SPARKLES

Ellen and Sophia finally have something in common! THEY LOVE TO PLAY DRESS UP! Sophia was introduced to the tutu and loved it. She went wild with the necklaces and bracelets. I guess this momma is going to have to get used to all things girly! : )

Summer Fun

The girls spent the afternoon in the pool. There wasn't a lot of room in there this year.

They took a break for a little snack on the porch.

Happy Father's Day

Father's Day 2010

Happy Father's Day PaPa!

These are the dresses that I made for the girls. Thanks Lindsay for putting up with me.

Ellen Grace- 3 yr. 11 mo.

Sophia Faith- 1 yr. 2 mo.

Kate Nicole- 1 yr. 9 mo.

St. Louis

Tim and I took a quick trip to St. Louis last weekend. Tim surprised me at Valentine's Day with a trip to the Fabulous Fox, dinner, and a night in a nice hotel. I quickly got online and found out that Wicked would be showing in June so I knew that's when I wanted to go. We found tickets to the show and started planning around that date. We knew we could find a place to eat once we got there so I started looking for a place to stay. Since we were only staying one night we decided to look for a nicer place. We found a great rate at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch.

Pictures outside of the Fox building.

I didn't take my camera inside but the building is BEAUTIFUL! It's such a neat building that has been around for a long time; it truly is a treasure to behold.


Some of you have heard our story about this trip but it bears repeating.
Tim and I took off from Desloge (were we left the girls) in plenty of time to get to the Fox, find a place to park, look around, and find our seats. When we got to the Fox we parked and walked in; where we were greeted in a whisper by the ticket taker. She kindly said (in a whisper) "the show has already started, so I'll..." "WHAT?" I quickly interrupted. She said, "yes, the show started at 1:00." I totally thought the show started at 2:00. My heart quickly sank and I felt so embarrassed! The lady kindly tried to find our seats in the dark, but we ended up settling for some farther back until intermission. Tim felt so bad for me because I had been looking forward to this for so long. He decided he would go talk to the ticket people and see what we could do.
To make a long story short we had 3 options: 1- stay and finish the show and count the first 45 minutes of the show a loss. 2- leave and try to buy tickets again for the evening show. 3- watch the second half of the show and come back before the evening show, to see if they had any tickets left to trade in for what we missed. I went for options 3 because I didn't want to leave and risk the evening show being sold out. So, we came back at 7:30 and they gave us tickets (that weren't too bad) and saw the first half of the show. Since I had already seen the second half I didn't feel like we needed to stay, so we left at intermission. So, the show was FABULOUS! Even if I didn't see it in the right order. : )


After we left the Fox, for the first time, we hunted down our hotel. We checked in to this nice, little room. It was very small and the view was of another big building. This was not what I was expecting. Tim called the front desk and asked if they had a room with a view and they did. We quickly packed up and moved from this...

...to THIS!

It was so much bigger and the views were GREAT!

These are all views from our room. It was the last room on the corner so we could see the Arch out one window and Downtown from the other.

I felt kind of funny taking pictures of us in St. Louis because it doesn't seem like a vacation spot to me.

We had to find a Ted Drews Frozen Custard stand before we left St. Louis...it's a STL original!

More sewing

I found this material at Hobby Lobby a while back and I just loved it. My mom had given me a pattern that I wanted to try but I wasn't sure I could to do it alone... so, it sat in the laundry room for a long time. I had some "free time" and decided to tackle my fear head on. I only had to make one phone call to my mom for help and this is how it turned out. THANKS MOM!

Old time fun

We came home from running errands to see the fire hydrant turned on down the street. I quickly got the girls changed and went out to see what was going on. We played in the water for a good 45 minutes before the city workers came and turned the water off. Sophia was not too pleased with that. : )

Ellen was really having a good time running through the water. It took her a few minutes to work up to it, but once she got the nerve she had a blast.

GO ELLEN GO!

Sophia was trying to get in front of Ellen. I've said it before and I know I'll say it again...Sophia is going to give Ellen a run for her money one of these days.

It looks like Sophia is doing one of her famous dance moves, but she is actually putting down a big stomp/splash. Just like her big sister.

More splashing!



What a fun water day...and it won't make my water bill go up one cent!

Early Father's Day

We finally broke down and bought a gas grill. Tim and I are firm believers in the Weber charcoal grill, but there have been several times where I want to throw something on the grill, spur of the moment, and I couldn't do that before. We didn't get rid of the Weber, it has just taken a back seat to this BEAUTY!

Springfield Zoo trip

Ellen was glad to see the peacock first.


Taking in all the sights at the zoo. This was Sophia's first real trip to the zoo.

It was a beautiful day with perfect weather. But, it's always a good idea to splash in the water.

Sophia was almost "eaten" by the goats. It took a little convincing, but Ellen did feed the goats. Good thing I was quick with the camera because I don't think it happened again!

Sophia was really aware of her surroundings. She kept pointing and saying "that!"

It's a blessing having something like this so close to Bolivar. Especially now that the girls are small. Once they figure out that this zoo is pretty small they may not be as excited.