The Week's Events

Another week has come and gone. We've done some fun stuff this week, with hardly any pictures to show for it.

Monday: I already talked about a while ago, but I forgot to mention Tyler got a bike! He feels like such a big boy with it, and his Spiderman helmet and the horn to go with it! I've recorded him on our video camera, but I need to take a picture of him on it. It's pretty cute. Kenny was smart enough to come up with a way to help him ride it. He was not getting very far before because his feet would just slip off the pedals. So Kenny cut up a jump rope, burned the edges to keep them from fraying, and made a little strap on each pedal for his little tennis shoes to fit in. It solved a big problem :)

Tuesday: I took the kids to reading time at the library and they loved it. I love watching Tyler get so involved and interact so much with those kinds of things. He just really loves books and singing, and to have them combined and with other fun people and kids (not just mom) it's like the best!

That night I went to a relief society Fitness Party! It went really well! We've got 2 big fitness ladies in our ward and one talked to us all about healthier eating. Then we split up in 2 groups. Ann McLean gave us a good butt-whooping with a kick-boxing workout. She's an instructor at the YMCA and she is super tough. The other half talked about strength training and things you can do with physical limitations, etc. After that we all met back up together and ate! Almost everyone that came brought a "healthy dish" and we just had little samples of everyone's stuff. It was great. After that fun activity, about a dozen of us went to the movie theatre and saw the movie Eclipse!! :) That's one not many husbands are willing to go see haha. It was a really fun night.

Wednesday: Not much to report. We relaxed and did stuff at home.

Thursday: I took the kids to the Lewis and Clark State Historic Site that we have not too far from our house. I thought it was really interesting to learn more about it, although I obviously didn't get to do nearly as much reading as I would have liked. My kids are somewhat restless. But it was a fun activity anyway. We met up with Kenny for lunch afterwards since it's right by his work. (Note: Lewis and Clark stayed for a winter at what used to be called Camp Riviere DuBois which is french, and that's why the town where Kenny works is now called Wood River. Pretty cool to think about all the history that occurred right here where we are.)

Friday: I was brave 2 days in a row and decided to take the kids to the Edwardsville Children's Museum that they have. It's just a really old house in the "historic LeClaire" neighborhood and they've fixed it up to be this little children's museum. It was pretty fun, but SUPER packed. There were so so many kids, and it's really not that big of a space, so it was kind of hard to move around after a while. Having gone to the one in Chicago, I wasn't overly impressed with this, but it was still a fun thing for the kids to do.

Funny story: At one point this lady randomly asked me how I dealt with the transition of Brynlee being born, while I had Tyler. She was pregnant with her second child, and so we talked for a few minutes. (She was shocked to discover I was expecting my third! THIRD! I guess that's a big number these days...) She expressed concern over her daughter because she said she was pretty aggressive, especially towards children who were smaller than her. I had to smile to myself because this mom was a pretty big lady, tall and big, and her daughter was the same way. I'm sure there are not many kids bigger than her, that aren't a lot older. Anyway, fast forward 10 minutes or so and our kids ended up playing next to each other again. Her daughter would get too close to Tyler and Brynlee and all of the sudden without any provocation, turn and shove Ty really hard, who fell into Brynlee, and sent them both toppling over. It happened like 3 times, and the poor mom was so mortified, she finally just left. I felt really bad for her. My kids weren't hurt, but the mom was so embarrassed by her daughter. I thought about how before I became a mom I would have probably severely judged her and thought she must be doing something very wrong to have a daughter like that. But now I know better. Kids are kids, and they all come with their own unique challenges. I sure hope she wasn't worried about what we thought or anything; it was obvious she just didn't know what to do about the whole thing, but she was trying.

Saturday: The morning and afternoon was the same old cleaning and yard work, and Kenny's long, early morning bike ride (until he got a flat tire). But that night, we had Cassie Reed come over and babysit our kids while Kenny and I went on a date!!! We drove over to the St. Louis Galleria to go out to eat at The Cheesecake Factory! Neither of us had ever eaten there, but we've heard great things about it, and it did not disappoint! It was so so yummy. Next time, though, we know to only get one entree, and one dessert and just split it. The portions are huge!! Not even Kenny ate more than half of his plate, and he rarely takes home a doggy-bag :). But I will tell you I have never been so excited to come home and have some more of my Chocolate Cake Cheesecake!! It was so stinkin good. I was joking with Kenny about how I was feeling bad about how much money this date would cost on the way over here. Then when we got there and the place was so incredibly packed with a very long wait I said, "it almost makes it easier to spend a lot of money on one meal when you see so many other people doing it". But then we got seated and looked at the menu and I said, never mind--it's not any easier! haha. We obviously don't eat out at nice restaurants very often. I kept calculating how many days of groceries that one meal would cover. Anyway.

Afterwards we drove over to the Fox Theatre to see the very fabulous show...

AAAHHH! It was SOOO good. I absolutely loved it. It was all I could do to stay in my seat and not stand up and sing right along with them. We enjoyed it so much.

Other things about this week: My belly seems to have popped out, and the baby's kicks are getting stronger. I used to think that pregnancy was such a long time. But now I think, "holy cow only 4 more months! That's going to fly by!" I'm very excited for our ultrasound on Thursday.

Kenny and I watched Gone With the Wind this week. It took a few days (wow that movie is long) but we both loved it, even Kenny. We both really like old movies and that one is such a classic. :)