Turkey Day Travel

     Wow...Has it really been almost two weeks since Thanksgiving???  I should really quit slacking and get to posting some of our fun that we had in St. Louis.  I know it sounds strange, but yes we did take a mini vacation over the Thanksgiving holiday.  Hey, you have to take what you can get sometimes.  Back to the trip.  We headed out on Wednesday night with the best of intentions of hitting the zoo first thing in the morning.  Um, yea, about that...Mother Nature definitely had some other ideas for us.  It was cold and snowing, so instead of the zoo we did a little swimming in the morning and then went watched Tangled.  Such a cute/fun movie.  After the movie we went and had our Thanksgiving dinner.  Definitely not as good as a homemade/traditional one, but who can complain when I did not have to do any of the clean up.  Friday we decided to head to the City Museum.  All I can say is WOW, oh and OUCH!  Not sure who designed the place, but they have a creative imagination and definitely designed it for little people.  We had such a good time and spent the whole day there.  Saturday we went to the Magic House.  Another great and fun place to go.  The kids enjoyed running from exhibit to exhibit and playing with all the different things there.  Normally I like to be a little more interactive with the places we go, but for some reason just standing back and watching them have a good time was enough for me.  After the Magic House we headed home following the Lewis and Clark Trail.  We will definitely be heading back to St. Louis again some time.  I would still like to check out their zoo and they have what looked like a pretty neat science museum too.  Here are some of the photos from our trip.  They are not the greatest due to the lighting not being that great in either place. 

City Museum

He had absolutely no fear when climbing up there.

Not sure where this was, but I have to say that the girl has a thing for manequins.

Riding the train.

The sponge pit.

Let's just say this was cramped quarters.

The Arch

Magic House

Driving the Smart Car

A little shopping

Filling it up.

Giant bubble wand

Holiday Pics

     This past weekend we got all dressed up to have our annual holiday pictures taken.  I only remember one family photo of me growing up so I try hard to keep this tradition.  Plus, Mikayla is practically a Christmas baby so I double up family photos with getting her age photos.  This year we went to Portraits Today Studios (which is where we went last year), and they did a great job.  I love finding great deals, so of course when they became the deal of the day on Living Social Deals I jumped at the opportunity knowing what a great job they did last year.  The only problem we always have is deciding which ones to get.  Here are a few of our favorites.

My personal favorite

I love her expression

Too cute

The hand is just too much :)

Love, love, love this one

Good Night Moon

    Just a cute little story that I want be able to remember...  Tonight when I was taking Noah to his gymnastics class we needed to drop my mom off at my brother's on the way.  My mom pointed out the moon to Noah and made the comment that there was a cloud in front of it.  We dropped her off and headed towards gymnastics.  At a stoplight Noah made the same comment that my mom had made about the moon.  Then he we on to say good night to the moon and sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to it.  He said good night to it one more time.  It was just to sweet.

A "Fun" Attempt at Christmas Pictures and a Deer

    Yes, you read that correctly.  It may seem early, but really it is just around the corner.  In hopes of getting a head start on our Christmas cards for this year we took the kids to the park this past weekend to take some pictures.  We got there kind of late and to say the least the kids were not being cooperative with the picture taking.  There were a few good shots, but it looks like we will be going out again sometime.  While we were there we did see two deer crossing the street.  When we were walking back we saw one of them just standing there.  Other than almost hitting a group of them with my car, I have never been so close to a deer.

Halloween

   It has been really busy for us, so here is a late recap of our Halloween weekend.  On Saturday we braved through a traffic jam on our way out to the zoo for a beautiful day at the Boo at the Zoo.  Mike had homework to do so it was just me and the kids.  I got them all dressed up in their costumes in anticipation of doing some trick-or-treating there and possibly participating in one of the parades.  This was the first time this year that we made it to the zoo.  We were all really excited to go since they now have a polar bear on exhibit.  It is really cool to see it swimming around and it comes right up to the glass.  The kids enjoyed seeing all the animals, but agreed that the polar bear was the best.  They also had fun getting candy from all the tables set up around the zoo.  We were even able to go on a hayride.  We ended the trip at the zoo by visiting the Haunted Valley.  I'm sure the kids would have loved to have stayed there longer to play, but I needed them to conserve their energy for the walk back to the car.  That afternoon we came home and lounged around until movie night.  It was Mike's turn to pick and appropriately he picks "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
     Sunday we had a lot of errands to run and things to get done around the house before taking the kids out trick-or-treating.  At night we made a quick dinner and got the kids into their costumes.  We had a lot of fun trick-or-treating.  We took the kids around the neighborhood following the path that we normally go on for our walks.  Mikayla thought it was fun as we kept running into one of the kids who rides her bus.  Noah kept me smiling the whole night.  He was sure to say trick or treat and thank you to each house, sometimes even helping to close the door.  But it was so fun to see his face light up as he exclaimed that he had found the next house.  Too cute!

The Polar Bear

They love the Buddha bellies

Taking a little rest

Her rest involved more posing

Working through the web

On the hayride



Beware of the pirate



Walking the plank

Pre-trick or treating

Showcasing his loot