My BIG Mistake

Kevin and I are getting ready to celebrate our 10 year anniversary next week. We have plans to take the train to Chicago for a few days and just spend some time together alone, something we don't get nearly enough of. So the other day, I thought I'd check into getting Cubs tickets for the two of us while we're there.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of letting Micah know. For those of you who don't know Micah very well, even at 5 years old he is a diehard Cubs fan. He knows more about the Cubs than any man, aside from his own family, that I've ever met. He broke down in tears because he wanted to go so badly. After he finally got calmed down, he went outside to play while I fixed lunch. When we sat down to eat, he asked to pray for the meal. Micah got about halfway through his prayer and began to ask for God to keep Mommy and Daddy safe during the trip to Chicago to see the Cubs. He got just a couple words in before he broke down sobbing again. Poor kid. He was absolutely devastated.

Well, to make up for my boneheaded mistake, and to get the waterworks to stop, I finally suggested that we go outside to play in the sprinkler after lunch. That seemed to get him calmed down enough to eat at least. I have to admit, the kids had a great time and it did seem to get Micah's mind off of his heartbreak.

Micah's even figured out that the sprinkler is more fun if you actually get wet.

Jadon loves the sprinkler! He was asking for it today when it was only 65 degrees outside.

Chloe is definitely not afraid to get wet.

Mommy even let them jump in the mudpuddles just to keep that poor Micah happy. What a mess!

I'm afraid the Cubs game fiasco is still going to come back to haunt me, but at least this helped ease the pain on this day.

A Big Girl and Daddy School

A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids out to the park for a family photo shoot. Chloe was very eager to have her 7 year pictures taken, but I wanted to wait until I had my new camera. So the day after I got my camera, we headed off to the park together. Isn't she sweet.
Anyway, we thought we'd take the opportunity to get a family photo taken if we could. Not the easiest task to do with a tripod and a timer. But I think it went pretty well, don't you?

Here's a shot of my three munchkins together. Pretty soon it'll be four. Just two months left to go!!

So after our photo shoot, Kevin took the kids off for a lesson at the lake.

Boys can never resist going under and through the brush rather than around, but I'm not sure my girl was really thrilled with that idea.

Nine times out of ten, Daddy's lessons involve fish. I have no idea what they are looking at and pointing to, but the kids are definitely thrilled with whatever it is. They just love it when we have field trips like this when Daddy's home from work.

Oops!!

Jadon wrote on the couch today in orange marker. I kinda lost it. No, I really lost it. Then I sent all the kids to bed. Apparently I should have done that about 5 minutes sooner. But the nice thing is that they all went to sleep with no fussing or getting up. Even my little JJ knew that this was not the time to reject naptime. It's been one of those days all week long. Pray for me.

A Farm, A Zoo, and a Tall, Tall Arch

Last week, after hearing that my Grandpa was ill and in the hospital, Kevin and I made plans to travel to the St Louis area to visit him. We also thought, if we're going all that way, we ought to make the most of our time and have some fun too. So we made plans to leave early Thursday morning for a little mini-vacation.



Our first stop was Grant's Farm. Neither Kevin nor I had ever been, so we thought it would be fun to try. We had lots of fun at the farm. If you've never been, it's worth the trip. It's kind of like a mini-zoo. Much calmer and than the zoo, but still plenty to do for an afternoon. The kids wanted to feed the goats, so Kevin took them all in. Unfortunately, that was a little less than successful. With only one entrance, and dozens of baby goats, every child walking in is a target for attack. Jadon in particular was pretty disturbed by the swarming mass of baby goats. Chloe was fine, and as soon as Kevin handed JJ off to me and took Micah to a less crowded part of the pen, Micah seemed to enjoy himself too.

Even though the goats weren't really a hit with Jadon, he loved the carousel! There was a mirror in the center of the ride that he got a kick out of looking for every time he passed it.
Chloe had a great time, but she was asking for the horses the entire time we were at the farm. So we eventually made it through the entire farm and over to the Clydesdales on the other side. She was in horse heaven. Those Clydesdales are HUGE!She even managed to talk Daddy into getting each of the kids a stuffed horse to take home.


After we left Grant's Farm, Kevin decided to head over to the Gateway Arch. He'd never been up in it and the kids had never even been near it, so we thought it would be a fun experience. It took a little longer than we expected(hours longer) to get there, even though we were only a few miles away, because we didn't realize we were heading downtown just in time for the start of the Cardinals game. A bit of advice, always check the baseball schedule before heading to downtown St Louis.

The kids were amazed at how tall the arch was, it seems big from the interstate, but that's nothing compared to standing underneath. They had a great time going up in the top of the arch. Micah was particularly excited about seeing the Cardinals game starting.Pretty neat for such a baseball fanatic, even if it isn't his team.


We ended up getting out of there pretty late before we headed off to dinner with my parents at Landry's in Union Station. If you like seafood and are ever in St Louis, I highly advise making that stop a priority. It may have been the best meal I've ever eaten.


Friday morning, after Jadon woke me up at 5:30, we had breakfast with my parents and headed off to the nursing home to see my Grandpa. After that visit, we decided to take the kids to the zoo for a short adventure. They've all been to the St Louis Zoo, and they'd certainly seen a lot of animals the day before, but what kid doesn't like a trip to the zoo?


Since we'd already had a pretty big day on Thursday, and Mommy was feeling a bit worn out, we let each of the kids choose their favorite animal to see and we just visited those parts of the park. Kevin wanted to start in the butterfly house, so we made our way from there to the snakes and reptiles that Micah wanted to see. Jadon seemed most pleased by some ducks that we saw in the grass on the way. He apparently doesn't need any zoo animals to stay happy. Just let him out of the stroller every once in a while.


Chloe wanted to see the penguins so we wandered through the center of the zoo, past the gorillas and the sea lions to see the penguins.On the way, we discovered a new apiary(birdcage) that we'd never been in before. Think pterodactyl cage in Jurassic Park, but with much less scary birds. We only spent 2 or 3 hours at the zoo, but we were exhausted by the time we left.
Jadon was so tired that he laid down in the middle of the floor as soon as we got back to the house for naptime. We decided that we were ready to go home that night instead of leaving the next morning. So Micah and I went into the nursing home to say goodbye to my Grandpa before we left for dinner. We got home at about 11 that night completely spent but very glad we had gone.


We did very little the next day, and I was even glad to hear that 4th of July plans had been postponed because of the weather. It was much more fun to celebrate on Sunday after we'd had a whole day to recuperate.

My PaPa

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a message about my Grandpa. We drove down to St Louis to visit him this week. He seems to be doing as well as can be expected. He was moved to a nursing home on Wednesday and we came in to visit him on Friday morning. He will probably never fully recover, but with time and prayer, he should do well. I suppose my Dad had not told him we were coming, because when we walked in, he was overcome with emotion. We had a nice visit for about an hour. We finally had to leave because the boys were getting a little stir-crazy.

After we left we went into St Louis for some fun with the kids, while my parents stayed with Grandpa to visit and take care of some of his business. My mom said that during his afternoon physical therapy, Grandpa was very motivated. That was a great change over the past couple of weeks when he would talk about getting well, but he had not really been interested in putting forth much effort. Learning this, I was very convicted at how little time we have spent with him recently. Part of the reason is distance, but another part is that we just get so busy with life, we forget to take time for really important things. I plan to stay in touch with him better now. I take so many photos (duh) that there's really no reason that I can't send some to him more often than once a year.

Sometimes we forget how much the very young and the very old need each other. Kevin's Grandmother is one of Jadon's favorite people, and he is naturally so loving. He went right up to my Grandpa for a hug despite Micah's reluctance. Chloe also really enjoyed her visit with him. She seems to crave attention from her family, and she wanted to be included in every visit to her Great-Grandpa. We all enjoyed our visit and the rest of our St Louis trip. I'll be sure to post some pics from our St Louis adventures sometime in the next couple of days.