Part 2 of a VERY long update!

Napping 2 year old equals a little time to update!  So, here’s part 2…

A Day at the Zoo

Cammie’s kids had a long weekend for spring break (Friday and Monday off at the end of March), so on Monday we decided to go to the zoo!  It was a beautiful day, and perfect zoo weather.  It wasn’t blazing hot like it is when we go in the summer, it was actually cool enough for a light jacket.  This also meant we saw a lot more of the animals.

Get ready for a day of PICTURES at the zoo, not just a day at the zoo!  Our kids are pretty much programmed to say cheese at a moment’s notice!  They rock!  It helped that it wasn’t crowded at all, so we could stop and take a TON of pictures.
These were the cutest little bears.  And they were so active, we watched for a while!
Steve liked to wave at the bears, it was so funny!  He kept waving and saying hi!
The cheetah (or maybe this is a jaguar?  the kids would know!) was up close and personal.  Very exciting!
Yet another picture!
One more in front of the camel…only Steve was scared to sit on the fence!
Dan was there too!
We were all excited that the daddy lion was actually out!  Steve kept roaring at him!
Sistas!
The log that every kid always has to climb through…I don’t know what it is about a hollow log that is so attractive!  But they’re so darn cute!
cousins!  See, they are SO good at this picture thing!
My handsome Steve.
The whole gang outside the zoo at the end of our day!

Oh, but adventure did not stop there!  Cammie and I like to maximize any trip into St. Louis, and we needed some things for our business, so we dragged the kids all over the city (thanks to the GPS finding the best routes through places we’d never been!).  They were very patient and Cammie and I had some great laughs!

 

Purina Farms

For those of you who are not aware, St. Louis is such an awesome city!  There are TONS of free things to do, like the zoo, but also this place called Purina Farms.  It’s a farm that has normal farm animals, but also trains dogs.  So they put on a dog show a couple times a day that is very entertaining.  Did I mention it was free too!  What is even cooler, is the week or two before Easter they do a whole baby animal thing that is way cute.  So, a big ole group of us an our kids decided to take a little trip to this farm.  It was so fun!  It was my first time going, and I will definitely go back.  First things first, pictures with the Easter Bunny!  (I have more picture of the kiddos with the Easter Bunny than Santa!)
Then we headed out to the dog show.  Here’s our group!  We have such fun people here to hang with!
Buddies, Tal and Steve…loving every minute of the dog show!

The dog show was too cool!  It’s amazing what they can train a do to do!  The favorite was catching the frisbee into the pool!  The dogs were good too!
   All the kids (left to right): Tal, Steve, Ali, Trey, Cooper, Campbell, Emma, Madeleine, and Allie.Petting the baby bunny.  Steve got in trouble because he tried to poke it’s eyes!  Typical boy!
Who knows!  I just think this is cute!

There’s this cool barn that all the farm animals are in that has a tunnel maze and rope swings for the kids to play.  It was a cool place!

Moral of the story…if anyone ever thought Missouri was a bad vacation destination, you are wrong!  If you come visit us, we can take you to all kinds of cool places, most of which are FREE!

Easter with Gramma Kathy

I know I say this a lot, but I love living around family!  Gramma Kathy loves to do these Easter nests for the grandkids every Easter, so after spending the morning at Purina Farms, we headed over to Gramma’s house for an Easter egg hunt and Easter nests.  Apparently, she grew up getting an Easter nest instead of an Easter basket, so she decided to carry on the tradition with her local grandkids!  Miriam came down with her 3 kids, and we had a ton of fun and got some super cute pics!

Steve actually got the whole idea of finding the eggs.  Especially when he realized they had candy inside!

Steve with his nest.  He got an awesome bubble set, that he and Ali immediately had to start playing with, markers and crayons, some fun bouncy balls, a pad of paper to color on, and raisons.  I swear he will only eat raisons from Gramma!
Here’s the whole bunch!  We took like 20 pictures with out baby Dan, but I was sad that he was sleeping through all the fun, so I woke him up and make the kids take a few more!  What troopers!
Baby cousins!  These two are only a month apart!  So fun and so cute!
Like I said, the bubbles were opened and pretty much used up in about 5 minutes!  My sweet baby Dan!  I love this kid!I love these kids! (Sometimes I still can’t believe I have kidS!)
   For real mom, ANOTHER picture!

Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!  I am so thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and grateful that He made it possible for all of us to live again.

(I bet you thought that this overly long post would catch us up to date…but you are wrong!  There’s still more to come!)

Part 1 of a VERY over due update…

So, I finally had a few minutes to actually sit down and take a breath, when I realized just how behind I am in updating this blog!  It’s really only been a little over 3 weeks since my last post, but a TON has happened since then!  We’ve been busy, so sit back and get ready for a monster update!

YMCA Event
Every year our YMCA puts on this Family Fun Fair on a Saturday in March.  Since March is always tax season, Cammie and I find lots of things to occupy our time…and this was perfect.  We went last year, and it was pretty much the same, but it was still fun.  Jer and Briggs felt a little old. but Steve and Ali had fun!

 
Steve was obsessed with the gymnastics/tumble station.  He got so comfortable that he started rearranging everything!

A very happy boy!

Ali joined in on the fun too.
 
Dan is such a happy baby!  He’s so good to be carted around to all the stuff we do!
 
This picture says everything about the relationship these boys have!  They are best buddies!  Jer and Briggs take such good care of Steve.  Here, they are watching a theater group telling and acting out a story.  For one of the stories Briggs was a volunteer actor!  He did great!

Washington Easter Egg Hunt (If that’s what you can even call it!) 
Another tax season activity Cammie and I discovered this year was the city Easter Egg hunt.  We were super excited to take the kids.  However, first of all, it was FREEZING!  We’d been having some hints of spring, and then on this one day it was sooo cold!  Secondly, we got there right as it was about to start.  They had it divided into age groups and the youngest (Steve and Ali’s group) got to go first.  They literally roped off a square that was the 1-3 year olds square of grass that had a bunch of eggs thrown out on it.  All the kids (and parents) lined up and when they said go everyone took off and picked up as many eggs as possible.  Apparently, there was a limit, but I don’t think anyone stuck to it!  Steve ended up with 2 eggs, and then Jer shared 1 with him!  Then it was the big kids turn and it was the same thing.  Cammie and I thought it was totally lame, and not worth freezing our butts off!  Except that Briggs got an egg with a secret prize paper that he got to redeem and get a big Easter basket.  As we were about to leave (10 minutes after we got there, seriously) we noticed the Easter bunny and waited to take a picture with him.  So, not the best day, but the kids had a little fun!

Steve tried to steal one of Ali’s Easter eggs!  Go figure!

The kiddos and their loot.

Don’t forget baby Dan!  He was attached to me, otherwise I would have stayed behind the camera!

Cheesin it up with the Easter Bunny!

Me and my kiddos with the bunny.

Happy Birthday Jesse!

I mentioned before that Jesse’s birthday is the same day as my brother’s.  I wanted to wait and do his birthday post when I had the pictures, so it’s way late!  But, Happy Birthday to a sweet, kind, loving, wonderful, amazing, husband and father.  I am so glad I have a hubby like you!

Jesse wanted to keep it simple this year, so he and I went on a date Saturday (making sure to be home in time for fight night!).  We ate at Outback (yum!) and went shopping.  Then, after church on Sunday (Jesse’s actual birthday), the fam all came over for lunch and cake.  Jesse requested Cafe Rio burritos, Texas Caviar, and Texas sheet cake.  Maybe Jesse would like living in Texas?!  It was nice spending time with family, we have a great fam! 

Ok, this isn’t even half of what I have to update…but I promise more is coming!