Fast Forward: Part 2

All 26 of us!

The Adventure: A Frontier Experience

Complete with a bunch of little pioneers, soap carving, mop doll making, marble shooting, gold panning, and marshmallow guns.

Brad showed off his great soap carving skills with this anatomically correct, and polished tooth

Liv carved a heart

The kids all loved panning for gold with my brother Dan.

Springfield, IL, home of Abraham Lincoln. and probably the best museum I have ever been to.

Fast Forward

I am looking at all of my pictures and reallizing that it is going to take way too much time to make a full post about each of our days in St. Louis, so here is my fast forward recap of a couple of the days. Activities included: The Magic House, The Science Center and Pappy's Smokehouse (the best barbeque Brad and I have ever eaten....YUM).

Lake Carlisle

One of our favorite things to do in St. Louis is spend the day at Lake Carlisle. We chose the perfect 95 degree 95% humidity day to be there, and luckily my dad was off work so he was able to help all the kids build a mega sandcastle (his specialty.) I love that he always brings a shovel along and teaches the kids about where to find the best clay, and where it needs to go to give the castle the most stability. We all came home sufficiently worn out, and covered in sand/mud.

Strawberry Festival and Butterfly Girls

We spent our first full day in St. Louis in Kimmswick, Missouri where they were having their Strawberry festival. The girls loved all of the colorful vendors, the live music (including a cute little old man playing an accordian) and learning to do the chicken dance with Grandma JoLynn. Kimmswick is full of little antique shops and yummy food. My parents of course spoiled the girls with sugar and ice cream. Check out the big old Strawberry Sunday Gwen got to finish all by herself! But all of our favorites were getting the girls faces painted. They looked SO cute and were of course so thrilled it made us all happy =0).

Home Again

We're Back! We spent 2 great weeks with my family in St. Louis. We flew home Saturday, and then I left right away to spend the week at girls camp. I'm home now, and somehow, magically I feel mostly back into the swing of life. We are unpacked, and relatively clean around here. I can't imagine how I will ever get caught up on blog posts, but hopefully some day it will happen. Like I said, we had a great time with my family. We spent the first week with just my parents, and my sister KariAnn and fam, and then the whole clan came for the last week. Our girls ADORE their Grandma JoLynn and Papa Kent, and were SOO sad to leave them. These pictures are of Liv on our first day there. My mom let her do all her own make-up.....mascara included. It was fabulous =0). I can't say this enough, but I'm sure I say it all the time--> It's just not right to have to live so far away. We love you guys and wish we had you near by all the time! We miss you already!

Does Anyone have good ideas of what entertainment to bring on the airplane for the girls (other than the portable DVD player)??

This Week

We are:

• Finishing up Liv's last week of school
• Packing for St. Louis
• Singing Happy Birthday to Liv as many times as possible
• Making Aprons for My mom's grandchild adventure
  
• Lining up babysitters for Girls Camp
• Packing girls for babysitters
• Packing for Girls Camp
• Trying to find time to take some pictures for the gallery showing at the end of my photography class.
  
• Trying to get a glimpse of the SUN amidst it all

Liv is turning 5!

Liv turns 5 next week! We are going to be in St. Louis for her birthday, and I don't want to miss her birthday post, so here it is....a week early.

Happy Birthday Angel! We love you so much! This is a little girl who is full of life and sweetness.

Liv is:

1. Caring- I've never known anyone as naturally caring as Liv.
   
2. Happy- Liv has a wonderfully happy smile and a happy laugh.
   
3. Inquisitive- She is full of curiosity about the world around her, and isn't afraid to ask lots of questions.
   
4. Imaginative- I love to see glimpses of childhood through her eyes.
5. Expressive- Liv has a gift with words and a refreshing ability to be open about what she is thinking and how she is feeling.

Liv's Favorite things are:

1. Princesses and Fairies
   
2. Spending time with people
   
3. Art
   
4. Cuddles
5. Riding her bike

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Memorial Weekend Camp Out

I feel like I have a million things to catch up with here. We've been busy. So, Here is a start, I decided to limit the number of pictures I put up so that I can increase my chances of posting everything before we go to St. Louis in a week.

We went camping with our friends the Hymas' this past weekend. We went up north to one of our favorite camping spots, and found that the bugs were pretty happy there too, all million of them =0). I am usually sweet blood for the mosquitos, but somehow I got away with just a few itchy bites. Our weekend was complete with Delicious food, and thanks to Glen and Amy, fishing! (actually I have to say the delicious food was pretty much thanks to Amy too!) Both of the girls caught their first fish....even Gwen (with help from Megan, her new best bud)! Very fun.

Little things:smells that make me happy

I am a midwest girl at heart. Whenever I get back to the humid cornfields, I feel right at home. As I fly into the St. Louis Airport to visit my parents, I look down on the farmland grid below me and just enjoy the warm, happy, full feelings it conjurs in me. I have often wondered how long it will take me to feel at "HOME" in New England. About a year ago, I realized my first "thing" in Maine that makes me feel that same way.... It's the smell of Maine....pine trees mixed with the scent of the ocean. Really Maine smells SO GOOD. Today, I was at a friends house, and as I walked past a grove of pine trees in her back yard, I thought to myself, "That has got to be one of my favorite smells on earth."

Later today, Brad was out grilling chicken on the back deck, and I was in setting the table. Liv had been taking a bucket out to the compost pile. When she came inside, she had a handful of Thyme. She showed it to me and asked if we could put it on our chicken for dinner. I bent over to smell it, and mmmmmm, I realized that the smell of fresh thyme is my other favorite scent on earth. Oh, it is smells so fresh and sweet, I love it.

So now I know my two favorite smells......a fun discovery.

8 inches later

and I look like this-->

You've got to love the quick photobooth self portrait

A bicycle built for two

We spent our weekend doing a lot of this-->

This weekend our favorite family sport expanded to include our little bicycle built for 2. Liv loves the tandem because she says it's like a "bicycle roller coaster." And it was, we didn't slow down much for her. You should have seen her speed down the hills with me. I was kind of suprised she wasn't scared. I love it because she talks to me the whole time. I also love that she can help me pedal up the hills and that she cheers me on by saying, "I think we can, I think we can, I think we can." and then, "I knew we could, I knew we could, I knew we could." And you can never beat a little Jimmies ice cream at the end of a family outing. P.S. Brad was there too, he pulled Gwen in the Chariot, and somehow got away without a picture.

Today... we engaged in battle

We both used our best strategies...but in the end.... she won... Too bad you can't force someone else to take a nap.



I'm not giving up hope. Maybe I'll come out on top tomorrow.

On a brighter side--> Today we made the official switch to underwear. And I think things went pretty well. She was sad every time she peed down her leg (success! even though it was pretty much every time she peed.) And her only poop of the day went in the potty (bug huge success I didn't have to clean it up, even if it was a complete coincidence.) Afterwards she looked in the potty and said, "Mommy, I made a wock (rock) and its in da potty. Where's my potty canny?" I gave her 2 =0).

Chalk Date

I love spring.....and the SUN! (the stubby deformed shadow on the right is me)

Disney World

We had a week full of sun, heat, swimming, and princesses, and that pretty much sums it all up. Here are the pics-->

The Belly

There is something about this that feels a little bit funny to me. But here it is. A picture of my growing belly. Baby Boy's first, non-ultrasound appearance on the BR Clan blog. I never can figure out how far along I am in months. I'm 23 weeks. So, if you are counting by the calendar, that makes me 5 months and one week, but if you are counting by every 4 weeks, that makes me 6 months on Monday. You decide =0).

You see this smile?

That means NO CAVITIES for me! WAHOO! Believe me, with a history like mine, its a relief every time!

EDIT: When I say no cavities, I mean no cavities this time around. just to clarify, I have had more fillings than I can count.

The Happiest Place on Earth

We just got back from Disney, and hot sun. More details to come later. For now...Brad and I are unpacking and washing laundry while the girls are catching up on lots of missed sleep =0).

Oh Boy, Oh BOY!

One of my favorite things has to be going in for the 20 week ultrasound and seeing our sweet little baby for the first time. Here are a couple pictures of our sweet little BOY! Can you believe it?!? What a a little angel =0). I really love finding out the baby's gender. It makes him so real to me. I can feel his little spirit. I feel like he's hanging out with us now, part of the family =0) . I can hardly believe we are going to have a little boy. How exciting! (Happy Easter!)

Hap-Hap-Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Babe, I love you!

Second on the St. George

Saturday I took the girls up to the St. George river to watch Brad in his first kayak race. He has this friend who has introduced him to the sport, and convinced him to start racing this year. Mostly for fun. Saturday was a beautiful day. The girls and I headed out for the 1.5 hour drive and enjoyed the scenery near the coast. We met up with Brad just before he started his warm up, so we got to see him put his kayak in and then take his turn at the start. The race was a staggered start, 2 boaters starting at a time. Brad was in the second group. As soon as he started, we ran up to our car to drive to the first watching point where a bridge crossed over the river. We climbed through a snowy riverside to get to a great place where we could watch, and got there just in time to see Brad turn the corner 200 yards from where we sat. We got to see him pump through some rapids and keep upright =0) (way to go! That water looked COLD!). We ran to the car again to try to meet him at the finish line, but miss guessed where we were supposed to go, drove 10 minutes out of our way before I figured it out and turned around. Luckily, I turned off of a random side road and guessed right the second time around. We met him pulling his boat out of the water about 10 minutes after he finished. We stuck around to watch the rest of the boaters come in, while the girls had fun throwing rocks and covering innocent bystanders shoes with sand/dirt (oops!). Then we stayed to watch the awards ceremony. Brad's goal was to finish in the top half, and he ended up getting 2nd place! He did a great job. Way to go BR we are so proud of you! Gwen keeps saying, "Daddy did a good job racing." "I like Daddy's racing." It turned out to be a fun way to enjoy a beautiful day.

Hey YOU

There is a baby in our mom's tummy! (Most of you have probably guessed since she has disappeared for the last 3 months). We are hoping to find out if it is a boy or a girl at the ultrasound next week=0). Can't wait! Latest baby developments: The baby is starting to kick, Liv likes to talk to it and sing to it through mom's belly button, and Gwen is pretty much clueless, although she does hug mom's belly on cue, and mom's tummy is grooowing. The baby is due the first week of September, on Gwen's due date, the day before she turns 3. We are pretty excited and we'll keep you updated!