The Power Tool Shower

On October 4th we hosted a Power Tool Keg Shower for one of my best friends, Robyn and her fiancee, Cory. It was probably the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long time, considering I was probably the only sober one there...It was complete with two kegs, fried chicken and lots of power tools. The night started off early with Emaline tapping the keg, and I'm completely serious. She just wanted to get a drink of what everyone else was getting and ultimately figured out how to push the lever down to get liquid out. After that, she was banned from the "keg area". Thankfully, my parents, who were there, took Emaline to their house to have a sleep over whilst I remained, to my surprise, up until 3:00am making sure no one did anything completely stupid. All in all, I had a great time and I'm sure everyone who was there did too. The gifts were great and the keg stands were a-plenty. Thanks to everyone who participated in our fun little "shower" and I'm glad the bride and groom-to-be had a relaxing (and quite tipsy) time!

Emaline's 2nd Birthday Party

Well, as you can tell from the picture above, Emaline woke up the day of her party knowing something was going down. She was so excited to open that silly "2" candle I thought her head might explode before everyone got to the house. We started the day off with two containers of cherry applesauce, so that could have been why she ran around like a wild woman.

The party was at one o'clock and went off without a hitch. I set up the little bouncy house we borrowed from The Tinkers (thank you Brian & Christine!) and Em went nuts inside it while I cleaned up the backyard and got ready for food. Then we had an absolutely beautiful day for an outdoor party! Everyone ate and drank, the kids played, then Em was about to have a meltdown since she didn't have a nap yet...then we tried to coerce her to open her presents and you would have thought we were asking her to sit in a prison cell for 30 minutes.
Her Mom & Dad got her a sweet indoor/outdoor folding picnic table, Nana & Pepere got her a pretty cool kitchen (she never leaves her room now, she's "cooking"), Grandma & Grandpa got her a Fire Dept. themed Cozy Coupe (unfortunately they didn't have a police car, but that's okay she still gets in it every time we go outside!) and a shopping cart from her Aunts Jennifer and Angie (and family :-). Those were pretty much the big gifts and then she received an array of books, dolls, clothes and Little People toys (thanks Trish & Conor, she loves that castle!).

Finally, she calmed down and liked what she was seeing and thanked everyone for their very generous gifts. Then she was in seventh heaven with her Oswald cupcake...After that, I think everybody was a little tired and started to head out. All in all it was a really great day that we got to spend with family and good friends. Thanks to everyone for coming out to celebrate our little girl getting so big! Here are a couple more pics of the day, including the one of her completely crashing after everyone left. What a busy day! P.S. More pictures to come from Nana's camera :-)

Emaline's Birthday Lunch at Chuck E. Cheese

For Emaline's actual birthday, Sept. 25th, we took her to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. We hadn't been in quite some time, so she was due a visit to the house of the gaming mouse. Thankfully, it as pretty quite on a Thursday afternoon, so Emaline pretty much had her reign over the place. She ran rampant, threw skeeballs and almost ate some pizza. She was so focused on the games that all she had to eat was some cottage cheese from the salad bar and a breadstick with ranch dressing. I tried to throw a handful of raisins at her to see if any would land in her mouth, but no luck. She did drink a whole "adult cup" of Hi-C fruit punch though--what kid wouldn't? We had a really funny time and enjoyed watching her embrace the freedom to run wild. I think we racked up close to 400 tickets and with that she ended up getting a travel pad with crayons (included), stickers, a tootsie pop, a mini police badge, a bracelet and more stickers. All worth it, don't you think?

Big Girl Bed

We have officially changed over Emaline's bed to the "big girl bed". Since she sleeps in a toddler bed at Nana's house, I figured it wouldn't be that much of a change to finally let her get in and out of her own bed at home. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be and I don't know why I waited so long. Probably cause I didn't want to deal with the fact that my baby wasn't technically in a crib any longer. But...now that I don't have to pick her up and drop her into a crib is excellent for me :-). We've also gotten a few "baby" things out of her room to get ready for moving stuff over to the new baby's room next door. The rocker and changing table are still in her room, but that's cause I've been seriously lazy and haven't cleared out the guest room. After Emaline's birthday this weekend we'll hopefully get more motivated to take down the guest bed and strip that horrible wallpaper in there. So wish us luck!

Also found out this week that my sister-in-law's boyfriend sells carpet, so hopefully we can coerce him into a deal for the upstairs! That carpet REALLY needs to go...

Check back next week for Emaline's birthday party post!

The 2008 BMW Championship at Bellreve CC

This past weekend, Emaline and I took in the BMW Championship with my friend Robyn and my parents. My parents volunteer every time the PGA tour comes through STL. This year in addition to being able to volunteer, my Dad was contacted by a colleague and asked if we wanted tickets to one of the hospitality suites for Thurs-Sunday. Of course free tickets are always appreciated! So I got two tickets for Saturday's round and my sister got tickets to Sunday's round. Well, being that STL weather is in one word, unpredictable, the Thurs. round got rained out and those tickets could be used either Sat. or Sun. So Emaline and I got to for two days! Obviously we don't have any pictures since no camera were allowed in the golf course, but we had a good time all the same.

Emaline was extremely cooperative for the two days and I think she actually liked being outside with all the other people. I asked her on Saturday if she wanted to go the the park and see "the men" golf and she replied, "yes Mom. Emaline plays golf". When I asked her again on Sunday morning she emphatically replied, "yes!", again. So, we walked what seemed like a million miles to and from parking since there was no parking available in the lots near the course due to the mud and water from the all day rain on Thurs. We ended up parking in the volunteer lots because my parents had two passes (one of each of them) and they rode together when they were working. These lots were roughly a 1/4 mile (maybe a little more) down Ladue from the entrance and then had to trudge through the grass another 1/4-1/2 mile and make sure we didn't get hit by the buses shuttling people in from the general parking at Riverport.

It was all worth it though and I enjoyed the players and shots we did get to see. We didn't get a chance to follow with Villegas because there was just too many people for the stroller to handle getting around, but we did see Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, and a few others. On Sunday we set ourselves up between the 17th green and 18th tee to watch a number of groups go by. Thankfully the bad weather stayed away the rest of the tournament, we had fun! Hopefully they'll come back to STL soon. :-)

Happy Labor Day at the Greek Festival!

This past weekend we didn't do much since Josh had to work most of the weekend, but Emaline and I did some swimming and visiting with out of town friends. The outing of our weekend was her and I meeting our friends Conor and Tricia in the Central West End at the annual Greek Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. We went when it opened at 11am on Monday morning and thought we were getting a jump on everyone, boy were we wrong. We had to wait in line for food even at 11:15am! It is amazing how many people come to be involved in such a cool celebration of heritage. Emaline, as I'm sure you can imagine didn't really find the food as appetizing as her mother, but she did enjoy the dancing and the music! After we had a pretty good lunch of gyros, spanakopita and moussaka we were treated to a little celebratory dancing in the main auditorium. Needless to say, it was very hot on Monday and it was nice to sit inside, even if the A/C wasn't on. Emaline danced in between the tables and clapped and even shouted a couple "opas!". Okay, so maybe that wasn't her, but it was fun to watch.

The lines were so incredibly long and in such a confined space it was kind of overwhelming. It was interesting to go down to see it and I bet the night shows, dinners, etc. were much more exciting over the weekend. I would definitely go again next year, cause by that time I'll be able to join in with all the other honorary Greeks, drinking my ouzo and shouting "opa!". Considering this is the largest ethnic festival in the Metro East, I thought it was my duty as a St. Louisan to check it out. There is also a big festival on Memorial day a little closer to my house in Town & Country at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church that I will probably try too! I recommend it to everyone who lives in town!

"Look at me from the side, do I look different to you?"

So, can you tell a difference? Well, I don't really look like that yet, but I will in give or take a month or so (I just stuck it out as far as possible to emphasize the point...). Yes, that's right, Josh and I have decided to add to the Little clan. So surprise, surprise when said we would try this May during a friend's wedding in Mexico we didn't have to wait that long cause I was preggars by June. We are goal oriented people!! I guess you'd like the details? Well, I'll be 14 weeks on this Wednesday (Aug 27th) and we are due February 25th. I'm already loving the idea of stretchy waistbands though. When they say you pop out sooner with the 2nd one, they were kidding. So, I'm sure there will be lots more pictures of my fatty pregnant self to come in the next few months.

Here is what I really look like right now:

Quite honestly, not that different, right? Oh boy. Who wants to take bets on what kind its going to be? Pink or blue? My guess is another little lady, but we'll find out in about 6 weeks!

The Kids trip to Missour-ah

My niece, Natalie and three of my cousins, Jeff, Elyse and Oscar came out to visit us for a week from California and try out Pepere's new pool and spend some vacation time before heading back to school. I'm so glad they decided to come, because it was really great to see them. One day, we took them to Six Flags for the day to ride rides, eat lots of junk and lounge around at the water park. I decided to take Emaline with us for the day while Nana watched Kaya. I thought I was going to be in for a real eye opener, but she was great the whole day! I was surprised at how well she did, not to mention she even got a little nap while we walked around. I can't wait to take her again! The kids got to ride all the big ones with Adham and Kayleigh and it looked to me like they liked it.

The rest of the days were spent lounging at poolside, playing the Wii, shopping, eating, etc. Stephani and Adham took them to the Loop for some Fitz's rootbeer floats and shopping. We really didn't know what else to do since they've been to everything in St. Louis now! I guess its our turn to visit CA next summer and have them take us out! I love spending time with family and I'm glad that Emaline got to meet all of them! Here are more pictures of our fun days:

Annual Girls Weekend-2008

Another successful trip with my ladies this year! We ended up going the way of the frugal and decided on Chicago this year. It really helps that Carrie's parents have a condo up there for us to take advantage of. Thanks to the Noonans again for letting us tear up the joint, it was a pleasure. We mainly did low-key things since the only days/nights all of us were there were Friday and Saturday. It was nice mornings lounging at the pool, taking in a nice brisk walk at the lake (at least me and Sarah), eating and drinking out, lots of boobery playing Apples to Apples for cosmetics, Noonan getting surly during Win, Lose or Draw, etc...you know the usual stuff. Again, thank you to my wonderful friends for finding the time to make this happen every year. I don't know what I would do without you all!!

P.S. Meghan and Noonan are going to hate me for this, but oh well...enjoy.

New Porch!

It's actually really hard to tell from these too pictures, but the one on the left is the before where the porch on the left side started to drop down. Now, we don't have a slab moving away from the house any more!! Hooray! We finally decided after all pointless work done on it--trying to mudjack and then having the company tell us it was going to be another $4500 to put in ONE pier--to go ahead and redo the whole thing. So....we contacted a friend of Josh's family, who works in concrete and asked him what he would do. He recommended someone and we went with him. They raised up the roof over the porch to where it should be and then tore out all the concrete and formed it up again and poured new stuff. Then our carpenter repaired our posts, where needed, and added new bases at the bottom. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be money wise and it took a couple weeks, but it was definitely worth it! Now you all have to stop by and have a sit with us on it....

Unfortunately, I did not think to get pictures of the demolition, but I did get one picture of the poured stuff (oh and its flush with the house like its supposed to be!):