Parenting Practice

This past weekend Jeff and I got the chance to practice our parenting ability. Jeff's brother Skip and his wife Steph were kind enough to take a vacation without the kids so we could get some practice in before our little guy comes along. We were in charge of 3 1/2 year old, Emerald and 1 1/2 year old Calvin for the whole weekend.

Jeff had to work on Saturday so I decided to take the 2 kids to the Louisburg Cider Mill Ciderfest, by myself. It was quite the adventure, but the kids did great. Here are a few pictures.

They wouldn't cooperate for the "normal" sitting among the pumpkins picture, so I settled for this one and it actually turned out pretty cute. Emerald refused to turn around and so Calvin just copied her.

I finally caught Emerald when she wasn't expecting it!

Calvin did a great job posing for the camera when sister wasn't telling him not to!

The highlight of the festival for Emerald was that she got to ride a pony. She loves horses and was only a little bit nervous at first, but enjoyed the ride!

Calvin got to play in the inflatable game! He didn't jump much but still had a good time.

I only got a few looks of "oh you've got your hands full!" All in all it was a fun time. I was pretty wiped out by the time we got home. Overall, the weekend went well. Jeff and I love our niece and nephew a whole lot, but we also realized that there is a reason design God human life to develop as it does. We are thankful that our little guy will start out small, immobile, and not talking! We got in some great practice and are getting more excited to meet our little guy in a few months!

3rd Trimester - Here we come!

We can both hardly believe that we started the 3rd trimester this past week. On Tuesday we will be at week 26 of 40 (that means only 14 weeks and 2 days until Christmas - in case you were counting). Wow how the time has flown by. We did some serious consignment sale shopping this week - 2 nights in a row. Got a lot of great deals and our little boy will have some warm clothes. He already has his first church outfit!

We had another doctors appointment this last week and everything is good. I measured 26 weeks even though I was only at 25, oh well we have come to think he is going to be a big guy - we will just have to see.

As I am starting to show more and our due date gets closer we get asked a lot about the nursery. Well, its painted, and has been for over a year now, but it is still a very messy office! We are hoping in the next few weeks to get our back "storage" room organized, painted, and ready to move the office too. Then the fun begins - setting up the nursery. We already have so much stuff for it scattered throughout the house - wherever there is a little nook or cranny to stick something.

We also are excited that cousin number 3 on Jeff's side was born this past week. Jeff's sister Laura and her husband Shane welcomed little Simon into the world late Sunday night. By the time March rolls around we will have a total of 5 cousins on Jeff's side. We are so excited for our little guy to have two cousins only a few months apart in age!

That's all for now. Sorry no pictures this time. We will try to get some up of the nursery transition process!

Week 23 (a little late)

I am a little late in making this post as we are almost at week 25 now. But I thought I would put these pictures up anyway (I am in blogging mode right now.)

This is not me, but Jeff at week 23. I think he has put a few sympathy pounds.

This is me at week 23. I feel like I am getting bigger fast. At my 21 week appointment my doctor said I had put on some weight! We have another appointment tomorrow (week 25). I am interested to see how much our little guy has grown over the past four weeks.

Gateway Anniversary - Day 2

On Sunday morning we headed down to take in the sites of the grand Gateway Arch. Jeff took some neat pictures as we were walking up to it. It is pretty amazing to see it in person and stand right by it.

Of course we had to go up in the arch. This the "umpa-lumpa" door as we referred to it. The door was about 4 feet high by 2 feet high - a lot smaller than either of us had anticipated. When it opened, you were expected to get inside this rounded space ship looking vehicle that had 5 seats. Luckily, only one other couple, from Michigan, got in so we only had 4 adults (I being the smallest) on the 4 minute ride up. Its amazing what you can find out about people when you have 4 minutes in a small confined space.
Jeff is sitting in the little "space ship" that took us to the top (note: he is not relieving himself as it may appear.)



Once you step out of the "umpa-lumpa" door we walked up a short flight of stairs to the top!...and what a view there was from the top. Jeff once again demonstrated his photography abilities. This is a look to the West from the top of the arch.


St. Louis Cardinls stadium from the arch.


After the arch, we ate our picnic lunch in the park area around the arch. Guess what we ate... pb&j again, apples, and cookies. We did stop on our way out to Purina Farms for some famous Ted Dreww's frozen custard. We ended our time in St. Louis with a trip to Purina Farms where we saw a dog show and talked to the dog trainer who has the same type of dog as our Zane - he gave us some tips on brands of toys for him.

On our way back to KC we stopped in Columbia for some pizza at Shakespeares.

We had a great trip even though it was short.

PS. For those who have heard our honeymoon story - just wanted to let you know that I booked our hotel rooms online and everything turned out ok this time! No weird surprises!

Gateway Anniversary

Jeff and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. To celebrate and take the "babymoon" that everyone suggest you take before the little on comes along, we headed to St. Louis Labor Day weekend. Neither of us had been there, except for driving through. Here are some pictures of what we did. We had a great time and enjoyed spending time with just the two of us away from work and all the odd jobs around the house.

Saturday we started off with breakfast in our hotel room... no we did not get room service, I just am becoming more and more like my mother or maybe finally realizing why we didn't get to eat every meal out. I bought groceries before we left and packed food for our breakfasts and lunches while we were away. Can't go on vacation with a cooler!

After breakfast we headed to Forest Park - home of the World's Fair back in the day. It is a 1500+ acre park. We did some paddle boating on the lake and streams around the park. Here are some pictures from our jaunt on the lake. We paddled by the fountains and up on the hill is the art museum.






We ate lunch at the park of course, our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, apples, and cookies. Then we headed over to the St. Louis Zoo - also in Forest park. The best part was it was free. After see some of the animals we headed to our hotel for a nap before our big evening out....



Our big splurge of the weekend trip was a riverboat dinner cruise. We rode on the Becky Thatcher Riverboat, had a great meal and listened to live band (piano and banjo) play riverboat music. We saw an amazing sunset over the Mississippi River and some great views of the arch in the evening.



The sunset we saw over the Mississippi while we were eating dinner!

Jeff was really impressed with the big chains. They were used to anchor the different tourist establishments along the river to shore. They were pretty big as you can tell from the size of Jeff's foot next to the chain links.