Saturday in St. Louis

Friday I did a lot of cleaning, and Kenny helped me with some yard work too, so that we could play all day Saturday. And play we did! We headed out early to go to the St. Louis zoo. It's free to get into the zoo, but parking is usually $11. However, this time Kenny just dropped us off by the entrance and went and parked on a street so that was free too! I love free things. And when you get there the first hour it's open, the chilren's place is free instead of 5 bucks a person. So anyway the kids loved the zoo. We haven't been since last year and it was so much better this time! I didn't have to stop and go sit in a dirty bathroom stall to nurse Brynlee, and she enjoyed the animals just like Ty. Babies are wonderful, but doing family things like this is a lot more fun when they're just a little bit older.

There were so many beautiful flowers (mostly tulips) that they had all over. I was taking a picture of Ty and Bryn in front of them and this family walks by exclaiming how cute they are, etc. Then she says "hey I'll take a picture of all of you! It's going to be so cute!" she was really excited to do it, so of course I said sure! And Kenny and I didn't plan on matching, haha. We're not cheesy matchers like that. It just happened and we were too lazy to change when we realized.

We were at the zoo for like 4 hours and Bryn was exhausted. So we got some lunch and let her take a little nap in the car. Then we went to the Gateway Arch! We didn't want to wait in long lines and pay lots of money to go to the top, but it was still fun to walk around it and stuff. We had fun the next couple hours just walking around and playing. We stuck our feet in the cold, dirty Mississippi River (well I did), and danced on the sidewalk to the Jazz music being played, rolled down the hill, and played tag (Tyler's new favorite game). We also watched some wedding pictures on the stairs with the arch in the background. Since our anniversary is this month, it was fun to watch them. The weather was perfect on Saturday for this wedding, just like it was for ours.

Friday Evening Fun

We were outside playing baseball and such on Friday, and the sun was hitting my kids so beautifully I had to run inside and get the camera. I didn't edit any, but I still think they're cute. I told Kenny that the sun was giving our little angels their golden halos haha.

Kenny loves to chuck our kids around, and our kids love to be chucked around, so it works out well. It's still pretty exhilarating for Brynlee.

But look at Tyler's face here. He's totally looking over at the neighbor's backyard to see what's going on, not even phased by the fact that he's way up in the air.He's been thrown around far too much apparently.

And my favorite one of the night...

I love that the sun stays out longer, it's so much fun to play outside together.

It's pouring

It's been a pretty lousy morning. But this afternoon thunderstorm is just what I needed to cheer me up. I'm not kidding--I LOVE a good rainstorm with thunder and lightning. It's so exciting. I'm not going to let it ruin our dinner plans for tonight...first grill of the year! Kenny's coming home early (so like 5:30) so he can grill us up some hamburgers. I guess we'll just move it to the open garage. I guess we'll be spending the rest of our day indoors. Happy spring to all of you.

Painting in our panties

Yesterday afternoon it got really warm. I had all the windows open and the fans on, but it was still reading 81 degrees inside. So we went outside, and I stripped the kids down to their knickers. (Isn't it so nice to be a little kid and get away with running around naked?) Brynlee in her diaper, and Tyler in his Wall-E underwear. We ate popsicles, and painted, and focused on the letter P. Tyler is really good at identifying all his letters, but not at writing them. He can only legibly write letters T, and O. So today we tried painting it, which requires a little less fine motor skills. Brynlee sure enjoys getting messy, although really I sometimes think that she doesn't even realize the difference. It's not that she loves it, or hates it, she just seems oblivious to the whether she's clean or dirty. She can be covered in yogurt, or paint, or whatever, and go on her merry little way as if nothing is different. I love it.

(lest you think he does them all perfectly, I painted those P's, and he was tracing over them with the brush :) )

"Blossoms popping right before my eyes..."

There's this beautiful tree in our front yard that I just love, but mostly in the spring.




This was during the sunrise this morning.

This bright yellow bush is outside our bedroom window, bordering ours and our neighbors' house.

And of course the wonderful dandelions and clover that have sprung up ALL over our yard. I'm pretty sure that if we got some weed killer stuff, we wouldn't have a yard left.

I just love the spring.

Happy Easter

We had a great Easter Sunday!! The kids were so happy to see their Easter baskets when they woke up. Tyler was most excited about his miniature baseball mit and ball. "It's just my size!" We took some pictures outside because it was just perfect weather again! The kids looked so cute in their easter outfits! We loved listening to conference. After the first session, we talked to both of our families on the phone and had lunch. Then we went to our friends, the Pearson's, for the 2nd session. The Reeds were there too. The kids did an easter egg hunt after conference was done. I wish so bad I would've brought my camera. Tyler understood everything, and grabbed a bunch of eggs, but he was a little bit scared because it was pretty windy. Brynlee liked walking around with everyone, but obviously didn't get it. I handed her a couple eggs and she liked shaking them to hear the candy inside. It was fun anyway, and I'm glad they were able to do it with a bunch of other kids, because that's a lot more fun than just the two of them. After that we went back inside and had a delicious dinner with traditional easter ham (my favorite!). We had a wonderful time talking and being together. We were so grateful that we were able to spend Easter with friends, because we were missing our families!

What a great day to focus on Christ and His incredible sacrifice for us. I know that He lives! I feel so blessed to have the knowledge of the gospel and can't imagine my life without it. I love my growing little family so much and am so grateful that we can be together forever!

Blabbering

Tyler is sick. He got a cough earlier this week and it just kept getting worse. He also felt a little feverish on Thurs. so I had been giving him tylenol. His cough got so bad and I could tell he was not feeling well. So I took him to the doctor on Friday and come to find out he has strep throat! I feel so bad. He was suffering way more than i realized. I'm glad he had such a bad cough, or I never would have known. Now he's been on the antibiotic for over 24 hours and is doing much better.

Tonight Brynlee just fell out of the tub. I had walked out for a second to grab hers and Tyler's pajamas, and the next thing I hear a plop. I instantly knew what had happened. She was trying to climb out, and like a wet fish, she just slipped over the edge. She only cried for a second cuz it scared her, but no marks.

Speaking of fish, she does the sign for fish now, too. She just loves animals, and so does Ty. If we had a fence around our yard, you can bet we would have gotten a dog a long time ago. We went to the pet store again today (in between sessions) because it's their favorite place to go, and on Saturdays they have dogs there for people to adopt. We just pet them. After the pet store we went and got frozen custard at Bobby's! It was only the second time we've been there since we've lived here. It is so insanely good. It is the most popular, and best tasting custard place in probably the whole state of Illinois.

I coaxed Kenny into doing a little spring cleaning with me this weekend. But he came up with genius plan to get out of doing too much: "How about we just do one room a weekend?" Whatever. As long as he'll help me I don't care how many weekends it takes :).

I absolutley love general conference. I always want to be so much better after listening to all the talks. It really is a wonderful time of year.

Kenny bought a miter saw off of Craigslist and had to drive to O'Fallon, IL to pick it up this morning. On the way, he nearly got hit by a really old lady who got on the freeway going the wrong direction! She nearly ran into him head on, and swerved, and then she nearly got hit by a semi! I sure hope that she made it home safely (and without killing anyone else) and I hope her family takes away her license. That really is scary.

Also about Tyler, he is such a worry wart. The past week or so, he has developed a pretty intense fear of the wind. I know that sounds hilarious, but it's not. It's so annoying. We can't just play outside anymore like normal children do. I don't even know where it came from, or why it bothers him so much, but it does. He is CONSTANTLY asking about EVERYTHING blowing away, especially him and Brynlee. It's very hard for me to calmly and continually reassure him that nobody and nothing will blow away. I've tried all sorts of ways to talk to him about it: The wind is our friend. Wind is nice to us. It just keeps us cool on hot days. The wind is just angels blowing kisses. We really like the wind, it's fun to have it blow on our faces. It makes the leaves dance around the yard. etc. etc. I know he listens and takes it in (because he repeats things back to me at later times), but he is not convinced. What to do?

He asks a lot of questions, and I try my best to answer them as literally, and honestly as possible to help him understand and learn. I made the mistake of explaining (after he asked) why we wear sunscreen. Now he thinks the sun is going to BURN us. He remembers all too well when he touched the hot stove. You might say it was burned into his memory. haha, good one. But anyway, it's more of a challenge to get him outside the past few days with the burning sun and ferocious wind and all. Nature is out to get him!