Celebrate!

 

We had a lot of celebrating to do on our most recent visit to St. Louis. We arrived in town just in time for Tim's (29th - yikes!) birthday.

We had lunch at my Grandma's house with all the little kids (minus Lexi, who was at her last day of preschool). Not even sure if the Cards played that day, but this was a cute photo op...

 

The kids always love playing with Gigi's toys.

 

We celebrated with Tim for dinner before he went to the big futbol game at Busch Stadium and we went to Ted Drewes. Yum.

The next day was my cousin Paul's wedding. The children didn't go, so of course I took literally no pictures (it was beautiful and fun and I really regret that), but we did go to Grant's Farm with the kids between the wedding and reception.

 

The next day we had a little celebration for my Great Aunt Esther's 80th birthday. It was fun but incredibly chaotic to have everyone, especially all the little kids, over to Tim and Krissi's. She's been walking for awhile now, but Danielle had fun crawling after Miles.

 

The last time Ambie and I saw each other, these little ones were still in our bellies. 

 

We decided to see just how far we could stretch the kids and took them to the zoo on our last morning there. It was a beautiful day and we saw lots of animals in a short time.

 

 

 
We've created a monster with this whole "dress the girls alike" thing. There is major drama if they aren't matching when they're together now.

The new baby elephant might be one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

This chimpanzee (I think?) kept approaching Miles after I took the picture and he burst into tears. It was pretty cute.

The carousel. Why do kids find those things so exciting?

 

It's always so fun for the kids to be together. 90% of the time they're like this:

Although the other 10%, they're like this (this photo was posed, but seriously, this look happens. A fair amount.):

 

We finished the visit with celebrating Erica and Baby Aubrey. We can't wait to meet her! (Again, this photo distortion is evidence of my lack of technological skills and /or desire to develop/improve them.)

The Recital

Brooke had her first ballet recital on Saturday. She's been going to ballet class once a week since January and has loved it. As I mentioned before, her cousins came up to see her big debut.

She really needs to stop growing up.

I was one of the "volunteer parents" who sat backstage with the kids. The twenty, three and four-year-old girls. In a 12x12 room. With just coloring sheets to keep them busy. I probably won't be doing that again.

Family pic after the show.

Brooke did a pretty good job, and of course looked adorable, which is all that really matters. I think her positioning between the two girls who really didn't know the dance made her look a little better. The videos that I took were shaky because I was literally laughing the whole time.The hilarious video that I wanted to post is too big to put on the blog. I'll ask around, or if anyone reading this knows how I can get it on here, let me know. This was the last few seconds they were on stage. The Grand Finale, if you will?

May

Our month so far has been busy and fun. Full of dates with Grandpa.

And Zach. Man, I hope they get married. We'd have the most fun family gatherings ever.

 

And birthday parties. They got to check out a fire engine at Tye's party.

They've also gotten better at *kind of* playing together. Or at least doing things side-by-side.

Here's Brooke modeling her Rapunzel wig that she earned for going poo-poo on the potty. (Yes, we're still working on that. The problem is that she usually goes when she's asleep. Cutting back on afternoon naps seems to be helping. Let's be honest, I'm trying to avoid her pooping her pants in college at this point.) I kind of like the wig, too, since neither of us will ever have hair that long.

Instead, this is what her hair looked like when I tried to put it in a "ballerina bun" for her dance recital. Matt compared it to Joakim Noah's hair. I'm not sure if this is more of a commentary on the hair or the hair stylist.

 

And while we're on the subject of hair, with the recent heat and humidity, Little Big Boy's hair has gotten quite curly, giving him some sweet wings behind his ears. I wonder if his hair will stay curly? I hope so.

Crazy Weekend

My mom, Krissi and the kids came up this past weekend for Brooke's ballet recital (more on that in a later post). Of course, we also managed to squeeze in church (the girls' Sunday School taught by yours truly), a trip to the Taste of Glen Ellyn, an Ikea visit (while Matt watched all four kids!), dinner out and lots of play time.

The girls actually rode a couple of rides alone at the Taste.

Poor Luke slept through the whole thing.

Either I'm getting old, or that was the fastest carousel I've ever been on. I was not a fan.

 

We're going to squeeze them all in the same tub for as long as we can. 

We've created monsters by putting the girls in matching outfits. Now they're really upset if they're together and their outfits DON'T match.

Look at those cuties. Thanks again for visiting, guys! See you soon!

The Arboretum

 

Since we've moved here, I've been to the Morton Arboretum several times with friends (I miss you, Beth!) and always had a great time, so this year I decided it was worth buying a family pass. We've only had it a few weeks, but I'm going to go ahead and say I was right. We've already been twice (once as a family and once when my parents came up) and the kids have had a great time both times.

Yes, we do spend most of our time at the water features, but my children (Brooke, at least) are creatures of habit - much like their parents - and know what they like.

 

The Arboretum tends to draw a rather "earthy" group who I'm guessing were torn between applauding my decision to let Miles play in the water without his clothes and turning up their noses at my use of disposable diapers.

I love the varying expressions on our faces in this shot. Seriously, what was going on behind the camera?!?

Maybe next time we'll got some shots out of the water. Maybe not. 

Sunday Funday

Jamie took Brooke out yesterday for a few hours. Brooke was so excited to go with her. She had her purse all packed and told her friends at church that she was going to lunch with Aunt Jamie and going to meet Will's doggies.

They had an authentic Cinco de Mayo lunch at Chipotle then spent some time at the playground. She had a blast! I'll let the pictures Jamie took speak for themselves.

I guess she actually requested to come home because she was tired, then when she got home at 5, asked if she was going to take a nap. Gotta love a kid worn out from too much fun! Thanks again, Aunt Jamie and Will!

Trouble

This guy.

Really, in the grand scheme, he's easy, but he's definitely reached a bit of a mischievous stage. And I'm kind of loving it. (And yes, *we* were watching Project Runway. I couldn't figure out how to edit Heidi Klum's face from that shot. I also love that he's too young to have opinions about what's on the television.)

He's pulling up all over the place, and cruising a little along furniture. He really likes music and books.

And irritating his sister. He loves messing with the cable receiver when she's watching her shows. Also, he really does have more than 2 shirts. He just happened to be wearing this shirt on a couple of days when I took a bunch of pics.

Oh, and there's this. I was in the kitchen the other day and noticed that the grunting that he typically uses for communication was sounding further away, so I went in to take a quick peek and he was a couple of stairs up. It's now one of his favorite things to do around the house and makes him so proud. With a face like that, how can I say no?