December

December brought the last family birthday of the year...M turned 6! Her favorite gift, the "prayed for" DS!! We could hardly pry it from her hands before she left for school!

Because Kris and I had to go to his office Christmas party that night, M chose to go to Red Robin for lunch, a family favorite!

One of my only pics with the Birthday Girl...

M took the picture below...pretty good, huh?!

The next day was the Kindergarten event of the year...

THE PINK & PURPLE PRETEND PAJAMA PARTY!!!

(10 girls ages 7 and under make a noise that does not even have a definition!)

Pink & Purple Nightgown Cake

November

M's class particpated in the Thanksgiving Chapel at school...Kindergarteners were Pilgrims. They had a really cute play and they all did great! Afterwards they had a small feast...

Aunt KK's little Ozzy came to stay with us over Thanksgiving...it was hilarious. Dixie and Ozzy became fast friends and took advantage of cuddling together when possible...

Thanksgiving Day was a little warm...not really warm enough to go swimming, but E thought it was warm enough to run around outside in her bathing suit and flip-flops with Ozzy :)

Fall Recap Continued

October first brought illness and sent little C to the hospital with many questions surrounding his high fevers and elevated white blood cell count. We stayed at Children's Hospital for 5 days and received amazing care while we were there. After 2 days, C was diagnosed with a-typical Kawasaki's Disease, a-typical because he did not have every symptom but enough symptoms to go ahead with the treatment prescribed for Kawasaki's. On the third day C received a gama globulin transfusion that took over 14 hours...misery. But after the transfusion C was remarkably better and sent home 36 hours later. No one wants their child to go through something like that, but we could not have been in a better place or received better care. Our friends took amazing care of us as well and we are ever grateful.

C made it home just in time to celebrate his 2nd birthday!

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M's school had grandparents day in October...neither set of her grandparents were able to make the trip and so I considered myself to be a "Grand Momma" and was a substitute for the real deals. Her class did a very cute presentation in the classroom and then again in chapel. Notice the pose for the photo op!

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For Halloween we had The Princess of Purple, The Little Mermaid, and Superman. All the kids had so much fun this year and they actually said "Trick or Treat!"...also, the very strange tradition in St. Louis is to tell a joke before you get your treats. So, M's joke was...What do birds get for Halloween? Tweets!

Fall Recap

Apparently, I will be doing quarterly posts now :) I really hope to do better but most of you know how crazy a house with 3 chickens, a rooster, a hen and a dog can be, right?!

First Day of School




M absolutely LOVES school...always has. E was not so sure the first few days but has grown to really love it over the past few months. She only goes 2 days a week...a nice slow transition for her and 2 quieter mornings for me!

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A few weeks later, we had a three year old! And lots of celebrations...Pop and Nana were on their way through town and stopped by for some lunch and cake, E chose Mexican for her birthday dinner, and we had a small princess party for three of her friends a few days later...whew, it's hard being 3!




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At the end of September, Kris had a birthday and M helped me bake the cake!

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We also found out this fall that we had a soccer star in the house!

She scored one of the 3 goals of the season :)

Note #4 kicking the ball towards the goal!!!

Go Pelicans!!!

Summer Recap Continued

Kris and I were able to take an amazing vacation to Playa del Carman, Mexico at the end of the summer to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We had so much fun, despite the HUGE hiccup at the beginning...

We left St. Louis at 6:00 on a Saturday morning...most of you know that I am not a morning person, but it's a whole different story when you are heading to Mexico alone with your husband! We had great flights and landed in sunny, hot Mexico at about noon. We hopped on a mini-van to head to our all-inclusive 5-Star Resort, giddy with anticipation! Upon entering our resort we did notice that it appeared they were not done with all of the landscaping...lots of trucks still around and work to be done. Oh well...the front of the resort was beautiful! We got out of the van and were greeted by many doormen saying, "Welcome Home"...how sweet, I thought!

We were greeted with cool, wet towels to give us relief from the heat and glasses of champagne to celebrate. I was feeling like royalty! We sat down to check in and the man behind the desk said, "I have good news and bad news, which would you like first?" Hmmm, I would prefer only good news! Kris chose the bad news first. The hotel was not completed and their water and air-conditioning were not working! Are you kidding me??? Is Ashton Kutcher going to jump out any minute and tell us we were being Punk'd?! Are we on an episode of Seinfeld?! No, none of the above...not kidding, no joke, no t.v. show. The good news please?! They were sending us to one of their sister resorts free of charge (no kidding!).

At this point, I decided to walk around and enjoy the un-finished resort, while they offered to make me another drink. Kris stayed to talk with the guy and make sure proper arrangements were being made. He was not happy with the sister resort and asked that we be sent to another 5-star resort. A few minutes later, that request was granted and off we were to our 2nd resort of the day :)

We ended up at the Royal Hideaway Playacar (http://www.royalhideaway.com/). It was gorgeous and again we were greeted with cool towels and champagne. We enjoyed 5 days and 4 nights there and had the most fun we've had in a long time...

The best part of this story is that since our first resort was not ready they have given us a free stay to use within a year from our last trip! We are trying to figure out when to go...anyone want to watch three chickens?!