Front Row for the Show!

Thanks to my pal, Lisa, Jack and I had tickets to go see the Cardinals take on the San Francisco Giants! Our seats were AMAZING, right on the front base line, right behind the tarp! The night was beautiful and Jack was awesome! I loved spending some Mom and Jack time as that rarely happens. I also figured it would be good for me to do something with my oldest as he is certainly starting to gravitate to "hanging" with Dad instead of me, which I totally understand, but it sure was nice to treat him to such a special night!

Here is Jack in front of the All-Star arch that was just put up! Sorry for the shadows, we were running a bit late as the game had already started, but this photo op was perfect (and he was willing to stop and smile for me!)
Jack and me with beautiful Busch Stadium as an awesome backdrop!
Jack and Albert Pujols...yep, that sure is him, you know, that little white dot in the background! :)
The Cardinal dugout was SO close! This was a perfect time to snap a picture of the players and Fredbird!
A HUGE shout out goes to Lisa for the invite! The weather was wonderful, the game well, not so much (the Cardinals lost 10 - 0!) but the company made up for it! Thanks for thinking of us! Here is Lisa and I!
We stayed for the entire game and still made it home by 10:00 p.m.!!! This was definitely a night to remember!

The Heat Is Gone!

Finally the horrible hot weather is gone! Since the temperature had been in the high 90's all last week, we were forced to stay indoors, but with the nice weather among us, I opted to get the boys outside so we headed to the park!

We started in the sun, but soon moved to the shade as all the plastic and metal play equipment got HOT! Jack spent his time climbing up, up, up!!! He is our very own Spiderman!
Nick got into the climbing thing too!
Both of my "Spidermen!"
Luke LOVED the slide (I'm not as much as a fan because he can't wear his implant while he is on the plastic slides due to the static electricity!)
I was much happier (and so was he!) when we were just chillin in the shade! He LOVES wearing his sunglasses!!!
After all the climbing, swinging and jumping, we ended our morning at the park with a little rest!
After just a little over an hour, we headed home because all the boys were "too hot!" And mommy was pooped from chasing after three kids moving in three different directions!!! :)

A Wonderful Wedding!!!

We spent Saturday night celebrating Cheryl and Martin's wedding! Cheryl is one of my sister's best friends from grade school!!!
It was great fun as our whole family was there! Here are Nana and Papa!
Pardon my "almost" blink, but here is our fam!
Jackie has such a great group of friends that she still talks to from high school! Here they are all dressed for the occasion!
Of course, no wedding would be complete without some dancing! The boys were definitely getting down!
Even Luke!
The boys were AMAZINGLY so good! It is seriously unbelievable! Here is Luke coloring with his Color Wonder markers!
Of course, we always have a BIT of drama wherever we go! This time though, it wasn't created by my three boys, but rather, my lovely nephew, Henry! Since I am doing this "boot camp" thing and diet that comes with it, I ate my dinner prior to the reception, so I was available to hold Henry while the rest of the table ate. All was well, until Henry had some gas...turns out it was not just gas, but had some "consistency" to it. Worse yet, it "spilled" from his cute khakis onto my dress...seriously, all over it!!! Luckily, it was a print, and the bathroom had a great hand dryer so all turned out well! Henry had to lose his cutesy outfit, but still looked awfully handsome in this getup! He is mischievous already, though! Check out that look!!!
At 9, we headed outside to see the fireworks, that happened to be going on in the lake town that their reception was held in! What an amazing end to a great night!

Friday Fun!

This summer I have tried to come up with little themed "units" to help Luke's speech and vocabulary as well as to do keep some sort of structure in the boys' day while they are away from school. We have worked hard on our "animal" unit, reading tons of books and learning all about zoo animals (unfortunately, we didn't get to make a trip to the zoo as the weather has been SUPER hot!!!) We had to do something fun though to finish out our week, so we made diarama (spelling to totally off!!!)

Our first stop was Michael's to purchase all of our supplies for project! And wow, did the boys ever pick out some supplies!!! Then we headed home to get started!

Here are the boys as they were just getting started!
Here is Nick at work...
Jack seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do !!!
And Luke, he had fun with the pom poms!!!!
And dropping them on the floor!!! (Pardon the plain white onesie, but poor Luke was experiencing some major belly issues and the onesie was easier to keep for him to wear with all the diaper changing!!!)
The projects still aren't finished as the boys really worked hard (and long!) on these projects, but tired of completing them after about 2 hours! I'll make sure to post finished products!!!

A Walk to Remember!

Four years ago, my mom, my sister and I walked in the Susan G. Komen "Race for a Cure." After Jackie's cancer diagnosis and affiliation with the fabulous doctors at the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis, we again "raced" but we joined the Siteman Team!

Our group has grown so much bigger (even though I missed my mom, she had a bridal shower, and my sister, as she was at a family reunion for Uncle Steve's family!). Angie, her daughters Cami and Sydney, Nicole, Sharon, Shelley, Jess and Kristin!

Here is our group of 6 beautiful women (and two beautiful girls pushing their own strollers!).
Hoda Kotb, a 2 year breast cancer survivor, waved at the crowd!
Once we passed Hoda, we walked a bit more and saw this...a sea of people as far as the eye could see! It was truly an unbelievable sight!
We walked almost the entire 3.1 miles, but hopped off the walk to stop at Maggie O'Brien's for a quick lunch (before all the crowds got there!) Sad, I know, but it was still an awesome day! Here is a picture of the end of the race...LOVE the arch in the background!
After lunch we walked outside and everyone and everything from the Race was gone! We hopped on the Metro Link and headed home! It was a great morning, but a tiring one, as we had just returned home from vacation on Thursday and spent all day Friday 'catching up' with laundry, unpacking, etc. Saturday morning, the day of the Race, we were up and out of the house around 6 a.m.! Looks like Kristin was a bit tired too!
Here's a plug to Angie (the fabulous woman on the right!) who raised $500 for the cause! Great job, Ang!

Father's Day Fun!

We started off Father's Day with breakfast for Dan made by the boys and I. We opted to wake him up instead of delivering it to him in bed (too much of a potential for a mess!!!). I tried Fiber One pancake mix and he loved them! WHEW! We then hurriedly got ready for church. After church we went to Nana and Papa's house where we had a LOVELY lunch with my dad's famous pork steaks! We all ate very well (which was a good thing because today, I started a "Boot Camp!").

Dan and his boys!!!
Time for dessert. We made (or bought!) each dad their favorite dessert...coconut cream pie for my dad and Uncle Steve's dad, Rick, german chocolate cake for Uncle Steve and finally a Cold Stone ice cream cake for Dan! Here they are before they dig in!!! :)
Finally, here are Aunt Jackie, Papa and I (we were totally missing Uncle Bryan, especially for this picture!)
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the great dads I'm lucky to have in my life! My dad, Dan, Uncle Bryan, Uncle Steve - You men mean the world to me!!! I hope you all enjoyed your day!!! Bry, Allie and Alyssa can't wait to see you all on the 4th of July!!!

On The Road Again!

Thursday morning we got up BRIGHT and early and were out of the hotel and at the last Dunkin of our trip at 7 a.m.! Here is Dan with his coffee...hope that wakes him up!!! :)
We unfortunately had to spend about another 4 hours in West Virginia! Dan hates this state, as it is SUPER hilly and there are tons of semi trucks on it who drive slow up the hills and then come flying down them! I thought it would be fun to get the boys' pic in front of the WV sign! Poor Buka was sleeping!!!
It was another LONG day of driving in RAIN!!!
Luckily the kids enjoyed their dvds....
...and Buka LOVED his penguin!
And when we were all getting a little fussy, I pulled out some fun snacks! These chips for Dan and Kristin (I tried one and didn't care for them!)
And some lovely red, crab suckers for the kids!
Memo to myself...red suckers in the car with a 2-year old...not a good combo! (But Luke sure did have fun!)
We finally arrived home late on Thursday to find our house just the way we left it....comfy and bigger than all the hotel rooms that we were staying in the past week! We all definitely were happy to be home!! I look back on this trip and am amazed that we pulled this off with three little boys (with much help from Kristin and Maddie!). I know I had an amazing time, I can only hope that the boys will look back on our east coast vacation and remember good times!!!

Baltimore Bummin'

We woke up Wednesday morning in my old stompin' ground of Baltimore. I remember when I flew out to meet Dan for the first time back in Feb 1998. He took me to Philly, New York and Baltimore and I fell in love with the Inner Harbor. I remember saying to him, "I can't even begin to imagine living here, it is so beautiful" and so very different from the corn fields of the midwest! I was lucky enough to have had that chance when I went to graduate school at Loyola College in Maryland!

Here the boys are next to the World Trade Center in Baltimore.
The ESPN Zone there...okay, so I KNOW that Luke can hear, but for the majority of the trip, whenever we would tell him that we wanted to take a picture, he would immediately turn his back to the camera, unless, of course, we said it was for (my nephew) Henry and then he would look at the camera and say, "Baby Henry!"
The whole fam...I LOVE the natural backdrop of the Inner Harbor, now if you go a few blocks into the city, well, it turns more into like a city - ugh!!!
Whenever you go to the Inner Harbor, you definitely have to check out the National Aquarium...it is amazing! Here are the boys right before the dolphin show!
Here is the fam in the rainforest there! (I just LOVE my farmer tanned - thank you Yankee game - arms!)
We all LOVED the new jellyfish exhibit. I honestly could have watched them all day long!
We definitely could have stayed there all day, but after all of our weeks worth of travels, the boys (and I for that matter) were tired!!! We headed out back into the harbor! Look what we found!
If you ever get to Maryland, you MUST have some of their delicious crab cakes!!! We were set to meet up with two of my friends from graduate school at 5, so we didn't want to eat too much. Luckily, Phillips Seafood, has a Phillips Express, just what we needed! We quickly ordered 2 mini crab cake plates and ended up having to get another one as all 3 boys actually tried them AND liked them!!!
After our little snack and some more souvenir purchases, we headed towards our hotel. Again, the boys were loving each other!!!
We then drove around Baltimore and visited Loyola and my old apartment! I totally forgot about the crazy traffic though and we were almost late to dinner with Mandy, Alison and her son, Ben! Luckily, Alison was getting out of an appointment and Mandy is SUPER patient! Here are Luke and I - I had to put this on here as he is FINALLY smiling at the camera!
We had such an AWESOME dinner. Even though we rarely see each other and unfortunately aren't too good at keeping in touch, whenever we do see one another, it is just like old times (with the lovely addition of 4 little boys!). Thanks to Kristin and Maddie for keeping Jack and Nick happy while we all chatted! And Gals, if you are reading this, I AM definitely in for New Orleans in November!
After dinner, our trip had come to an end and we again hopped into the Sienna on our way home! We didn't make it too far as the crazy rain was back! We only got as far as Haggerstown, MD. Oh well, we rested well and were up and moving early Thursday morning! Stay tuned for the drive home!!! (I promise that will be my last post of our trip!)