Saint Louie

We went to my old hood St. Louis last week-it was sooo good to be back. I love this city. It doesn't hurt that there's a temple there & I must say after a 12 month hiatus it was wonderful to be back there as well.

A new goal: 12 months is way too long before we go back again

(I was a nanny in Saint Louie for a year after high school for a fabulous family)

We went to the Science Center-still had the same dino exhibit from 13 years ago! (I am old)

Highlight: bridge over the freeway

Here is the Bug keeping Em happy at the Science Center. There has been quite a bond between these 2 lately. I'll find Hunter on his belly talking jibberish to Emma who in turn smiles & tries to talk & Hunter will laugh & then talk more jibberish. They must understand each other because I sure don't.

Turtle Park

We went to Union Station

And more importantly, the fountain across the street to throw rocks.

It was 103 degrees that day-whew! And we actually hung around outside. This coming from a heat-intolerant person. I think I'm adjusting to the crazy weather. And our poor van saw 0 degree weather just a few months ago in Ann Arbor.

And my personal favorites

1. The Arch (we'll go inside maybe next time)

2. My crazy kids, I love my little family

-all 4 of them slept the whole 3 hours home, I think we wore them out well.

Rice

It's official-they like the stuff!

**Emma is now getting up on her knees & starting to rock back & forth-this girl will not be stopped!**

A Bowling Father's Day

I must say it's fun to have kids old enough to participate in more activities. We took everyone bowling on Saturday for Father's Day & the boys had so much fun. There is a smoke & alcohol free bowling alley in Springfield, complete with bumper pads! We will definitely be going back. No offense to Wii lovers, but you can't beat the real deal!

One of Hunter's modeling poses

Sometimes they had to wait a long time until their ball reached the pins but when it did, it was exciting no matter what :)

I thought it was cute how Hunter would roll his ball-he got 2 spares (with a little help)

Justin's new favorite snack are his toes. Emma's favorite thing to do is to try to bite or poke Justin, or steal his bottle if her's falls out of her mouth. I found her sucking on his toes the other day, crazy girl!

And last, our 2 red heads playing. Their hair color is exactly the same. Isn't it crazy we have 2 red heads? I love it!

Reunion

Jeremy's Mom & sister Jennie with her two kids came to visit for a week! I have loved watching my kids play with their Turner cousins the last 2 years & I'm so excited to get some good play time in with the Shakespear cousins. Here are 6/8ths of them reunited!

(We missed Cole & Kylie!)

We celebrated Nana's birthday!

We played at home a lot-our couches double as a bounce zone on most days :)

Nana with her 3 grandbabies. Someone asked us if we had triplets when we were pushing Miss Sarah around in the stroller with the twins-oh my, can you imagine?!

We spent a lot of time pushing our 3 double strollers. It seems excessive to have 3 double strollers & 2 single strollers but they all came in handy this week!

We went to the Springfield zoo & loved it! We heard it was small but it was great & small is just our size these days

We found 3 monkeys by the sea otter pool-weird.

Mommy/Justin time

Justin tried his first lick of apple. And we saw giraffe's. Any zoo is a success with me if giraffe's are present.

We went to the Bass Pro Shop which is ginormous. Tons of fishing/hunting stuff which doesn't sound exciting if you're not into stuff like that (like me, esp the hunting part) but it's actually great. There are tons of boats/ATV things for the boys to climb all over & tons of fish in aquariums & waterfalls, streams & lots of stuffed animals etc. It's almost as great as the zoo & it's free. Hunter talks about it all the time.

We went to the Nature Center. As great as it is I don't think we'll be going back, at least not for a long time. Emma came back with a tick as you recall on a previous walk & Nana came home with one this last time. We've only gone there 4 times, so I don't like those odds.

Oh how I love this picture! Look at that little face! So happy!

(Thanks for all the pictures Nana!)

Come back soon!!!!

The Mall

Jeremy has had 1 & the same pair of shorts since I've dated/been engaged/married to him (about 7 years). Somehow they are still in good shape but even so we thought it would be fun to get him a couple new pairs so off we went to the mall this morning to take advantage of JCPenny's Father's Day sale.

Jeremy went to the store & I took the kids to the play place in the middle of the mall. So over the last 5 months there have been a lot of looks & comments about the size & young-ness of our family. You kind of get used to it. But today I was annoyed. Walking back to meet up with Jeremy this woman gave me "the look" that I've come to pretend I don't notice. She stopped & said "Oh. My. Goodness." Then gave me the look that somehow we have some kind of mutant family. Whatever. Immediately after that this old man walked by & remarked to his wife/girlfriend "Look at all them kids...I bet she isn't even married." HELLO! He was standing right next to me when he said it, there was no way I could've missed what he said. And I've misplaced my wedding band.

I know I shouldn't let it get to me but sheesh. Like 4 kids is really that many, come on. There are lots more super nice people that coo at our babies, say our big boys are cute & remark that we are blessed. That's how I see it & I should just focus on that, right? :)

Tolmanitude

Jeremy's friend Jon Tolman & his lovely family came from Kansas City to play for a day with us this weekend.

Here is Jeremy & Jon

And here they are again

Here is Hyrum & Sam, who got along smashingly well & we are hoping things develop a bit more seriously in the future

Here's the older crew wet

And here's the older crew dry & covered in chocolate

And HERE is their most thoughtful, personal & generous house-warming gift! Awww..you shouldn't have :)

Come back soon! Click here for more cute pictures of the kids

Grillin'

Well we had our first grill out this week. We know nada about grilling but really wanted to get a grill anyway. But since loans are plentiful & $$$ is scarce we decided it could wait until next summer or the summer after. Jeremy helped a family move out of the ward & they didn't have room for their grill in the truck!!! Sweet!

Justin helped me make the fruit salad, this kid definitely prefers being held or in very close proximity to his Mom or Dad

And what did we do with the rest of our evening?? Well obviously, by our faces, we were trying to find affordable health care for our family. But good luck finding any plans that cover maternity & out of the 6 that do, good luck finding any that are under 1000 bucks a month. Shouldn't that be illegal?? Grrrrrrr!!

The missus

Hyrum has been trying for months to master the art of eye crossing like his younger brother. He will proudly show off his skills to anyone around.

Oh how I love sleeping babies & pictures of them. Especially Mr. Justin. And he's awake!

Ghost Turtle

(photo courtesy of google images, this isn't our friend)

So, last Saturday we came home from a walk & found a nice medium sized turtle hanging out in our yard-cool! We noticed he had a big chip out of his shell by his head. After watching him for a while we went inside. 10-15 minutes later Hyrum wanted to check on our friend so we went back outside but he was no where to be found. I looked everywhere.

Yesterday we went for a walk to the closest park by our house, it's also on the way to this big nature reserve thing. We were walking down a busy road when I saw a turtle. We stopped & picked him up & noticed the same chip in the same place as our Saturday friend-it was the same turtle! So he hitched a free ride in our stroller so he could play at the park with us. We were planning on taking him to the nature reserve because there's water there but after letting him play in the grass for a few minutes I couldn't find him anywhere. We looked all over the park & no turtle! Either he's a speed demon or a ghost we're not sure yet. But I'm sure we'll meet up again someday.

We have also seen lots of deer, wild turkeys & wild rabbits on our walks as well.

But on the opposite wild life spectrum, I found a deer tick on Emma's leg today after a walk in the woods-GROSS!!!! Luckily it hadn't bit or embedded or whatever the heck they do yet. We also have chiggers. Not so cool.