Play dates in the park!

During that same trip to St. Louis in early May we had a lot of different play dates scheduled with different friends in different parks. First up, Carol and Bree in Kirkwood.
I love those girls!
Owen loved Bree spinning him around. Those 2 kids!
The next day we met up with the Hartkes in Des Peres.
Ava was so proud of herself after climbing this tree! She was "taller than mommy!"
We squeezed in a group shot before leaving. Here's the whole gang! Except for Dan...he took the photo.
But here he is with Ava. She's a big fan of his work.
The next day we got to see Miss Susan in Wildwood.
My kids love Susan. I love Susan.
It was perfect outside. Ava liked it.
Owen liked it.
We ended up walking along the trails there. I had never gone the length of the trail. It was beautiful. We played with dandelions and met a box turtle. Ava and Susan worked out at the designated spots along the trail. After time at the play ground and a walk, we went back to Susan's to hang out some more and she fed us lunch. It was such a delightful day.
Later that night my sister-in-law and her hubby came out to Papa's for dinner. It was fun to see them! Owen loves his uncle. Can you tell?
It was so good to see everyone. Owen is at a pretty high-maintenance life stage when at parks due to his lightening-fast mobility, so conversing long enough to complete a thought was challenging, but it's still so good to see everyone. There are no friends like old friends.

Papa's porch

August was a wonderful, busy month! Now that the school year is back in session, we're all settling into our weekly routines and taking a breather! So, picking up on my effort to update the blog, these are some shots of the kiddos playing outside at Papa's Cooper's house during our trip there in May.
O-man loved the swing.
He also loved the stairs. Peek-a-boo!
Driving that afternoon I noticed that Ava had placed her doll into her car seat with her, you know, for safety. Very thoughtful.
I'm planning to toss some more posts up to try to bring this blog up to date! So check back, loved ones!

Finally to May!

The first week of May we all went to St. Louis for a week because Steve needed to work down there. While he went to work, the kids and I had a different adventure every day. The first day there we spent the morning with the mommies and kids from the Larson family and the Shaver family. It was such a great opportunity to see them, catch up, receive encouragement, and just have some laughs. That evening the kids and I went to Faust Park where we played in the park, took a long walk, and had a picnic dinner.

patio use

This is the last retroactive update from April! I've ended up drawing this process out a bit, but that's ok with me, and I'm guessing our grandmas are enjoying the extra pictures anyway. These little munchkins were excited to eat lunch outside on April 30th, so that's what we did. Notice the puny little leaves trying to grow on the hedge in the background. It seemed to take forever for them to arrive!


Other highlights of that week included me getting knocked out by a 24-hour stomach bug. ugh! We were supposed to host a neighborhood Bible Study that Thursday morning, but instead I fell ill about 10 pm the night before. Steve had to take that day off to watch the kiddos while I slept it off. He's definitely the hero in this house!

Parents get to visit!

The last weekend of April my parents came up from Oklahoma to visit. It's so great when they come up to see us! We love their visits! This trip was also close to my dad's birthday, so we got to celebrate that while he was here.
Here's the welcome hug from Ava. She literally shrieked with joy and jumped down the stairs when they arrived.
The next day we went to Discovery World to see the Tesla interactive presentation. Due to loud noises and scary portions of the show, it was advised that the kids not attend. So they got to explore the aquarium while the grown ups went to the show.
We also went through the technology displays while we waited. Owen must have opened and closed the retractable roof on the model of the Brewers Stadium about 300 times.
Ava played tic-tac-toe with a computer,
jumped onto a scale,
and laid on a bed of nails! Brave girl!
There was also a really cool exhibit about lightening and thunder that we played with for a while. Here are Pebbles and Bamm Bamm listening to the thunder.
...and just being cute...
Their favorite was meeting back up with Grandma and Grandpa after their show!
Back home we got out the train set that Papa Cooper got the kids last year and set it all up.
Then Owen tackled his Papa.
And ate his Grandma's necklace.
After some time with the train, Ava was ready for cake!
We decided to go for the glory and put the numerically correct amount of candles on Papa's cake. He (eventually) blew out all the candles!

CEF Mailbox Club

This spring Ava started to participate in the CEF Mailbox Club, and she loves it. It's a Bible lesson that arrives in the mailbox. We read the story together, Ava answers the review questions and practices the Bible memory verse, and then we mail the answer sheet back. Once they receive her answer sheet, they "grade" it and mail it back with the new lesson. She loves everything about the process; running in circles with excitement when it arrives, snuggling up to read it together, making a song out of the memory verse, circling her answers, and placing the stamp on the return portion of the lesson. They have lessons for every age kiddo! It's free, and you can sign up online at www.cefonline.com as part of the discipleship ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship. Here's baby girl doing her lesson.

And here is the random cuteness of this post:
Notice the ginormous red welt in the center of Ava's forehead. Poor thing. We run about a boo-boo per day around here. At least it doesn't seem to be bothering her too much.
No caption needed.
Lastly, this is O-boy's bff.
(This update continues to be a part of our April...but I'm about to pick up the pace!)

still in April...

So perhaps I need to pick up the pace of my mission to retroactively update the blog. At this rate, I will never catch up. But in the meantime, here are some promising pictures from the last week of April that Spring was indeed in progress! In general, spring is my least favorite season up here because it is still too cold to really enjoy being outside for long. Plus nothing starts growing until June, so it feels like winter just drags on and on but without the beautiful snow to cheer things up. But on this fine day in April, things were looking very cheery!