorite currently is toast, he likes the water, he likes to play in the grass, and everything goes into his mouth. He DOES NOT like to shop, so we'll have to work on that one! He really likes it when he has his parents all to himself after his sisters have gone to bed. Most of the time he beats them to bed, but on the occassion that he stays up later, he soaks up the attention. He is a pretty good sport about being wrangled around by his sisters, one in particular. Overall, he has a pretty calm demeanor, laughs and smiles a lot, and is a lot of fun to be around. Happy 9 months Lincoln! We love you!

Multi-tasking...

Father/Daughter Banquet

Saturday evening we had a red carpet themed father/daughter banquet at our church. Kevin read the book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters a while back and wanted to do something special to honor the father daughter relationship and decided on the idea of this banquet. It was fun to plan and thanks to several wonderful people, I think it was a success. There was a great turnout. The girls all looked beautiful and felt special getting to have a date with their dads. It was neat seeing fathers and daughters from all age ranges share this special evening. They had appetizers, dinner, and everyone enjoyed filling up a bag of candy from the candy bar. Faith, Tara, Heather, Kendra and Saundra, thank you SO much for all of your help! This is the border that my friend Heather made for the souvenir photos. Perfect I think! Thanks Heather.

Kevin and the girls on the red carpet before the evening began.

Londyn acting a little giddy waiting for everyone to arrive.

Skylar in rare form. This is one of the many poses she struck as she enjoyed her moment on the red carpet!

The girls writing their letters and drawing pictures for their dad.

I Scream, You Scream...

We all scream for ICE CREAM! We made a visit to the Blue Bell Factory last week to see how ice cream is made, and to sample some of their delicious ice cream! You weren't actually allowed to take pictures inside the factory, so here are a few pics of us in our goofy hats doing a little taste testing!

Lincoln and Brody along for the ride. They weren't too interested in the making of the ice cream.

Lincoln is not super keen on fruits and veggies, but the boy loves ice cream! I anticipate that he will have a sweet tooth just like his big sisters.

The girls and their buddy Gavin on their favorite part of the tour.

Drillers Baseball

Kevin was able to get some free tickets to the baseball game last week, so we attempted a trip to the ball park. The Drillers have a new stadium this year, so we thought we needed to check it out. And of course, summer wouldn't be complete without attending a baseball game. Maybe we showed up two hours late, and maybe it started storming thirty minutes after our arrival, but we got a few pics of us at the ball field, which is what it's all about anyway, right? We'll have to try to actually see a game later this summer.

DIY

No, this is not some cute Do It Yourself home project. I wish I had the creativity to actually try something like that, but I just don't have it in me. Anyway, when I think of Do It Yourself it's more like; You want breakfast? Do It Yourself! The girls are becoming more self sufficient everyday, and I'm loving it. Not only are they able to take on more tasks for themselves, but they ENJOY it, and are so proud of themselves. The other morning, they made themselves a waffle breakfast without any help from me, and had a pretty good time while they were at it.

Exercise

I was desperate for a walking partner so I told the girls to go get dressed for a walk. I was going to the reservoir, which is about a 3 mile walk, so I told them to make sure they had on shoes and socks. This is how they looked when they came downstairs. I'm not sure what decade they think we are in, but they were pretty excited about exercising.

Annual Visit to the Drive-In Movies

We had planned to go camping last weekend, but rain was in the forecast, so we opted out. It never actually rained, so we decided to go to the Drive-In movies instead. The girls were again ecstatic. I however do not recommend taking an 8 month old to the late movie. I knew this going in, but did it anyway. We all still managed to enjoy a night out together in the nice weather.

Why my girls decided to pose for me and want their pictures taken as we were dressed in rags and at the movies is beyond me, but I'll take what I can get.

A giant box of candy for everyone.

Don't Judge

There are so many things wrong here....

The Zoo...Again

Well, we haven't been for a while, but I do recall several zoo posts. We went to the zoo for a weekly play date with our church group yesterday. It turned out to be a perfect day as far as the weather was concerned. It was plenty warm with a bit of a breeze. We saw a few of the animals, enjoyed a picnic lunch and then headed home. It was great to get out a bit, and Lincoln was a trooper. He never gave in to a nap while we were out, but he just hung out and took in the sights along the way.

The monkeys were putting on quite a show. They were apparently enjoying all of the attention. It was hard to pull the girls away.