St. Louis!

An institute day in our school district happened to coincide with my mom's birthday last weekend, so we made the trip down to St. Louis. It had been a couple of months and we were all happy to see everyone. On our first night, Uncle Tim treated the kids to a little science experiment. I wasn't paying attention, but it was something involving pennies in a cup of water and it kept them all on the edge of their seats, so I was impressed.

Then we went to see Uncle Joel and Jen's volleyball game. We definitely had the only kids there. The kids didn't seem to mind.

The next day, we went to one of our favorite places in St. Louis - the zoo. Brooke and Lexi took their notebooks and legitimately did writings/drawings of the stuff we were observing. It was pretty cute.

Trouble.

Love.

Of course we had to ride the train. A highlight was the girls and Luke sitting in the back and getting to take turns saying, "All aboard!" into the loudspeaker.

My grandparents took us to a pizza place where my grandpa spent way too much money on tokens for the kids to play arcade games. Want to guess which Claw game was easiest?

This girl. How can you not smile? Seriously THE most easygoing baby ever.

Paige loves her baby cousins. The problem is, the line between her kissing and biting is blurred and she now has a bunch of teeth. Poor Grace. Bri should probably watch her back, too.

Speaking of Paige, she can be pretty photogenic when she'll be bothered with smiling for you.

We took lunch to Uncle Joel.

We also went to the carnival at the church by my parents' house.

The ferris wheel felt much less safe than I'd expected. Probably because I was rocking the car so much with my awkward selfie attempts.

The roller coaster was their favorite ride. Their faces were priceless.

We also wasted money on spent some time at the games.

Brooke actually had a pretty decent shot. She won a couple of stuffed animals and was happy that the guy running the game called her Annie Oakley, even though she had no idea what he meant by it.

We finished the visit with a birthday dinner for my mom, and unfortunately this is the only photo I have of that night.

Happy birthday, Mom! We love you!