Little Miss Fat Cheeks

one accurate and two inaccurate portrayals of Henry

Utah-Summer 2008 visit

A cousins party at Shannon and Andrew's
Dawn, Julie, and all those kids at Thanksgiving point.

More Mary as ballerina

South Dakota

We visited some parks. It was beautiful weather for October.

This is Dinosaur Park, a CCC project from the Depression. It features lots of big cement dinosaurs.

Mt. Rushmore

Scott, after finishing the Crazy Horse marathon. Good job, Scott. And good job me, for my first ever parallel park without a coach.

Mary gets around

This is last week. She is 5 months old. She pushes up on her hands and knees, and scoots backwards until she gets stuck.

Sunday at Normandale Lake

halloween

Scott and I were pilots

Mary was a ballerina

Henry was a villain. The cape is shiny red on the outside, and he had a matching cummerbund that his shirt is covering here.

Stan was Batman. He had a cape to go with this.

stan and dad have a night out

transportation museum

We went to the transportation museum today, and had a great time. We went into this red caboose, which led into a few other cabooses and a tanker car. I really do love old trains. The highlight for the boys may have been climbing on the pile of extra gravel in an out-of-the-way corner. Besides trains and cars, they had a little airplane and a tug boat, and probably other things we would have seen had we arrived earlier in the day and had more time. They also have a little train you can ride for a fee, but kids and a parent can ride free if they print out the train-themed coloring page from the web site, color it, and bring it in. I will take advantage of that next year.

happy 4th

We went to a Fourth of July parade in Webster Groves, one of the suburbs we are considering moving into next summer if we get a job here in St. Louis. It wasn't the most impressive parade ever, but we had a good time and the boys got a few pieces of candy. Later in the afternoon, after a very exciting (for Stan) trip to the McDonalds playplace, we went back to look at homes. As it turns out, historic downtown Webster Groves is the most perfect neighborhood in Missouri. The homes are beautiful and old and large without having that 'old money' feel. The yards are big and well-kept and everyone was out having barbecues or front-yard parties, sitting on porches, walking dogs, or having lemonade stands. The library and YMCA (not a scary one, either) are in walking distance. And did I mention that every home is beautiful? Now all we need is lots of money....

We took the boys to see some fireworks last night, so we didn't have to do it tonight. For some reason they do fireworks on the third, fourth, and fifth (at least- maybe more) here, and we were out late last night anyway so it worked out better that way.

Mary gets lots of love

a new(to us) corner of Forest Park

We are lucky to have such a great park across the street from our place! We have been here so may times and are still discovering fun new places.