Earlier in the month we went to our friends Dan and Amy's kids' school trivia night...did you get that! We've gone every year...it's a lot of fun and I love going to a trivia nights that I don't have to manage!

One of the great things about trivia nights....auctions! Tons and tons of great stuff. And all for a good cause.

So while I was off perusing the silent auction items, the first live auction started. I came back to the our table and everyone was laughing. It seemed while I was gone he started bidding on some Cardinal tickets...well he won...no biggie. Problem was, the tickets were for the same night I was already working an auction. That meant Robb was taking both of the kids solo!

It was still a bit chilly....so everyone was bundled up.

This was the kids first game of the season.

They had great seats...just 15 rows from the Cardinals' dugout.

We wrap up the auction the first pitch bottom of the seventh, so I got to join them for a couple innings. Yep...we stayed thru all 9 innings and the kids didn't make a peep. By the time I joined them, Kate had completely charmed girls a few rows back and Luke had made friends with the couple down the row. In fact, after many foul balls, but none caught by Luke, the couple in their row bought Luke a baseball! My boy's a charmer!

The couple...ya...the coach was a baseball coach. Robb said he wrote down Luke's name...just in case he needs tickets in the future!

Just A Swingin'

Man...15 days since I've made a post...no excuse really...just super busy.


This past weekend the weather was wonderfully beautiful. It was also the first weekend in quite some time that we had NOTHING planned. With that said we made the decision to spend some much needed time on our yard.

Since it was so nice the kids joined us outside for most of the day. While Luke was fairly helpful....he was great at bringing things you needed...picking up weeds....Kate pretty much wanted to hang out and look good.


Being pregnant last year made me unable/unwilling to do much gardening...so our flower beds got pretty much out of control. So that's what we decided to remedy. After two days, some sunburn and a lot of sore muscles....waaaalaaaa.

I know it looks a little bare...but we are going to add a tree and some plants in May.

We finished each day pushing the kids on the swings. This was a huge hit and Kate's first time on a swing.



While it was a very tiring weekend, it was so nice to spend two straight days home with the family and no distractions. We often get pulled in so many directions and plan too many activities. But it's these times that really make be thankful for my beautiful, healthy family.

You Knew Him When...

I think I'm going to start keeping a list now.....of all those people that will be calling me for tickets when Luke is in the Majors.


The Easter Bunny brought Luke his very own catcher's helmet...emblazoned with Cardinal logos and all. I didn't frame this very well...but you can see him flashing the signal for a fastball.

Prepared to jump up and smoke one to second base.

And when it's the 5th day....he's on the mound.

Good form little man.

All interested parties....call me.

Egg-Cellent!

Lame title, but I had to!

So as we started this project I realized...this was the first time Luke had dyed Easter eggs! It was such a different experience than when I was a kid. First of all...it was a lot less smelly and messy. However, the don't have all the cool stuff like when we were kids. Remember the shrink wraps you put around the eggs? And even the wax pen that you used to write your name doesn't work as well!

Alas we went forward and did the best we could...

Uncle Austin helped us with our eggs. See those colored cups. They are great! It has measuring lines so you know exactly how much water and vinegar to fill.

Luke did a great job lifting the eggs out of the dye!

Two down....

Uncle Austin took over the photography so that I could help Luke with the first two eggs. (And for the record...I don't know why he was sweating profusely?)

Waiting for the next few eggs to finish...


Wa-la! We have eggs. And how brilliant is my little man? We had made an extra pink egg, but Luke said, "Let's put it in the blue dye and make a purple egg!". I know....brilliant! So that's what we did.

We had so much fun...I wish we did more eggs! It's times like this that I'm so glad I'm blogging about the family. Dyeing the eggs with Luke was just one of those little memories that I cherish being a Mom!

A Dinosaur Named Sue

The past few months the St. Louis Science Center has hosted a special exhibit of "Sue the Dinosaur", a complete T-Rex fossil from the Field Museum in Chicago. She's not the "real" Sue from Chicago, but a casted replica.

Any hoodle..this really great exhibit with a life-size cast of the fossil, lots of information on how they found the fossil, theories on how T-Rex lived and of course lots of fun things for kiddos to do.

Luke loves dinosaurs, so when we saw this exhibit we knew we'd take Luke. Pair this with the fact that my Dad is a member of the Science Center...we went for next to FREE!
Here's Sue! She's pretty impressive. She's the most complete T-Rex ever found.

One of the exhibit they had set up for the kids was a chance to be a paleontologist! This is a word Luke is very familiar with....his class studied dinosaurs late last year. They talked about fossils and how paleontologists dig for the bones and use small tools to delicately remove the fossils from the soil. He does a great job describing all of this in great detail!

So my little paleontologist used toothbrushes and files to look for fossils in the rocks. It was hard work!

Because I was taking most of the pictures, Luke wanted to make sure Kate and I got in a couple! He's quiet the little photographer!

One more before we left.....Luke doing his best "rooooaaaaarrrrr"!

Sequence!

Have you ever heard of this great game? It's very addicting. We started playing it years ago with my Grandma Harter. I

It involves a playing board, on which are depicted two decks of cards (minus the Jokers and Jacks) and two standard decks.

The game is played by two players, two teams, three players or three teams. Players are dealt a certain number of cards and then take turns to play these cards, placing a chip of their color on one of the corresponding card images on the board. The object of the game is to form one or two rows of 5 chips (be it horizontally, vertically or diagonally) before the other player or players, team or teams.

It sounds technical...but it's really the easiest and most additive board game we own. It's also a staple during our annual trip to Colorado for Thanksgiving.

When the kiddos came on the scene my Aunt Mary discovered the children's version. This Thanksgiving she taught Luke how to play. The kids version used cards of with pictures of animals. We soon traded in the adult version and played the kid's game so Luke can play with us...and he won most games!

Honestly..not letting him win...because trust me I was trying to win...but that little dude understood the strategy of how to position yourself to win!

The weather has been rainy and cold lately, so we hauled out our game.

Luke quickly went up 1-0.

Here he is getting on his way to win and go up 2-0.

And finally swept me 3-0...as he points to his winning "sequence".

If you have or know kids...buy this game!!! It makes a great gift and it's fun for the parents too!