Monday Picture

Busy Weekends as Far as the Eye Can See

We officially have less than a month until we move and it seems like every spare minute is taken.  We have BBQ's, weekend trips, visitors, all of the events related to Brad's residency graduation and Brad's board exam.  Throw packing and selling some furniture on top of all that and we are starting to become a bit frazzled.  This past weekend we had a backyard camp-out, two BBQs, a trip to the splash park and a baseball game.  By the end of the weekend we were all ready for a nice long nap.

These two made it all night in the tent, even though it rained. 

 

A little blurry, but BBQ #1.  Beer pong with toddler in hand.

Plash park before the baseball game.  This actually ended better than you might have expected.

Not sure if he was really into the game, or just REALLY tired (perhaps a bit of both).

Monday Picture

Daycare

I absolutely adore our daycare.  It is a national chain but is run by the most wonderful women we could ever hope to have take care of our boys on a daily basis.  The thought of leaving it is one of the hardest parts of leaving St. Louis (all of the pictures below were taken by the boys' teachers). 

 

 

The director of the center started a facebook group specifically for parents and teachers to stay up to date about what is going on at the center. 

Nearly daily the teachers will post pictures of what the kids have been up to. I love logging onto to facebook and getting little glimpses at what my boys did that day.  

 It always makes me happy to see the creative lessons that the teachers come up with. This particular daycare is a daycare and preschool in one.

Each class has a monthly curriculum (even for the toddlers) that focuses on a specific theme (like "my family" or "the farm") and they have recently introduced Spanish to the lessons. It is so cute to hear the words Mike has learned and quiz him on his Spanish vocabulary. 

 

It makes me happy to see how happy they are everyday while I can't be with them.

 

Even if they sometimes take pictures that make my kids look like Chris Farley.

Branson, MO

For the past 12+ years, Brad's dad has lived in Saudi Arabia.  He recently retired from his job there and moved back to the states.  He and Brad's step-mom, Tammy, decided to buy a house near Branson, MO.  We had one last free weekend before we move (all the others are jam packed with stuff) so we took a long weekend to visit and see what Branson has to offer.  It pretty much was exactly as I expected it to be. 

Brad's dad bought a beautiful house that overlooks Table Rock Lake.  We spent a lot of time on the porch hanging out and watching boats.

 

On Friday we decided to "Ride the Ducks."  Basically it is a tour of the area in an amphibious vehicle.  Mike was SO excited when we drove into the water and "Captain Woody" even let all the kids drive the boat.



On Saturday we went to the "Amazing Pets" show which featured rescued dogs, cats and parrots who had been trained to do all sorts of impressive tricks.  The kids loved it.  They especially liked getting their picture taken with a dog dressed up as Batman.

 

 

 

On the drive down there, Brad and I were debating whether or not I had ever been to Arkansas.  He claims that we drove through a portion of it on the way to Destin, I argued that we cut over before we hit Arkansas.  In order to but the matter to rest we decided to just drive to Arkansas (literally within 10 miles).  We followed a few county highways and found a little pull-off with lake access.  We hopped out and let everyone throw rocks in the lake for a few minutes before we headed back.

 

It was a great weekend.  A nice, relaxing trip that helped us forget about the fact that we are in the middle of selling our house and will be moving across the country in one month!!!

City Museum

The weekend before last we decided to take the boys to the City Museum.  We needed to get out of the house for a showing and it was on our St. Louis bucket list.  If you have never been to the City Museum it is pretty much impossible to explain.  It isn't a museum as much as a giant playground dreamed up by someone who is either brilliant or entirely crazy (or perhaps a bit of both).  There is a 10 story slide, a system of caves where you could get lost for hours, a quirky aquarium and an amazing outdoor area.  If you ever find yourself in St. Louis - go.  It is one of those places you have to see to understand. 

 

Anyway, the forecast called for rain so we decided to start outside before the weather turned.  

 

On the rooftop there is an old fashioned, carnival-style ferris wheel.  Ryan happily rode it with me after Mike declared he didn't want to go.  Once Mike saw us riding it he changed his tune and demanded Brad wait in the (long) line with him to ride it. 

We learned that Ryan doesn't really have any fear when he pulled me over to this slide (which is much steeper than it appears here), plopped down and almost took off without me (obviously it is Brad in the picture, we took many, MANY trips down the slide).

Mike is a master climber and wiggled and shimmied his way through a series of nooks and crannies while Brad followed and Ryan and I struggled to keep up.

In the main entryway there is a two story slide.  Mike wanted to go down it so Ryan and I waited at the bottom.  Ryan made sure to greet everyone who came down it while we were waiting. 

Mike and I tested our skills in the giant hamster wheel.  He did much better this time (last time we went, about a year ago, he wrapped himself around my leg and giggled the whole time).

Monday Picture

Bossy Batman

Hair Cut

A few weeks ago I decided to cut my hair.  I am still trying to adapt.  I used to cut it this short pretty much every summer, but I hadn't in about 8 years.

How to keep your house show ready with two small children

Step 1: Don't, no really, it is pretty much impossible.  Ok, fine, if you feel the need to do it anyway I would recommend keeping your kids out of the house as much as possible.

To be serious, this was hard, but not as hard as I feared.  The minimum amount of time people had to give us was 1 hour to come look at the house, which means it had to be show ready ALL THE TIME.  We had people coming through almost everyday, so it always had to be clean.  The best advice I can give is to stay out of the house as much as possible.  We were really lucky to be trying to sell our house in May versus January because the weather was gorgeous.  Most nights we would go on a hike, find a new playground or go to the library.  The boys LOVED it because they got to go to fun places every night.  We learned that packing picnics was the way to go because it was easy, the boys loved it, it saved us a lot of money and we could bring Sammy. 

Watching a train go by immediately following a picnic at Cliff Cave Park

Pizza picnic at the park

Car picnic at the City Museum

Car picnic at Six Flags

And yet another picnic at Cliff Cave

Things Mike Says

"Mommy, you have GOT to take a picture of this.  Look how cute we are!"

Things to Remember: Superheros

Our house has been taken over by superheros.  The boys love them, they play with them, they pretend to be them, they read books about them and they wear anything with them on it.  As Ryan is still learning who all of the superheros are he likes to generalize them all as "Good Guys" so he will ask to play "Good Guys", wear his "Good Guy" jammies and eat his "Good Guy" vitamins every morning. 

 

The exception to this is Batman.  One day I was randomly singing the Batman song (you know the one, na na na na na na na na BATMAN!!!!) so he likes to sing the song and yell "BATMAN" anytime he sees something that resembles Batman.

In other Ryan news, he is potty trained!  I randomly decided to send him to daycare in underwear one Monday (he was showing a lot of signs of being ready and his teachers told me whenever we were ready they were on board) and it was a huge success!  It only took a few days for #1 (#2 is a bit trickier, but he is doing much better).   He also has started being picky about his clothes and likes to pick out his own shirt and underwear everyday and will even attempt to dress himself.

Catching Up

Well hello there, if there is even anyone there.  I fully admit this blog has been a bit neglected over the past few months.  I'm hoping to turn that around and start posting here regularly again.  So where to start, well, for those who may not know, Brad accepted an ortho spine fellowship position at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland so we will be moving further east next month.  Most of our "free" time over the past 3 months has been spent getting the house ready to sell, keeping the house show ready and selling the house (we accepted an offer over the weekend)!  Along with that I will be taking the year we are in Baltimore off to stay home with the boys.  So let's recount shall we: 1) Brad is finishing his residency; 2) Brad is starting a fellowship at Johns Hopkins (!!!); 3) I am quitting my job to become a stay at home mom; 4) We are in the middle of selling our house and 5) We will be moving across the country in just over a month.  Yeah, things have been a little crazy lately!

Monday Picture

Monday Picture