Jackpot!

Check out what we got from a friend today for FREE!!!  Amelia had a blast playing (mostly going in and out of the door) after we got it put together.  

She threw the biggest fit to date when I told her it was time for dinner!  We also scored a Little Tykes slide--Amelia enjoyed washing it down while we were cleaning off the house!  Thanks Cindy!!!

Pool Side!

We all got to hang out at Grandma and Papa's subdivision pool this weekend and what a treat it was!  Dave returned from Australia on Friday, so he joined us too!  

We gave the life jacket a test run since we will be using it this weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks--looks like its a go!

Dancin' Queen

Jason stumbled upon a great recipes for Fettuccini Tomato Rustica, so we decided to see if GG and Papa would like to join us for dinner on Saturday evening.  They know better than to turn down one of Jason's meals and came right over! Amelia was in a great mood following her nearly 4 hour nap.  At dinner, Amelia took an interest in the black olives in the salad Jason made, so we taught her how to put them on her fingers.  As you can imagine, this was great fun!

Then, after I turned on some dinner music, she decided she was going to do some dancing at the table.  She, of course, talked GG and Papa into joining her.  

Later we all sat down to watch the second half of Beauty and the Beast (Amelia's current favorite movie) and when the Beast and Belle started to dance, Amelia and GG did as well. Every time GG would stop dancing, Amelia would say, "GG, Dance!". Notice the little leg kick that GG taught her.

At bedtime, I asked Amelia who should take her up to bed and she was having a hard time picking someone.  So she said, "two" and then couldn't pick which two should accompany her upstairs.  Finally, she said, "all up", so we all went upstairs to her room to get her ready for bed and tuck her in.  I was a little worried that she might get upset when we all left, but she just said "good-night" to each of us as we exited the room and never even lifted her head up.

Once Amelia was tucked into bed, we busted out the dessert! Yum!

Down by the River

We all slept until a respectable 8:30 (!) this morning before deciding we would head out and try the St. Charles Farmer's Market.  We weren't really sure what to expect since we've never given it a try before.   It is a beautiful location, right on the river.  But, we were a little disappointed in its size (there were only about 10 vendors) and its selection (a few veggies, one stand of homemade baked treats, one stand with an amazing selection of plants, some watermelons, jarred salsa and some dips).  We are hoping that later in the season the selection will be better.  Nevertheless, we were able to snag some good-sized tomatoes that should be pretty tasty after a day or two on the windowsill, some zucchini, some squash, and a cucumber for about $5.  Jason also couldn't resist a loaf of banana-nut bread.  I think it was $2, although he claims it is not as good as his mom's! 

Since it took us only about 15 minutes to peruse the market, we decided to take advantage of our proximity to the river and walk the Katy Trail a bit.  Amelia liked the river and even spotted a fisherman along the bank.  

She collected rocks along the trail as we walked.  Those rocks made it into the drink cup in the stroller and she eventually insisted we take them home in the car--as if the ones in her shoes weren't souvenirs enough!

She liked the two train cabooses parked on the unused track at Frontier Park and was eager to jump aboard.  Once she learned she could not get on them, she was done with the morning stroll--as was Jason who was evidently melting in the late morning heat.

40 Books Down

Amelia did it!  She (we) read 40 books this summer already!  On Tuesday, we had planned to try Tiny Tot Swim again, but with the wet weather, we took a trip to the library instead to turn in her book log.  She received a certificate with her name on it claiming she had "caught the reading bug", 2 tickets to the River City Rascals baseball game, and a free kid's meal at Red Robin.  In addition, she also got to pick another prize.  She chose a family of frogs that are perfect for bathtime.  As if that wasn't enough, because I wrote a few sentences about her favorite book, Bittle, she also got to pick out a free book to keep!  She chose Clifford Goes to Dog School and we've already read it 17 times (or at least it feels that way).

This has been such a great motivator for me to get her to the library on a weekly basis.  She has increased her vocabulary tremendously, and has picked up some new favorite characters along the way.  She loves to choose books from the shelf and put them in our bag.  At the counter, she hands our card to the librarian and helps take the books from our bag to be checked out.  At that point, she just asks constantly to go home to read.  "Mommy, home, read" over and over until we are, in fact, at home and reading.  

We picked up a new log to continue keeping track of the books we read for the rest of the summer.  I will definitely post again if we find anymore favorites! Did you notice one of the authors posted a comment on our blog last time we mentioned some favorites?  How cool is that?

Show Me Some Sno Cones!

This week, I am subbing 3 days at Miriam (the school where I work part-time during the school year) for their summer camp program. Today was my first day and I really enjoyed it!  They are doing an Amazing Race theme this year and learning about different countries all around the world.  Today, the kids explored the beautiful country of Iceland. As many of you know, this is right up my alley.

But, I must admit, the highlight of my day was the visit from the Snow Sled AND Show Me St. Louis.  The purpose of the visit was for the show to highlight this company that will come to your events and make sno cones, popcorn, and cotton candy.  They were looking for some willing participants to film enjoying the snow cones and fortunately, they chose to call up Miriam and ask if they could come out to film OUR kids!  It was super fun and the sno cones were so good!  They also gave us loads of popcorn.  All of this, free of charge no less. How did I get so lucky to be asked to sub on this day!?!?!

I chose the flavor, Tiger's Blood which was so good that I talked Jason and Amelia into getting sno cones tonight after dinner.  I again ordered tiger's blood at the shaved ice place near our house, but it was not as good as the Snow Sled! I am already trying to figure out a theme for Amelia's 3rd birthday party that would allow for us to have to rent the sno cone truck!

If any of you St. Charles mommas have good sno cone places nearby, please share--I'm on the look out for a good one.

Oh, and if you want to see all of our super cute kids on Show Me St. Louis, it aires tomorrow (Thurs.) at 3:00 and again Friday morning at 10:30 AM!

Back to the Drawing Board

Note to self (and those interested in making aforementioned smoothies):  

Peas are not a welcome addition to smoothies and the taste is evidently not easily covered up by the fruit.

Yeah, five hours ago I attempted a new smoothie ingredient--peas.  My stomach still hurts. Amelia didn't seem to notice though, she still drank the whole thing. She did give me kind of a funny look though when I gagged.  

I think I will stick to spinach, broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower.

Chugga, Chugga, Choo, Choo!

As if our weekend wasn't busy enough, Jason decided on Sunday morning that we should go out and do something fun as a family.  

He suggested the zoo, but since we were just there last week, we decided to take the advice of some friends and try the Wabash Frisco and Pacific Railroad instead.  

They offer live steam

 engine rides every Sunday from May until October, 11AM-4PM. The trains leave about every 20 minutes and costs $3/person (3 and under are free). They are located in the Wildwood/Glencoe area.

Now, so there is no confusion, we aren't talking about full-sized trains here.  (The website says 12 inch gauge, but that means nothing to me). But, it was plenty big (even for Jason, although he took up two seats to fit better) and the smallness of it allowed everyone to have a great view.  And it was really a nice view along the way!  Most of the track goes through cool, damp wooded terrain following along the scenic Meramec River.  Much of the track runs near some cliffs as well.  

Along the way we had the opportunity to wave to many bicyclists, see other trains, and even went over 3 bridges (2 of them you might miss if you weren't watching closely).  Amelia was thrilled saying at least 700 times, "me, ride train".  (she's been taking speech lessons from Tarzan).  

We followed up the train ride with a trip to McDonalds and on the way home Amelia said, "fun day" right out of the blue!

Fun on the 4th (& 5th)!

After much anticipation around the Ward household, the 4th of July finally came!  We've been reading a book about different parades throughout the year and every time Amelia would get to the Independence Day parade page, she would say, "Parade!  Me go!  Me go!".  And, the parade did not disappoint! As we have for many years before, we met Jason's family along the parade route in Bridgeton.  GG and Papa even came this year!  Amelia was decked out in her cute "pillow case" dress that GG made for her.  She brought her Elmo bucket and the highlight for her seemed to be snagging the candy and putting it in Elmo.  By the time the parade was over, Elmo's head was overflowing!

She enjoyed 3 suckers during the parade alone!  Normally, this is WAY MORE than mom would allow, but she was so fast getting the wrappers off, it all happened before we could stop her!

 She also really, really liked waving her flag and waving to those passing by in the parade!

Later that night, we had GG and Papa over for BBQ pork steaks, tomato crostini, corn, broccoli salad, brownies, and fudge pops.  

After a quick bath, we then made our way over to Grandma and Papa's house to watch the fireworks from their yard.  Unfortunately, Amelia was all talk and when the time came, she wanted nothing to do with being outside.  We spent about 90 seconds of trying to convince her the fireworks were "pretty" and to try to get her to watch them, the whole time she was saying in a frantic voice, "inside, inside".  Here's grandma escorting Amelia to "safety":

On the way home, of course, we spotted numerous firework displays and she kept saying, "more fireworks".  So, we pulled over in a parking lot to watch from the car and once again, she was through with the whole thing! Oh, the drama!

Amelia finally got to bed around 10:30 Friday evening and didn't get up until 10:30 Saturday morning!  Jason and I got tons of yard work done while Amelia was snoozing away.  After naps, we headed to our friend Andrea's house for a BBQ.  Amelia enjoyed playing around with Andrea's cats, chasing bunnies in the yard, and catching lightning bugs. (Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I have no cute pics of these things).  When all the other party-goers headed out to go see the St. Charles fireworks, we went home figuring we would not be successful again in getting Amelia to watch them.  Of course, at our house, day 17 of the fireworks extravaganza went on until well after midnight.  Although, given our busy schedule for the previous two days, Amelia did not seem to notice and fell asleep immediately!

Redemption

On Tuesday this week, Jason and I decided after going back and forth that, yes, in fact, we would like to see John Mayer this year.  Thanks to my dad, by Thursday morning, we had 4 VIP tickets, a VIP parking pass, and access to the VIP club (the best part of which is the VIP bathrooms where the VIPs do not have to wait in line because there is no line!). Thanks Dad!

If you are wondering why we were undecided about whether or not we wanted to see Mr. Mayer this year, its hard to say.  We are both John Mayer fans, own numerous CD's of his, and have seen him 2 other times.  But, last year when we saw him, we didn't really enjoy the concert too much.  Maybe it was all the annoying faces he makes!  Maybe it was the crummy weather that night. Maybe it was that he was in desperate need of a haircut that night.  Maybe it was that the songs he sang, would not have been the songs I would have chosen.  Maybe I had lost respect for him because he was dating Jessica Simpson at the time. 

But, I must say, he redeemed himself this year.  Not only is he dating a much more respectable, Jennifer Aniston (who was rumored to have been at the St. Louis concert backstage), but he was also trimmed up nicely, and sang many of my favorite songs.  (Including a funky version of Daughters, which I've never heard him perform).  The weather was perfect, considering it was early July--I was actually chilly despite wearing a sweater!  And to top it off, his annoying faces seemed to be under control!  I think the camera man just chose not to focus on them as much and instead spent a lot of time focusing on his amazing guitar handy work instead.

All in all, it was a wonderful night and we were fortunate enough to share the experience with one of my fellow mommy friends, Amy, and her husband, Trey.  I sent an email out Thursday morning stating we had extra tickets, offering them up to the first person to email back that could use both tickets.  Amy replied in an astounding 2 minutes after the email went out! We grabbed some dinner and drinks beforehand, although I think that some of us partook in more drinks than others.  (I believe I said something about Air Supply being "magical" ?!?! ).  Either way, it was a wonderful night and I'm so glad they could join us! 

And, I will be looking forward to seeing John Mayer next year!