Curious George visits the Magic House!

We love the Magic House in Saint Louis. We really love having a membership to go whenever we want! And we REALLY love that we can get other adults and kids in with our membership for free! Auntie Megan had a free day to go with us this time. It's such a treat that she and Matt live in Saint Louis this year so that we get to see them often! We are sure going to be sad when they get their call later this year!...

So we had to go to the Magic House before the end of the month because Evan hadn't gotten to see the Curious George exhibit yet! Here are some pictures of our fun time together:

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Picnics in the Park

We love summers in Saint Louis! And we love spending Daddy's day off taking a picnic in Forest Park! With all of the traveling we did last month, we are absolutely SICK of eating out, so taking a picnic lunch is a perfect way to get out and still have a special meal together. Here are some pictures from one of our picnics. More pictures can be seen here.

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Zoo Fun...and the Elephant Song

Last Friday, Jon took one of our small group leaders, Justin, to a youth leader's luncheon to learn about the upcoming Christian concerts at Six Flags this summer. While they were there, I stayed back at Justin's house with his daughter, Cora, and our kiddos. It was an interesting adventure that reminded me that I'm not quite ready for three kids yet. I feel like I still haven't gotten the hang of having 2 yet! yikes! No major crises...just a lot of work watching three all under the age of 2! :)

After they got back from the luncheon, we took all the kids to the zoo. It was a beautiful afternoon--perfect for a walk! :) Evan and Cora both wore the same kind of shoes--it was too cute! And this time, they both got to walk the zoo (well, except for times when they were getting shoulder rides from their dads). We got to see a lot of animals...tigers, rhinos, gorillas, orangutans, takins, zebras, camels, giraffes...but no elephants or hippos. 

And actually, there's a funny story about those elephants we didn't see...It was nearly closing time, but on our way out we wanted to walk through the River's Edge path to see the elephants, so we hustled through with kids on shoulders to see the elephants before we had to leave. We made it to the elephant display in time, but as luck would have it, no elephants were out. The only thing we saw in the elephant display was big piles of elephant poop. At this point in time, Cora was on Jon's shoulders. She decided to make up her own song. And she wanted Jon to sing along. "Ellll-e-phant!" she kept singing over and over. In between "elephants," Jon would add various beats as if he were some kind of human drum (or rapper...). Soon that beat turned into "poop!" and a new song was born. "Ellll-e-phant!" POOP! We couldn't get Cora and Evan to stop singing it the entire way to the restaurant after the zoo. We captured this precious song on our camera's video. I will try hard to learn how to put that up here. :)

Needless to say, we had a blast. Here are some pictures from our trip to the zoo. Make sure you check out the rest of the pictures on my facebook album here.

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Weekend Fun with the B Family

Last weekend we were thrilled that our friends Phil and Bethany and their daughter, Lily, came down to Saint Louis to meet our little Haven and hang out with us. We certainly thought that we'd be in a house by now and able to give them a room, but since that wasn't the case, they got a hotel room in Saint Louis, which in itself provided a much welcomed "vacation" for both of our families. :)

Saturday morning Jon had a mini youth conference for our small group leaders, so Evan, Haven, and I headed up to their hotel to hang out. By the time we got there, Evan and Lily both needed a nap, so while they slept, Bethany and I got a chance to catch up. It was so wonderful to be conversing in person with an amazing woman of God who renews my spirit! Thank you so much, Bethany!! I love you!!

After Jon was done with his conference, he met us at the hotel and then we all headed over to the Magic House for some toddler fun. At our last visit we became members so we were all able to get in without paying extra. Nice! :) The kids had a blast--so much to do with so little time! They hit the sand, the giant Lego blocks, the indoor playground, the unique musical instruments, the bubble room, and the Fairy Tale display room to name a few places. You'll notice in the pictures that they didn't get to visit the static ball. We were disappointed to learn that it was shut down for repairs. Bummer! :( I guess they'll have to come back again for another experience... :)

Sunday they joined us for church in our multisite in Columbia, IL. After church we went out for a fantastic lunch at Olive Garden, then headed back to the hotel for afternoon naps and some swimming. Evan was a bit hesitant to get into the pool, but after some gentle convincing with toys (that just happened to be 2 disposable coffee cups from the hotel-ha!), he got in and remembered how much he loves being in the water. :)

We had such a fantastic time...can't wait to see them again later this year!! :)

Here and here are some pictures from our weekend together. Enjoy!

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Magic House

Friday Jon's mom and dad came into town...since there was no baby girl to visit, we decided to take Evan on his first trip to the Magic House Children's Museum. I wasn't sure what to expect since it had been YEARS since I had been there myself (probably on a field trip when I was in grade school...). 

Evan was in seventh heaven. It had WAY more stuff for him to do than the Children's Museum that we loved so much in Minnesota! And we didn't even visit everything! :) The theme for the day happened to be balls...so many exhibits used them, and he visited every one! Balls that made music, balls that took maze trips, balls that floated in the air, balls that he could bounce in, balls that he could throw...he was one happy camper! :)

...except when it came time to do the one thing that mommy actually remembered from her childhood--the static ball that makes your hair stand up. Mommy held Evan, but he wasn't impressed in the least. I'm pretty sure he would have started balling if we had stayed for one more picture. Bummer. Maybe next time he'll like it a little bit better...

We were SO impressed (it had nearly tripled in size since I had last been there) that we bought a year pass for Evan (it ended up being just about twice what our bill for one day with Grandma and Grandpa was going to be). We're slightly restricted to 10 visits during the summers and weekends throughout the year, but we can get in with up to four kids and two other adults. We can't wait to take Evan's friend Lily!! We hope we have time to go there when they come down to visit Evan's little sister later this year! :)

Enjoy some pictures, but be sure to check out the rest of them here! :)

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Evan's First Trip to the STL Science Center

Fridays are Jon's day off and our chance to have a bit of family fun. We had a great day today! Oberweiss (a milk company) had a free coffee Friday (and I actually got to drink it since the coffee flavor wasn't very strong...my first coffee in almost 9 months! yippee!), we had a nearly free lunch at Panera's (thanks to a gift certificate from the church as a thank you for being a small group leader), we stopped in at Gus's Pretzels (YUM!) for a snack, and then we took Evan to the Science Center so he could run off a bit of energy (he's been cooped up in the house the last couple of days because it's been so cold...negative windchill factor in Saint Louis!).

I will admit that the free admissioned Saint Louis Science Center isn't quite as much fun for a toddler as the Children's Museum in Minneapolis, but Evan still managed to run around enough to tucker himself out by the end of the afternoon. :) He really enjoyed knocking over the blocks used to build an arch, checking out the veins in his arm, peering through a glass floor at the road below, making the gears spin, putting a puzzle together, flying a little airplane, and seeing the dinosaur, but most of all, he enjoyed pushing the buttons for the elevator. :)

Evan didn't last long after we left the science museum. But Mom was probably just as tired as Evan! We are cherishing our time with Evan before Baby Girl gets here! :)

Mommy helps Evan use the microscope

Ah! Where did Evan's body go?!...

Evan enjoyed making the train go...backwards!

Evan helped Daddy rebuild the arch

Evan enjoyed looking through the glass floor...

I love my boys! :)

For more pictures, view the album here.

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Evan's First Playdate: A Trip to the Zoo with Justin and Cora

Fridays are Jon's day off, our time to get away from Red Bud to spend time together as a family. This Friday was also a rare day off for our new friend from church, Justin (he's also our trusty Verizon guy!) and his 2 1/2 yr old daughter Cora. We are so blessed to have so many friends at our new church that have kids Evan's age that he can play with...we are already noticing a change in the way he's willing to play with others, learning to share, and being prepared to have a little sister really soon!

Cora is adorable. She's 5 months older than Evan with an incredible vocabulary. She knows all her animals (including hippopotamus and rhinoceros, which she can say with ease), she speaks in complete sentences, and she's very intuned to what's going on...It's absolutely adorable hearing those kinds of things coming out of the mouth of someone who is so small...and it makes me excited for a time when we'll actually understand everything that's coming out of Evan's mouth. I think my favorite Cora quote from yesterday was when she saw Evan, sitting on his daddy's shoulders, being bounced around like mad, she looked at him and said, "Evan, you're crazy!"
Well, once Evan was on daddy's shoulders, Cora wanted on her daddy's shoulders too. So we ended up folding up her stroller and pushing it in ours so the daddy's could be on kiddo duty. We walked the entire zoo (outside stuff only) in about 2 1/2 hours (which is exhausting for a preggo lady!). Some highlights of our zoo visit include:

• Evan and Cora holding hands and walking together, huging and giving kisses, and saying "cheese!" to smile for the camera (then making sure the other one was smiling too)
• Hearing Cora say "I wanna hold you" which really meant that she wanted you to hold her...
  Feeding the giraffes some leaves! Both Evan and Cora got to do it! They were pretty impressed!
• Watching the hippos (or the fish in Evan's case)
• Seeing the silly orangutan hiding under the blanket (he didn't come out from under the blankie while we were there, though...)
• Getting our pictures taken by Phil, the brass gorilla (it's a zoo tradition!)
• At lunch: The kiddos got tiny icecream cones (we ate at Sweet Tomatoes)...Cora left the icecream cone for a bowl full of sprinkles. Jon: "Cora, are those your magic fairy dust?" Cora: "No, they give me energy!" ha! it was funny! :)
  Here are some pictures from our adventure. Enjoy the rest of them here.

The traditional zoo picture on Phil...

Shoulder Switch!

Feeding the giraffes

Say Cheese!

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Apple Pickin' at Eckert's Farm

Friday on Jon's day off we took a fun family day to pick apples at Eckert's Farm in Belleville, IL. It wasn't quite the experience we had picking apples at Eckert's in Grafton, IL (it's a beautiful drive up the Mississippi River) or the experience we had picking apples at Minnesota Harvest in Jordan, MN (there were SO many apples to choose from!), but we made the best out of it. The orchard we visited looked like it had been hit pretty hard by the remnants of Gustav that hit St Louis a few weeks ago. They had a lot of trees and apples down (which makes it pretty stinky!). But we got to pick an apple we had never tried before--the Suncrisp. They are HUGE apples, and quite possibly my new favorite! :) Evan really enjoyed taking a tractor ride out to the orchard, but his favorite part was eating the apples. We had to work really hard to convince him to put our test apple down long enough to get some pictures of him picking! :) (But here's a good thing for all you moms out there to know...apparently, apples give kiddos gas! poor Evan suffered the rest of the day!) Enjoy some pictures from our festivities! To see the rest of the album, click here.

Evan thought the pumpkins made pretty cool drums...

There were a few apples at his level that Evan could pick on his own.

I want that one, daddy!

YUM! (Evan's favorite part of the whole day!)

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Daddy's Day Off

Jon has been craving cinnamon rolls lately, so yesterday on his first "offical" day off, we made them as a family. I have been enjoying my mom's bread machine lately (I think it's got something to do with all the carbs I've been craving with this baby...)--this is my 3rd bread machine use in the two weeks we've been here! :) My family enjoys the goodies, but they accuse me of trying to make everyone fat. But it's funny how the goods disappear within two days! :)
Evan got to help me mix the brown sugar and cinnamon for the rolls. He didn't really understand what it was until I started putting it on the rolled-out dough...then all he wanted to do was snitch up all the extras that fell on the counter... I think he thought he was "helping..." :) Then he helped Daddy make some awesome cream cheese frosting, and once again helped "clean up" all the extra frosting left on the beaters. Needless to say, he loved the finished product even more! :)

After enjoying some freshly baked cinnamon rolls, Evan and daddy got to wrestle and play around. Evan almost didn't know what to do--he was so excited to be able to play with daddy for once! Since Jon's commute to work from my parents' house is nearly an hour long, by the time he gets home from work, we eat supper and then it's time to give Evan a bath and put him to bed. So this was a good change. Evan has been "tackling" daddy for a while now (usually in our bed on Saturday mornings when he gets to be lazy with us), but now he's got his own little "moves" down to tackle anyone laying on the floor! He's got the "ready, set, run!", the "half spin, attack!" and the "three circles, fall down, get up, attack!" It's really funny watching him...he does the same three things all the time. He's such a boy! And his newest game with daddy is to climb on his back for horsey rides. Evan loves this fun time with daddy, and daddy is a trooper for putting up with the rug burn on his knees! :)

Then to end our first "daddy's day off" we took Evan to Saint Louis to watch the Balloon Glow. Tomorrow afternoon is the yearly hot air balloon race, but every year on the night before the race, all of the balloons blow up and light up for everyone to see. For those of you familiar with Forest Park, the balloon glow was on the ball fields near the police horse stables, but it was so crowded that we had to park in the zoo parking lot! So we certainly got our exercise for the day by making the hike up and down all of those hills in the park! :) By the time we finally got there, we had less than a half hour to enjoy the balloons. Evan liked the balloons...from a distance, but up close, I think they were a little bit scarry. He just stared in awe (or maybe fear?) at the big fires going up inside of the balloons. I do think he enjoyed the colors of the big balloons and getting to see all the fun designs (the energizer bunny, one balloon had a cow, one balloon had a goldfish (like the cracker), one balloon was a pepsi can, one balloon was a Wherenberg Theater bag of popcorn, and lots of balloons had pretty squares of colors like a quilt). When we asked Evan which balloon was his favorite, he said, "pa-corn." It was pretty cute. I thought for sure he would tell us the "moo" balloon since he LOVES looking for cows when we're driving...but he surprised us with his answer! :)

We snuck out of the park right before the fireworks, but we did get to watch them from a distance. And on the way home, daddy treated us all to icecream cones! Yummy! :) (And for all you who know that Evan used to only eat the cone without the icecream, you'll be happy to hear that he's decided it's ok to lick the icecream now!) :)

Enjoy the pictures! For the full album, click here.

Evan was snitching the "spilled" brown sugar and cinnamon off the counter...

Evan helped daddy "clean up" the icing off of the beaters...

Daddy makes a good horsey!

My two silly boys

Watching the Balloons Glow in Forest Park

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