Farming in West County

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying Emaline on a field trip with her CCL class to the Wildwood Community Farms.  There we learned about sustainable urban gardening and composting.  It was very interesting and Emaline was really into it, asking questions the whole time we were there.  The kids got to see the various stages of composting and what the end result was and how the soil was used again.  After touring the beds and learning what was planted there, they got to fill a pot with soil and plant radishes provided by the farm.  They had a little scavenger hunt and then it was back to school.  Such a great learning experience for all of them! Now to build and tend our own herb garden...or so I hope.  My thumbs aren't exactly green, so we will see if me and Dad can put a box together this summer for the kiddos.  

Mother's Day

Who's got two thumbs and did not get one SINGLE picture of me and my girls on Mother's Day? This lady.  After getting home and realizing that I didn't take any pictures, I was super bummed.  So I dragged out an oldie, but goodie of my babies from a few years ago. 

We had a wonderful brunch with my family where we stuffed our faces and ran around after the kiddos.  Then headed over to my in-laws where we proceeded to stuff our faces AGAIN and run around the yard with the kiddos there.  Piper even roasted her own weenie.  I was a proud Mama watching her take care of her own food needs.  She's self sufficient now, right? :-) 

All joking aside, my Emaline and Piper are the light of my life.  All the whining, fighting (with each other) and dramatic wardrobe changes are overshadowed by the enormous amount of unconditional love they pour over me every day.  I'm constantly amazed that after numerous times of telling them over and over again to use manners and have compassion that they do listen.  They are really good kids and it makes me feel like I'm doing something right when they show empathy and ask questions on how to make themselves better.  Them, along with Josh, make me want to be the best Mom and Wife I can be always.  I cannot fathom a different life than what we have made and I am grateful every minute of every day that we are happy and healthy.  Love my Stinkyfaces!!

Now, I didn't just know this stuff automatically when my kids popped out of me.  It was a learning process my whole life.  Watching my Mom was the best learning opportunity I could have ever had.  She taught me that love and family support was a foundation of having a happy childhood.  Even when I didn't want her to be involved she was and I will forever be grateful for that.  It's one thing to say you care and quite another to show it.  Thanks Mom, love you always.

First Grade Watch Out!!

Today was Emaline's Kindergarten celebration where she has officially been graduated to first grade! I cannot believe this year has gone by so quickly already and she is moving on the big kid school for real.  Full day schedule, CCL (at a different campus), riding the bus and many extracurricular activities are in our future this fall. We have had a fantastic introduction to school this past year and there is a reason that her teacher, Mrs. Shipman, does what she does.  She is so patient and attentive to all the kids in the class, I just don't know how she does it. I'm just so glad Emaline is so happy to learn and be around her friends to experience everything that school has to offer these days. We will definitely miss Mrs. Shipman in the classroom, but I'm sure we'll visit with her often. :-) Here are a few snapshots from the presentation the kids put on for us.

My Budding Ecologist

Today Piper and I went to Emaline's gifted school see her and her classmates give their Kindergarten Presentations and be a part of the Ecology Festival they put together.  I could not believe the fantastic work they did putting their projects together!  You would have no idea these nine kids were kindergartners and not high school students with the amount of research and preparation they did.  

First was an awesome skit they participated in to show what we can do to reduce, reuse and recycle.  Emaline played a flower and butterfly to show what happens when we take care of the Earth.  The second part of the festival was seeing the artwork that they had made about Air, Land and Water.  Great pictures and paintings of land and sea animals and plant life.  The also make dream catchers and totem poles as part of their art projects.  Such vivid imaginations!  Finally we were ushered into their classroom to hear their presentations on their specific part of the environment they researched and how to better that portion of the Earth.  Emaline and her friend Sophia had Air, Land & Water.  They made posters of how to lessen the amount of pollution we put into these areas.  The also made an aquifer and were testing it to see how ground and water pollution takes place.  Em did a great talk on air pollutants and how we could stop burning fossil fuels.  She also wore her Pocahontas costume to convey that Native Americans used everything they found or caught and never wasted.  Yeah, I don't know how she came from this uterus.

Her classmates did equally thorough projects on Food Chains and Helpful Insects.  It truly was amazing to see how excited they were to do these things on their own!  The gifted program in our school district is absolutely fantastic and Emaline loves it there.  I can only hope that Piper can have a chance to learn there too. 

 

Ok, so let's see if I can get my *bleep* together...First Trip to the Arch!

So...I know I have said this before and I'm sure I will say this again.  I'm starting over.  This web log, or as you tech savvy kids call it, "blog", will have to be revisited.  I've missed quite a number of things over the past couple of years, but with my avid Facebooking I've let our beloved Little Brass Tacks go by the wayside.  Josh constantly goes to look at and says, "Why haven't you updated the blog?", "Where are your new blog posts?".  I know, I really am a slacker.

On to fresh starts!  We have a big summer planned ahead of us and this is just the start. Above picture is the girls' first visit to the Gateway Arch! I really can't believe we haven't been there before this, but quite honestly  now is the time when they will enjoy it.  We went down on a Tues afternoon at 3pm and it was perfect. No lines, no crowds, etc. The girls and I decided to do this for a friend of ours who needed some Flat Stanley pictures taken and sent back to California, so I think I got those two birds with one stone.

The girls loved every minute of it! Granted, we were there for a total of 45 minutes. We went up to the very top and got to look down on beautiful downtown St. Louis and also see the Mighty Mississippi!  I think they got a kick out of the river, "Mom, its so dirty! We won't ever swim there, will we?". Um, no thank you.  Piper was a little leery of the "pod" ride up, but she worked it out and thoroughly enjoyed the ride down.  They were dancing and singing at 630 ft up in the air! We proceeded to get our fun pictures of Flat Stanley and head down to the Jefferson Memorial Expansion Museum where they saw everything from a Bison to a wheel from a steamboat. It was so great seeing them learn all about this area that we live in and how different things are today and I'm sure will be very different in the years to come for them.  Can't wait to go back and take Daddy with us.  There are quite a few pictures we took of the museum and you can see them by clicking here.

Here's to future entries!!

Emaline's First Day of School 2011!

Stingrays @ Caribbean Cove

Since we'd never been and had a zoo membership this year, we decided to finally check out the Stingrays at Caribbean Cove! It was so fun and the girls LOVED touching the soft and slimy skin of the stingrays. There were even sharks there! Piper was in awe of them. :-) So glad we are patrons of the STL Zoo, it really is one of the best zoos in the country! We are super lucky.

I love this picture of Piper trying to kiss the seal at the fountain!

U2!

Happy Fourth!

Westward Ho!

We left the safe bubble of West County and headed westward to California for my niece, Natalie's high school graduation. I can't believe she is that old now. Unbelievable. We took full advantage of this momentous occasion and journeyed with my parents, my next youngest sister and her family and my youngest sister over 1800 miles (two plane rides) to LAX. We decided to stay a week to take advantage of seeing some family and enjoying some fun time with them. We stayed in Anaheim for a good deal (thanks Steph!) and each family got a suite to themselves. The kids had an indoor pool to get thrown into each night as well, which helped to tire them out.

Our old culinary delights pretty much determined our whereabouts. Here is the play-by-play of our happenings: We arrived on Tues night and crashed immediately. Wed night was Natalie's graduation and we followed up with a wonderful family dinner at Buca di Beppo. Thurs we went and had lunch with my Aunt and cousins at El Pollo Loco and then dinner with other Aunt and Uncle at Bob's Big Boy. Friday was an all day excursion to Disneyland! After realizing I couldn't move Sat morning...we finally made it to my Uncle's house for Natalie's Graduation Party. Sunday we celebrated Memere's birthday at Lucille's Smokehouse and Monday we treated the kids to a day at the beach, complete with meeting up with cousins and one of Mom's childhood friends and her family. Tues we got up super early and left for the airport to head back home to the midwest. Whew! (There was so much, I had to cut it down)

Here are some of the great photos from our family trip. It was absolutely wonderful to see all my family and even a couple friends and for my girls to meet them all. Our first family vacation was a success! Can't wait to visit again!

Our Travels:

kids waiting to board our plane

Our eats:

Natalie tearing into a cannoli

The crew at the table

Stephani holding her conquest of Tiramisu

Daddy taunting the children with Big Boy Enjoying some leisure time on the patio at Lucille's BBQ

Our Fun:
Disney:

To see all the photos from our travels, click here.