Birthday girl

Today we had so much fun celebrating Kate's birthday.  She is such a fun, spunky little thing and we wouldn't have it any other way. 

• Her favorite color is blue.
• Kate does not like to watch cartoons, but much prefers movies.  Her favorites right now are the KidSong Kids ones or Mickey Mouse Summer Fun. 
• She has a very good imagination and likes to pull others into her world. 
• Her favorite foods right now would be waffles (blueberry), candy, carrots w/ peanut butter, pizza, hot dogs and fruit snacks.
• She loves going to Sunday School and KidShine at church.
• Her favorite song to sing is "Into my Heart" and "This Little Light of Mine".
• Kate loves using glue, painting and playing play dough...notice a messy theme!?!
• Her favorite game is Minnie Mouse Matching.
• She would much prefer to be playing outside either riding her big bike or playing with the kitties.
• She does not nap anymore and if she does she will be a wild child and not be able to fall asleep very early. :)

On Friday night we went out for supper for her birthday and let her choose the place.  She choose Smokey Row so she could get a hot dog. :)  She thought it was great and was very excited all day!
She had a Minnie Mouse party and we had a hot-digity-dog fun time! :)

Bethan - 8, Jaren - 10, Kate - 3, Erica - 6

Opening presents was so fun!

Everyone had fun hitting the piñata and then the chaos broke out when candy was everywhere!

 

And just for fun...our sweet little girl when she was just 2 days old. :)

Harvest time

Harvest is well under way over here.  This is definitely Kurtis' favorite time of the year even though he puts in many, many hours.  I am thankful for the few rainy days that we have every now and then so we get to spend some time in the evenings with him.

Kurtis spent some time polishing up the tractors so they were nice and shiny for harvest.

 Combining the small field in front of our house.  I do miss the natural fence we had going, but it's also nice to see what goes on beyond our yard.

I thought the sky was so beautiful the other night!

Back to school

Well, now that the kids have been in school for a month, I figured I should get some pictures posted.  So far the school year is going well, but it's been hard to get in to a routine with all the hot weather related early outs we've had so far.  Hopefully the fall temps will stay and a routine can be established.

Jaren - 5th Grade

My little stair steps - 10, 8, 6 & 2

 
Bethany - 3rd grade

Kate - age 2 1/2 - she looks so little next to the tall corn!

Erica - 1st grade

St. Louis Hotel

And last but not least here are some fun swimming pictures from our hotel.  We all loved the pool and hot tub!  I really struggled with what hotel to stay in for this trip.  It had to be the right price, but I also wanted space so we weren't all crammed into one small room.  We decided on the Embassy Suites and I am so glad we did!  We had a 2 room suite so we could spread out and the kids could watch their shows and we could watch ours.  We don't have cable at home so this was a special treat to watch all the fun shows we normally can't.  :)  There was an evening reception with free drinks, pop and party mixes that was fun to go to and then we could delay supper a little while.  The made-to-order breakfast in the mornings was awesome also and allowed us to skip lunch every day and just eat a snack in the afternoon.

And last but not least here are some fun swimming pictures from our hotel.  We all loved the pool and hot tub!  It is so nice that all the kids are very independent in the pool and don't need mom and dad to assist them.  Many cannonballs and synchronized jumping took place with the kids along with tossing the football back and forth.

This girl is a fish in the water.  I forgot her lifejacket so we quickly bought some arm floaties and away she went all over the entire pool by herself!

Erica's & daddy's favorite place was the hot tub :)

So happy in the pool!

Bethany jumping one of her millions of times.

Above & below shows all their group jumping efforts.  So much fun to watch all the girls playing so well together and doing what they all love.

Playing catch with a football.  Sometimes monkey in the middle was played also and I seemed to be the monkey more than not. :)

Loved this picture of their daddy/daughter talk.

Gateway Arch - Final day

Before heading back home, we went to visit the Gateway Arch.  When we got there, Kurtis noticed the boat rides that were being offered and thought it would be fun to go.  The kids really enjoyed it.  Then we headed to arch to take a quick walk-through of the history museum before it was our turn to go up into the arch.  What a cool thing to do and so fun to look at the small windows at the top.

Distracting them from blowing the whistle while we waited for our turn to go up into the arch. :)

All nice and cozy in our capsule getting ready to go up.

Another fun thing that Jaren & Kurtis did was attend a St. Louis Cardinals game.  It was a very long game and they didn't get back to the hotel until after 1 a.m., but they had a really good time.  Here's a picture of the stadium from the top of the arch.

Sitting at the top of the arch.

Ready to head back down.

St. Louis Zoo - Day #3

On Tuesday we got up early and headed out to the zoo.  Our plan was to get there by 8 and enjoy a few free things, but we got there a little later than expected and didn't want to rush to do the free things so instead we just bought the bands that allowed us to have a lot of fun.  I think the older kids would all agree that the 4D Motion simulator was their favorite thing.  I personally was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face, but I also have to admit that it doesn't take much to humor me. :)  Kate LOVED the train ride so we made sure to go on that twice!  This is such a nice zoo and would definitely recommend checking it out if you're in the area.

We hit the children's zoo almost first.  There were some really cool things to see and do in this part of the zoo...pet animals, watch a show, explore...

I loved these jelly fish!

Petting some rabbits

This is the most adorable little baby elephant ever!

By purchasing our bands we were able to go pet the stingrays.  The below picture shows their first reaction to touching the stingrays.  They were slimier than we thought they'd be but it was so cool!

Our first train ride.  Nice way to rest the tired feet for a while.

Watching the penguins.