Playdate

We had an impromptu playdate at my friend, Denise's house, on Monday.

All of us used to teach together. Now, only two of us remain at the same school. The rest are at other schools or are not teaching anymore to be a stay at home mom. We try to get together once a month for bruch and a playdate. This day was last minute, and was the second time this month. So fun!!

The kids are super cute together. A five year old, three three year olds, Kate, and Baby Naomi who will be running around with all the kids before we know it!!

There's four of them. Where's the fifth?

There he is!!

It's darn near impossible to get them all together for a picture. We all stand around like paparazzi with our cameras, yelling, "Say cheese!!" "Kate, look at the camera!" "Madelyn, look right here!!", "Dominic, stand right there!", "Natalie, come back!" "Put your arms around each other!" "Look at me!"

It's probably a sight to see. And those poor kids. They just want to run. :)

This is how most of their four hours went. Running back and forth from swingset, to playhouse, to clear across the yard with the occasional bump, scratch, or bruise.

When it was all over, the kids were tired, dirty, and mosquito bitten. And us friends/moms were refreshed.

Zoo Day

We have had the craziest July weather here. Like mid 70's! That's unheard of around here.

So, last Saturday when it was an unseasonably 75 degrees, we, and the rest of St. Louis, headed to the Zoo. It was packed!

We weren't there for very long, so there was a lot we didn't get to see, but it was a great time. And, who could complain about touring the zoo in that weather?? It was AMAZING!!

The elephants (the real ones) turned out to be her favorite, which surprised me. We don't talk about elephants a lot. Mainly bears, tigers, monkeys, and birds and stuff. Her elephant impression is pretty funny and since seeing them, she does it a lot. She was wearing Mark's shoes the other day and I said, "What do Daddy's shoes smell like?" and she did the elephant impression. Priceless. And so true, Kate, so true.

Oh, and she was also pretty impressed with the giraffes.

She, like her Momma, was not too impressed with the bird house. Birds are not my fave, to say the least. But, her Daddy likes it in there, and pointed out all the little ducks and birds.

As usual, she spent more time out of the stroller, than in it.

She took turns riding on Daddy and Mommy's shoulders.

It was a fantastic day that ended with a low key dinner at Applebee's, a little girl conked out in the backseat, and two happy parents thinking, "Job well done."

Just Like Momma

This girl talks like me, throws her hands around like me, gets angry like me, is independent like me, and loves purses, shoes, makeup, nail polish, and dolls.

She's trying to be just like Momma here. All except the no clothes thing. :)

Kate on Film

I am loving Mark's new iPhone!! If you see the iPhone commercials, it's just like that! You can make a video, crop it, and then e-mail it directly to someone, or upload it to YouTube right on the spot. I can handle putting the YouTube code on our blog. I just could never figure out how to get our videos from our video camera onto YouTube to share. So, maybe I'll be posting videos more often now that I know how.

Here's a couple of Kate at the zoo:





And here's a crazy video of Kate calling me while she was waiting on me to get out of the shower. Mark took this and it went on forever!! This was when the poor girl was getting over her cold, so she has a runny nose.

Our 5 Year Anniversary

Like always, I should have posted this a long time ago. But, you know, life got in the way. We got busy. Kate got sick. I got sick. And I'm dealing with first trimester pregnancy stuff. Ugh!!

All that aside, we celebrated our fifth anniversary on July 10th. Kate spent the night with my family since my aunt from Texas was in town. That gave them all some quality "Kate time".

Mark and I took the evening to ourselves and had dinner at The Macaroni Grill and went to The Lumiere Place Casino in downtown St. Louis. We had a blast and ended up winning about $120 on penny slots of all things!!

We spent the night at The Hyatt and had a wonderful view.

Downtown was CRAZY because of the All Star Game hype. But, it was exciting to see all of that! We took a cab back and forth to the casino just because the traffic was insane and we didn't want to deal with parking.

It was such a nice change of pace to have time all to ourselves... and a date night which hasn't happened in a very long time!!

Unbelievably, in five days, Mark and I will have been together for TEN YEARS!!! We dated for almost five years before getting married. It's crazy to think that we have spent such a huge chunk of our lives together... and crazy that it's actually worked... ha!

Seriously, though, I can't imagine my life without Mark. We learn A LOT from each other, our patience is tested, we roll our eyes (well, I do, which is a habit I am trying to break!), we laugh, we cry, we fight, we make up, we make decisions together, we parent together, and we do it all knowing that we are with the one that God hand picked for one other.

And, I know that to be true, because if you knew us when we first got together, we were the very LAST two people you thought would ever end up together. We just didn't make sense. But, for some reason, we work. Where I'm weak, he's strong. And vice versa. He's introverted to the max, and I'm just as much extraverted. He's super smart, and I'm... well... I teach first graders. I know first grade stuff. He reads philosophy books and I read US Weekly. He likes The Discovery Channel and I could watch E! News all day. And, that's Mark and Jen.

One of our friends was talking about our lives and told us that you don't just think of "Mark" or "Jen". It's "Mark & Jen", that we are a team, that we are so much more together than on our own. One of the best compliments I've ever received. And, of course, he said it way better than I could write.

Mark and Jen. We're like peanut butter and jelly. (I think Mark and Megan are the only ones that will remember that line.) :)

Fireworks & Sparklers

Hope everyone had a great 4th!!

We watched the Union fireworks Friday night from a friend's house. They have a perfect view right from their deck!! Kate sat with Mark the whole time just looking up and then, clapped when they were over.

We bought her some sparklers to do. At first, she was a little scared.

But, then she got the hang of it.

We went home and did some more sparklers in the driveway.

The neighbors were all out. Once they realized our kid was still up, and we realized their kids were still up, the big guns were pulled out. We did some loud fireworks late into the night. The three of us all went to bed around midnight (Kate included... I'm telling you, the girl likes to party!)

Our 4th of July was actually a littl different this year because Mark had to take pictures at a wedding all day, and my parents were out of town, so we didn't watch the Manchester fireworks.

So, Kate and I had a little playdate/dinner with some friends, and then went to the Starlings to do some more fireworks and hang out. Mark was able to join us there around 9:00.

All in all, it was a good 4th, though we did miss Mark that day.

Library Fun

There were a couple events at the library this week that Kate and I went to. It's nice to break up the day like that.

On Tuesday, there was a kid's singer/entertainer, Babaloo. He came to our school once and he is hilarious!! Kate loved it!! He's loud as can be, and does all this stuff that kids love (like sing about boogers, and toilets, and make fart noises).

He wears crazy clothes, has crazy hair, oh, and did I mention he is LOUD????

Kate and I sat on the floor, but as soon as she saw Christy, the children's librarian (she and her husband are also good friends of ours), she ran over to her and spent most of the time sitting on her lap. So, it kinda looked like I came to see Babaloo all by myself. And sat on the floor just to get a little closer. :)

That picture's dark, but can you see Kate? She's the only kid standing up. And the only kid exposing her belly button. That's her new thing. We tell her to say "hi" or something and she shows people her belly. It's a phase, I'm sure.

Babaloo had a bubble machine which Kate just went wild for. He also had bean bags for the kids to play with during one of his songs. And he gave all the kids buckets and drumsticks to play during another song.

(I only had my iPhone camera, and it doesn't do very well with movement... hence, the blur.)

Then, it got really fun, and he put beans on all the buckets so when the kids hit it, the beans would go flying all around.

Then, he gave them all empty water bottles and had them pick up the beans and put them in the bottles to make instruments to play for the last song. How fun is that??

He ended with more bubbles, which, yet again, made my little girl's day.

The next day, we went back to the library to see Curious George. I knew Kate wouldn't go up to him, but I thought it would be fun to at least go. But, again, the minute she saw Christy, she ran up to her and gave her a big hug. She stayed by her and watched all the kids see Curious George.
So, yet again, there I was childless... standing in line to see Curious George and the Yellow Hat man.

Kate really wanted nothing to do with him. I thought she was going to get brave when she walked up and held her hand up to him. But, as soon as he reached out, she backed up SO fast!! She even reenacted that for Mark later in the day when I told her to tell Daddy what she did at the library. It was SO funny (and very dramatic)!!

That's about as close as she would get as long as Christy was holding her. :)

We finished that part of our day off with McDonald's milkshakes.

Summer Fun

Nothing says summer fun like sweat, bubbles, and cheesy grins!!

A Heavy Load

This is what being out of town for a weekend, getting two bags full of clothes for Kate from her grandma, and being completely EXHAUSTED will do to a laundry room.

I have my work cut out for me today!!

Maybe some "after" photos will follow. :)

First Ultrasound

We had our first ultrasound of Baby #2 on Monday. Everything looks great!! Right now, judging by the measurements, they are saying that I am almost 9 weeks and due February 5, 2010.

I go back in two weeks just to make sure that's still the estimated due date.

This time was different, for sure. For one, Kate was with us and in a BAD mood. Poor girl fell asleep about twenty minutes from the doctor's office, so her nap was cut terribly short. A sucker from one of the nurses calmed her down long enough for us to see our little peanut on the screen.

There was a good, strong heartbeat, so, so far, all is well.

I would post the pictures, but they turned out so dark, that you can hardly see anything. Hopefully, the pictures in two weeks will be better.

I've been feeling pretty good. Totally exhausted and a little sickly here and there, but nothing like it was with Kate. Could that mean boy???? :)

What We've Been Up To

Summer school is OVER!!! The last day was Friday, but we had to head down to Oklahoma for a wedding (a friend of Mark's from college... Mark was taking the pictures), so I had a sub that day.

We had a blast this past weekend. We left Friday morning around 10:30. We stopped in Rolla for lunch. And, then the fun began...

Kate learned to unbuckle her seatbelt on her car seat. Lovely! About every, oh, five minutes, we would hear Kate SCREAM from the back "Da... Da... Da....". Mark would tell her to put it back on, she would, and then five minutes later it would happen again. Yeah, it was fun.

Finally, she fell asleep for her nap and slept until we entered Oklahoma.

We made a stop in Tulsa for Mark to stand in line for the new iPhone. Kate and I just waited in the car. She needed out of her carseat, so she sat and played with the steering wheel in the car and stuck her head out the sunroof.

After that, we ended up having to go straight to the rehearsal, so we didn't get to our hotel in Broken Arrow until after 8. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and we were pleasantly surprised. It was beautiful and our room was SO nice!

Kate was thrilled to be OUT OF THE CAR!! She ran the halls of the hotel.

And, she crawled all over our luggage cart. :)

Kate got a bath and jumped all over the bed. I thought she would never calm down for bedtime!!

The bachelor party started around 9:30 that night, but it was within walking distance from the hotel. So, Kate and I relaxed at the hotel (actually, she fell asleep and I just watched t.v.). It was SO nice!!

On Saturday morning, Mark had to take pictures early, so Kate and I went down to the continental breakfast and had a slow morning.

The wedding was beautiful and Kate behaved wonderfully!! We were so worried about what she would do when she saw Mark. There were a couple times I thought she might yell out to him, but she just waved like crazy at him. The reception was immediately following and was pretty short, so we were out by about 5.

We went to the mall and went to a great Mexican restaurant for dinner. Then, we headed back to the hotel and had a very relaxing night. I think Mark and I were both asleep by 10!

We had breakfast Sunday morning, packed up, and headed to Joplin to see Jamie and Ryan, some friends from college. They have two adorable little girls, one of which we hadn't met yet.

The girls played together at their house and then we all headed to dinner. It was interesting to sit at a table with four of us adults, two toddlers, and a baby. Busy, to say the least. Crazy how much things change in only five years.

We had to snap some pictures before we left.

It was sad to leave. I hate leaving good friends. We left a lot later than we had planned, so we didn't get home until about 11:00 and we were SOOOO tired!!

It was just so nice to get away, though!!