Mother's Day Weekend

Our Mother's Day weekend was jam packed with fun! That Saturday we went to Mascoutah in the afternoon for Lilah's 2nd birthday party (and our first time to meet Laith!) The party was at Scheve Park and Mia loved the playground. After the birthday party, we headed to Tony's with Art, Randa and Scott to celebrate Mother's Day with the Simons. On Sunday, we had lunch after church at Mom & Dad's house to celebrate with the Twenhafels. Sunday afternoon and evening was time for just Jake, Mia and I to celebrate together. Last year I had decided that a tradition I wanted to start was dedicated family nap/snuggle time on Mother's Day. This was definitely my favorite part of the weekend - just hanging out at home with my 2 favorite people!

At Lilah's party at the park!


The Twenhafel Girls


Mommy and Mia

Lauren's Graduation

On May 16, my niece Lauren graduated from University of Illinois with a degree in International Studies. We are so proud of her and all of her accomplishments! We all made the trip to Champaign for the graduation ceremony. I was nervous that Mia would be difficult during the ceremony, but in true Mia fashion - she was awesome! There was a large lobby area that Mia explored while we were waiting for the ceremony to begin. It definitely helped that she could run off some of her boundless energy. Once the graduates started walking into the auditorium, Mia was content sitting on my lap and watching. In fact she made it through almost the entire ceremony and helped cheer for Lauren as she walked across the stage to receive her diploma. Afterwards, we went out for a nice family dinner. Then it was back to Lauren & Adam's apartment to help them pack up. They both decided that they wanted to pack up (neither had really started) and leave that night, so there was a little craziness as they packed and we made trips to load up the car. On the way home, Jake and I both agreed that while we enjoyed our college days and have many memories that we cherish, we are glad to be where we are in life. (I guess we really are getting old!)

Magic House Fun

Here's a little secret....every 3rd Friday of the month, the Magic House is FREE! We decided to meet up with our friends, Sarah & Chris and their little girl Miranda, on the free Friday in May. (Miranda and Mia took gymnastic classes together this past winter.) As we expected, the place was pretty crowded. But the girls had a lot of fun. The slide was a big hit, as was the dollhouse. Also, once the toddler area cleared out a little, the girls loved playing in "the store." I am a big fan of the Magic House and definitely recommend it for a family outing!

Big Girl Hair-do

One Sunday afternoon in May, we were visiting at Grandma Randa and Papa Art's. It was warm outside and Mia had her hair down. So I grabbed a clip and put her hair up in a twist. She looked so grown up, and it goes with out saying, so cute!!

Forest Park

Back in April, we went to the Earth Day Festival in Forest Park. It was a beautiful spring day and we enjoyed being outside. After we walked around the fest, Mia had a blast running around in the grass. Of course we had the camera handy to snap a few pictures.

Peek-a-boo!


Practicing for Senior pictures


I'm going to get your nose!


Mommy & Mia


Forest Park is so much fun!

Easter 2009

Wow - I'm behind on blogging. We have had lots of fun the past month or so since my last blog. I'll try to catch up with the highlights.

Easter this year was so much fun with Mia! The Easter Bunny left Mia a whole bunch of surprises in her Easter basket and hid a few plastic eggs filled with graham crackers in our living room. Mia was so excited to see the basket when she came downstairs in the morning.



After finding the eggs, it was time to get ready to head to Mascoutah for church. After our church service, we headed over to my Mom and Dad's for Easter Pulled Pork sandwiches (perhaps a new classic?) Mia had Easter goodies from Grandma & Grandpa, including a plastic bucket and shovel for playing in the sand. (If you ready my Magic House post you'll remember how much fun Mia had playing in the sand!)







Then it was on to Art and Randa's for more Easter celebration. Mia had 2 more Easter baskets waiting for her at their house, thanks to Grandma & Grandpa and Uncle Scott. The highlights were an Elmo video and a teapot and cups. Mia loves to pretend and serve us drinks! We did an egg hunt in the backyard and Mia as all over it!









Mia took a short nap and then we headed over to Beth and Terry's for the extended family Easter gathering. Alana, Lisa and I had planned an egg hunt for the little girls and then the older boys (Pastor's kids). The little girls were so cute. Lilah was on a roll, picking up the eggs, putting them in her basket and moving on. Both Mia and Annaliese were interested in the eggs, but once they picked up one they just wanted to open it right then. I think the adults probably had the most fun watching all the kids!

Coloring Easter Eggs

On the Saturday before Easter, we decided to color Easter Eggs. Since Mia loves to color, we thought this would be fun for her. She was interested in it - for about 5 minutes - and then was ready to move on to something else. So basically this ended up to be more for Jake and me than for her. Oh well - at least we had fun!

Mia coloring her egg



Mia trying to eat her egg


Our finished eggs

Easter Egg Hunt

The Easter Egg Hunt in Webster Groves was several Saturdays ago. Since this was Mia's first official egg hunt, we thought it would be fun to invite all the Grandparents to come with us (and Uncle Scott too!) The egg hunt was in the courtyard at a retirement community. It actually was a neat set-up with two different egg hunt areas: one for little kids (under 3) and one for big kids (over 3).



The Easter Bunny was there too.



When the egg hunt officially started, Mia was a little overwhelmed. Luckily, for the little kids hunt, adults were able to accompany the kids. Mia picked up a few eggs, but certainly didn't get the concept of racing around to pick up the eggs, like some of the other kids. Instead, Mia would pick up an egg, show it to me, shake it, look at it, etc....before I would get her to put it in her basket and move on to another one.





After the hunt was over, the little kids area cleared out as everyone had moved over to the big kids area. We took advantage of this time to do our own little mini egg hunt with Mia. Since we have to be careful of candy with Mia's peanut allergy, we filled the eggs with grapes and graham crackers. Mia thought that was so much fun!



After the egg hunt, we went to lunch at one of our favorite places - First Watch. Yum! We are so happy that we could share this day with the family!

Staycation 2009 - Day 5

For our final day of Staycation, we decided to check out the City Museum. Both of us had been there years ago and we remembered it being a really cool place. I had read about the Toddler Town area online and it sounded pretty cool. The City Museum is awesome - but many of the activities are too big for Mia. Unfortunately, visiting Toddler Town in person was not as cool as visiting online. Oh well! We still had a great time and the weather was gorgeous so we had fun exploring outside. Mia's favorite part was running around in the open area of the ballroom (yes - even with all the cool things to see and do, all she wanted to do was run & scream at the top of her lungs...although she did get a little scared when the employee tried to say hi to her!)








After the City Museum, we headed over to M-town. Lauren and Adam were in town so we were able to visit with them for about an hour. It was so nice to see them, as always! After visiting with them, it was time to take Mia's to Grandma & Grandpa T's house. They were watching her so we could go to our Club Cross event - Lumpia Night. A woman from our church made us a Filipino dinner (DELICIOUS!) and the she taught us how to roll crab rangoon, which we got to take home with us. So fun!

Our week of Staycation was incredible. We had so much fun doing things around St. Louis that we always talk about but never had the time to do. And best of all, we had some great family time together and made some wonderful memories!

Staycation 2009 - Day 4

Day 4 of our Staycation was our day to chill. Since we had packed in so much fun on Wednesday, we decided to take it easy in the morning and just hang out. Mia had fun playing and watching Elmo (her favorite!). Mia was ready for a nap at 11:00, so we went ahead and let her sleep. Once she woke up, we ate some lunch and then decided to go shopping at St. Louis Mills. I was excited to go to the big Children's Place store. We got some great deals that day! We found a darling Easter dress for Mia and I was in sales rack heaven picking up clearance items for next fall. Oh I do love to shop! The Mills has a nice indoor playground that Mia was excited to check out. After shopping for several hours, it was time to head back home. We had thought about going out to dinner, but Mia fell asleep in the car so we just grabbed sandwiches. All in all, it was a great day!

Staycation 2009 - Day 3

We started off Day 3 of Staycation at First Watch, our favorite breakfast place in Webster. After breakfast we headed to the Transportation Museum. We weren't sure what to expect here, other than what I had read online about a toddler activity room called Creation Station. We purchased our "boarding passes" for the Creation Station as soon as we arrived. Our boarding time was 10:30, so we had about 30 minutes to check out all of the trains. The Creation Station turned out to be a really cool place. Mia was overwhelmed at first, but then she started exploring. Mia had a great time climbing on the ship, playing dress-up and just running around. Our tickets gave us an hour of play time, but shortly after 11 she was ready to go. Before we left the museum, we checked out all of the cars and took a family picture.

Mia playing on the ship


Ahoy Matey!


Dress up fun!




The Simon Family




After the museum, we headed home so Mia could eat lunch and then take a good nap. Once she woke up, it was time for more fun. We went to Monkey Joes, which basically is an indoor play area with lots of bounce houses. The first four bounce structures are only for toddlers, so we were able to let Mia bounce, jump and play without worrying about the big kids. She absolutely had a blast! This was probably the outing she enjoyed the most out of our whole week of activities! Plus, it was relatively cheap too - only $5 for unlimited bouncing. I'm sure we'll be headed there again soon.



Whee!


Jump! Jump!


Most of our activities on Staycation centered around Mia, but we did do a few things that Jake and I enjoyed more than Mia. For dinner we went to one of our favorite pizza places - Dewey's. Mia was tuckered out and starting to get a little fussy, but our waitress saved the day by bringing her cheese and grapes to tide her over until dinner. And just like Mom and Dad, Mia loved her Dewey's pizza!