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Easter Sunday

I love Easter! For more reasons than I can count...
Jesus's resurrection means everything to me. My life is changed because of that for-wretched-old-me miracle. After a long weekend of reflecting what He did on the cross, it's so beautiful to celebrate what happened a few days later.
Spring is a welcomed friend after a long winter. 
I love giving (and getting!) little gifts, so Easter baskets are so fun. 
BabyGap must sew drugs into their clothes, making little kids Easter clothes irresistible. 
But, Easter is special to me this year because it is the first year that Winifred understands why we celebrate. If you ask her, she'll say, "Jesus is alive!" We've been reading the story over and over from her Jesus Storybook Bible, and they've been talking about the resurrection at school for the past couple weeks. And she definitely celebrates the fact that she got to wear a new, fancy dress. Rush said this morning, "I look handsome! Even my hair looks handsome!" Happy Easter!

 Posing before church on our balcony. I am crazy about these cuties!

 Our friend Patrick snapped this shot before our family and Winnie's bow walked into the service.

Enjoying their Easter baskets
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Winnie's 4th

I can't even believe my girl is four. She is growing into such a sweet girl...so sassy and smart and dramatic and the lover of all things "girly." She loves fiercely and wears her emotions on her sleeve. She loves snuggling, singing, dancing, baking with me, reading books, working in her art center, playing with her babies, and swinging. I can hardly believe it's already been four years, but also can't really remember life without her. She is such a firework in my life. 

On Wednesday, Winifred had her "Birthday Star" day at school. I spent the whole morning there with her. What a blessing her school, teachers, classmates, and families have been to us this year! I was so humbled to have her sweet 3K class celebrate her in such a loving way. She had this ridiculous hat, a birthday necklace that she made in the morning, and was the special star all day. 
We brought in a special snack...banana mini muffins and juice boxes. 

Singing with Mrs. Heinemann

On her actual birthday, I planned a day-long celebration. She got to choose a few friends and special outings she wanted to share with them. She has such special little friendships, and it was so precious to see Winnie and her friends enjoy each other. I had a great day spending time with these kids. But, it was a long and exhausting day for both of us. I hope that it's a day she'll remember for a long time. 
This is going down in our elevator. She wanted a photo of her all fancy in her new dress.

First stop was breakfast at First Watch with Eden. They both had chocolate chip waffles, fruit, and orange juice. They had such a fun time laughing together and agreed that their chocolate chip waffles were most delicious.

After breakfast, we dropped off Eden at home, then headed over to pick up Lucy for manicures and pedicures. This was the thing Winnie was most excited about. They were completely delighted that the ladies put jeweled flowers on their thumbnails. Lucy is a cute little spit-fire. She had Winnie and I in stitches all morning. 

Sweet little fingers

After a morning at the salon, we were ready for lunch with Eric at Fitz's. Andy even came along for this one. While we waited for our table, they were able to watch the bottling of the root beer.

What a cute little duo! (Eric would not want me to say "couple.") I told Andy that they'd never be able to go to prom together, because in the 100 shots I got of them, not one featured both of them smiling. This was the best one I could get!

What goofballs! They hardly ate lunch because they filled up their bellies with so much pink lemonade. 
Eric kept the conversation going talking about his grandpa's vintage Corvette, and at one point Winnie asked, "Eric, could you please stop talking about Corvettes?" Hilarious.

After dropping Eric and Andy back off, Winnie and I headed over to school to pick up Sonya. We took her home to pick up her overnight bag(!), then decided we needed a little Yo My Goodness. Since it was a birthday celebration, I allowed the above yogurt/candy/I don't even know what to happen. 

This photo cracks me up...Sonya told Winnie to pose like a "serious model." The girls went with me to buy balloons and the cake, and to pick up Rush from Gramma's house.

Her final "friend choice" was inviting Albert and Hope over for pizza and cake. She also invited "her" friend Stephen. Beau and Aaron came as well, so we ordered Imo's and had fruit and salad and this Barbie princess cake that Winnie thought was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

About to blow out the candles. One of Eric's gifts for her was this Ariel mermaid dress, so she clearly had to wear it for the party.

Our kids love movies, so she was thrilled to get Lady and the Tramp. 

Winnie and Stephen. These two are like peas in a pod.

Sonya getting to spend the night was a huge thing...a first for both of them. This was taken "the morning after." What a fun birthday!



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The Spring Break 2012 Mega Post

I thought we were going to have a laid-back Spring Break, but it ended up being very busy. My parents came in town to visit, my sister and her kids came to visit, we went to Branson for a couple days to see my brother and his family and visit my grandparents, and then filled up all the in-between with fun stuff around St. Louis. It will probably bother my sister that these photos are all out of order, but I didn't realize the mistake until I had captioned them all, so I'm not changing it now. Yay for warm weather!

Winnie and cousin Clara during our backyard picnic in Branson.


They love jumping on the trampoline!


We took in scenic Hurley. We walked all over my grandpa's land, and I told the kids tons of stories from my childhood. They love those stories. This was the site of my mountain lion/fall/fire ant incident.


Just before the Easter Egg Hunt at the Botanical Gardens. We enjoy this event every year.


There are always bunnies to pet, including this one situated on a grandma-styled loveseat ready for a photo-op.


The bunnies kept getting bigger and bigger.

On Saturday, we went to the Arch grounds with the Reinbergs. Looks like Rush is a smitten-kitten when it comes to Hope.


All four kids. I love this photo. They were having fun on the steps watching the cars, boats, helicopters, and people. We finished up the night with them at Rosalita's for dinner.


Rush mastered the climbing wall at Forest Park.


My sister brought her kids to St. Louis for a quick visit. Here is Rush with Finn...they had a great time playing together. I am so thankful that even the oldest of the cousins still makes time to play with the little ones. They are all so sweet together.

We ended the weekend with a Sunday night Ted Drewes stop. Please take note of Rush's dripped-on pants! And his freshly-shorn hair.
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Smarty-Pants

My kids are smart. And not just in a "I'm their mom and everything they do is wonderful" sort of way. They are smart and have skills that sometime freak me out a bit. For instance, I never even spent one second teaching Rush how to write his name. So imagine my surprise when I went into their room the other night and found him doing this...
 Unbelievable! Then he said, "Now I write Winnie's name!" And then he did. Not too shabby.

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With My Family

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I went to Arkansas for a week. On Monday, we left Winnie with my mom for a little day of fun with Googie. Rush, Dad, Tracy, and I drove to Crane to visit Grandpa and Winnie. Rush was a sweet boy the whole time and we had fun at all of our stops. After we left the nursing home, we drove over to my Dad's farm so he could collect some "cow dirt." While he and Tracy did this,...

 Rush and I walked around, and Rush invented the riveting game "Jump Over the Cow Pile."

 He was obsessed with the cows and was convinced if he could get close enough and prove himself friendly, he would be able to ride a cow. Didn't happen.


 Another reason for our trip was Remi's 5th birthday party. She had a Minnie Mouse and Friends party, and the kids were in heaven. I LOVE cousins. I try really hard to foster those relationships and give the kids plenty of quality time with their sweet cousins.



Sorry these photos are so small! I can't figure out the new blogger, and can't figure out how to change the picture size.
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Valentine's Day

I just uploaded (downloaded? I have no idea.) a billion photos from our camera to the computer thinking I would catch up and swallow my pride and post about Advent, Christmas, and the last couple months of our life. I could even fudge the dates so that my lack of blogging might even be forgotten years from now. Too overwhelming! We'll let this break just remain clouded with mystery. For all you know, Andy surprised me with a huge ribbon covered car for Christmas and we spent holiday in Aspen with our fancy friends. None of whom have time to read blogs, so the story could check out. 

I'm starting with this photo of Winnie's questionable Valentine's Day box "we" made for school. I was going to take the reigns...I had visions of a vertical box with a ribbon handle and miniature pastel-colored tissue paper flowers covering it. I let go of that and let this happen, which was actually wonderful because she thought it was wonderful. Go figure. The important part was that we made it together. With friends. And she was really proud of it.

I did make an attempt to make actual Valentine's Day feel special. Like every stay-home mom on this special holiday, I crafted heart-shaped food for my little hungry valentines. We started the day with scrambled eggs (I resisted the urge to color them pink. I am "on" with eggs right now, and didn't want to be risky with my gag reflux.) I took the plunge and made Pioneer Woman's cinnamon toast and used a pizza cutter to make hearts. It was decadently delicious, like most of her food, but was way too sugary to jump into our regular breakfast rotation.

For lunch, I borrowed Aaron's big heart cookie cutter and made zucchini quesadillas with greek yogurt and the official fruits of Valentine's Day- raspberries and strawberries. For dinner, nothing was too themed, but I did make Andy's favorite meal, white lasagna. 

And you know, I didn't need to any of this, because this outfit that Winifred picked out for herself on the holiday was festive enough for all of us! Happy Valentine's Day!
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Year's End 2011



As the year draws to a close, we want to say how much we appreciate all our friends and family who saw us through the highs and lows of 2011. I can't remember many years having such vividly different peaks and valleys. Unfortunately this year will probably always be remembered as the "year of the accident." But there we a lot of great moments, too, not to be overshadowed by a few moments of terror and the subsequent aftermath. We had some great vacations, saw great live music, celebrated birthdays, spent countless nights with friends/family, and even saw a Cardinals World Series win.

The difficulties of life are intended to make us better, not bitter*- so here we are; A better family than ever, and ready to take on the adventures of 2012!

Safe and happy holidays to you all!

*Unnattributed quote