Our Weekend

On Sunday, we had a very busy day. We started our morning with a drive to Kimmswick, Missouri. Our destination, The Blue Owl. I had never eaten there before, and I think I had only driven through the area once. We arrived at 10:45a.m., and it was already packed. We were able to sit outside on the patio. The weather was perfect and the food was really good. After our early lunch and a bit of walking we had a few of the deserts The Blue Owl is famous for, and then headed back to Illinois.

My brother's wife and kiddos came along to the pool. The kids spent most of the day jumping off of the diving board. Here are a few pics from the pool...


Sofia

Rylan

Noah

Cars

Last night, while Wade and I were watching TV. Sofie busied herself with carrying down buckets and buckets of hot wheels. At one point, I even made a point of saying "Sofie, Mommy's not picking those up. Take them back upstairs and play." In response she said, "Ok Momma..". But she wasn't listening, so Wade went to investigate....



She had put one hot wheel in the middle of every ceramic tile. They covered the entire floor!

Six Flags, St Louis

On Saturday, we met up with the Humes' Family for a fun day at Six Flags. I admit, I haven't been to Six Flags in probably 7 years. I personally love amusement parks. The rest of the family is divided in their opinions. We routinely go on our trips to Florida. Disney, Busch Gardens, Sea World, we've done them all... So it was nice to visit one so close to home.

Rylan (formerly our have no fear, ride it all) is now terrified of roller coasters and anything else that is fast or tall. He was all excited to ride the rides. When we got in line for Batman, he was so disappointed that he wasn't tall enough. So we headed to the Ninja. The line was non-existent. I let Noah and Rylan sit next to each other. After the ride, I asked Ry if he liked it, expecting rave reviews, and got as a reply "How many people have died on that thing?" It was all down hill from there. He gave it one more valiant effort with the Mine Train and then he was done. Noah is also fearful of the the rides. He caved to a little peer pressure (Claire and Emilie were going...) and managed to ride Mine Train, Evel Kenevel and Tony Hawks. Sofie was disappointed to miss anything, and loved the Log Flume and Tidal Wave. Six Flags has a great set up for the little ones. Tons of rides and games, even water features to play in.

We arrived at 10a.m. when the gates open, and played for twelve hours. It was a fun day. There was more to do, but we were out of time. So we took some thoroughly worn out kiddos home.


Chloe and Sofie enjoyed the mini version of Rush Street Flyer

Claire and Noah

Not quite back to the real world...

After arriving at Lambert in St. Louis, we drove straight to Marble Hill, Missouri. My Mom (so brave) took the kids camping while we were in Cancun, and we had arranged to pick them up at the lake. My sister and her family were down as well, and I managed to get a few cute pics of the kiddos.


Rylan was trying so hard to learn to dive. He insisted that I watch and photograph the event!

Noah and Jake

Rylan, Caleb, Jake & Noah

I took a beautiful photo of my Mom and Fia.

All the crazies...

Cancun, Mexico

For our grown ups only vacation this year, Wade and I spent four wonderful days in Cancun, Mexico. The weather was unaffected by Alex. Other than a short 15 minute rain shower right before we left, the weather was perfect. It was our first all-inclusive trip and it was quite an experience. The food was amazing. And I personally loved drinking frozen girly drinks all week, and nothing but...

The surprising part, I only took about five photos and they all look relatively the same as the two I posted. I guess my babies must fuel my love of photo taking...

Family

The weekend after Sofie's recital we took in some family time with dinner and fireworks. Most of the kiddos were thrilled. The only two that really held back were Sofia and Audrey. Sofia flat out refused to have anything to do with them, but Audrey gave it a try.

Emma and Noah

Probably not good for Ry's eyes...



Sorry, Zoe's a little blurry. It was really humid.

Audrey put on a brave face for her sparkler.

Noah loves to pose for photos.

Sofie wasn't as brave as Audrey and sat out the sparkler portion of the evening. (In her Halloween Costume from '08...)

The Big Day!

Sofia's dance recital "Once Upon A Time..." was held on June 27. It was a very exciting day. The prep work started at nine a.m. with our hair going up in rollers. I washed her hair. Added a little styling gel. Sectioned off her hair, rolled and then added a little hairspray over the top for good measure. She looked adorably cute, and surprisingly she had very few complaints about having rollers in her hair for four hours. On a previous practice run with the curlers, the curl fell out almost immediately so I left the curlers on her little noggin until we were at the venue, costumed up and in full make-up. I felt like we were staring in "Toddlers and Tiara's". Granted it's good TV, but does a three year old really need to have on more makeup than her Mother? By the time I handed her off back stage we had cried off 90% of our makeup, and her hair was straight as a board. She did pretty well up on stage. She stole the show with the loss of her gloves and how long and hard she worked to get the gloves back on her little hands. She was happy as a little lark after the final curtain call, and accepted her flowers and stuffed puppy like a true princess. I think she enjoyed being the star for the day.

Photos were forbidden during the performance. This photo is of the girls after their final bows on stage. Sofia is second from the left.